Speak less, act more

Four years ago, on August 15, 2000 my friend Kuresh Mubarakai and I represented our school in an elocution contest held in Boisar town (30 km from Dahanu). The subject we were asked to speak on was "Duty towards my nation.” Since neither of us were good at memorizing speeches, we decided to speak on the spot!

The sight of other students preparing so seriously for their speeches gave us the shivers! As students went one by one onto the stage to speak, we both just listened to what they said. Each of them spoke about helping fellow citizens, fighting corruption and so on... A little while later, the break arrived when we saw one of the best speakers eating a sandwich and then throwing its plastic wrapper onto the floor. Seeing this Kuresh commented, "Farzan, we are not the most useless creatures on this planet after all... These hypocrites who speak big, are! Let’s just go on that stage and speak out our hearts.”

Mubaraki (left) and Mazda: Do what you say.

Soon, our names were called out. Kuresh began, "My friend Farzan and I can speak about our duties towards India but there is no use of speaking, if we cannot practice what we say.” When it was my turn, I spoke "Just before we were called onto this stage, one of the best speakers here who spoke about keeping his India clean, threw plastic onto the floor during the break. Is this doing our part for the nation?” Saying these few words, we walked off the stage, convinced that all Indians just speak big. After sometime, something magical changed the way we thought.

The boy who threw the plastic onto the floor went back on the stage and asked for forgiveness. We had not even mentioned his name! Kuresh and I were astonished! He realized what he had done and promised never to repeat it! Hearing his words, everyone in the audience (around 150 people) felt ashamed! They quietly began picking up whatever they had dropped and started putting it in dustbins. This event made us feel, we Hindustanis do have hearts. They only need to be discovered!

Fellow Parsis, this is not just about non-Zarathushtis. We too keep speaking about our nations and our community’s greatness, its achievements. If only we do the same amount of good as we speak...

FARZAN B. MAZDA

Dahanu