TWO NEWS STORIES

If you look at The Hindustan Times or The Times of India from June 16, 1993, you’ll find two very different types of news stories. On one hand, both newspapers reported that a Delhi businessman, Krishan Kumar (45 years old), was returning from the Punjab National Bank (Keshav Puram) with four lakh forty-five thousand rupees. On his way back, around noon, four young men in a white Maruti car stopped his scooter. They shot him with a revolver, causing him to fall, and then fled with his briefcase.

On the other hand, another story appeared in both newspapers. A Delhi head constable, Prem Pal (Karol Bagh), was patrolling at night when he found a briefcase near the Surya Kiran Hotel. When he opened it, he discovered, among other papers, ninety-seven thousand four hundred rupees in cash. He immediately closed the briefcase and turned it in at the police station exactly as he found it. The station officials are now working to find the briefcase’s rightful owner.

This symbolic news story shows that society always has both good and bad people. Therefore, when forming an opinion about any society, one should be very careful. One should not favour one side completely or the other.

Regarding the news mentioned earlier, if someone only considers the incident involving Krishan Kumar and then generalizes it to claim that all Indians are murderers and robbers, that opinion would be incorrect. Similarly, if someone looks at the incident involving Prem Pal and concludes that all Indians are extremely honest, that would also be inaccurate.

The real truth is that every society consists of both kinds of people. We must live in this world as if we are walking on a path that has both thorns and flowers. For a traveller on such a path, there is only one strategy for a successful journey: to avoid the thorns and enjoy the flowers while continuing toward their destination.