Saturday Reading!

 Saturday Reading!

The Judge’s Unique Verdict 

In America, a 15-year-old boy was caught stealing from a store. While trying to escape from the security guard, he accidentally broke a store shelf as well.

The judge heard the charges and asked the boy,
Judge: “Did you really steal a packet of bread and cheese?”
The boy, with his head lowered, replied, “Yes, sir.”

Judge: “Why?”
Boy: “I needed it.”

Judge: “Why didn’t you buy it?”
Boy: “I had no money.”

Judge: “Couldn’t you ask your family?”
Boy: “I live only with my mother. She is sick and unemployed. I stole the bread and cheese for her.”

Judge: “Don’t you work?”
Boy: “I used to work at a car wash. I took a day off to care for my mother, so they fired me.”

Judge: “Did you ask anyone for help?”
Boy: “I left home in the morning and asked around fifty people for help. In the end, I had no choice but to steal.”

The questioning ended. The judge began to announce the verdict:
“Stealing, especially stealing bread, is a shameful crime. And we are all responsible for this crime.”

“Everyone present in this courtroom, including myself, is guilty. Therefore, I fine every person here ten dollars. No one is allowed to leave this courtroom without paying.”

Saying this, the judge pulled ten dollars from his own pocket and placed it on the table.
Then he picked up his pen and continued:
“Moreover, I fine the store $1000 for failing to show compassion to a hungry child and instead handing him over to the police. If this amount is not paid within 24 hours, the court will order the store to be sealed.”

“The total fine collected will be given to this boy. And this court apologizes to him.”

Tears rolled down the faces of everyone in the courtroom. The boy was sobbing too, looking again and again at the judge — who quietly walked out, hiding his own tears.

Now the question is:

Is our society, our system, and our courts ready for such a verdict?

Chanakya once said:

“If a hungry person is caught stealing bread, it is the society that should feel ashamed.”

Valley of Amphissa in ancient Delphi in Greece 

An old story—somewhere between fact and legend

 Around 350 BC a group of priestesses of the Greek god Dionysus spent a night “driven wild by the wine.”

In simple terms, they drank too much during a ritual and, still drunk, walked all the way from Delphi to the town of Amfissa. Once there, they collapsed and fell asleep right in the middle of the main square.

Unknowingly, they had wandered into enemy territory. Amfissa was controlled by Phocian rulers, and the town was full of soldiers who might have seen the sleeping women as intruders.

But the local women of Amfissa—worried that the priestesses could be attacked or upset—surrounded them in a circle to keep them safe.

When the priestesses finally woke up, the Amfissan women brought them food and later walked them all the way back to the border, making sure they left safely.

This simple act of kindness between women is told by the Greek writer Plutarch, and it became the subject of an 1887 painting by

Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Searched and Illustrated by Tejinder Kamboj

  
              (1940 -20??)