Kongumathi gounder

Late Shri Manohar Parrikar Ji once narrated his ordeal. "I'm from Parra, a village in Goa, so we're called 'Parrikars.' My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers there held a 'Watermelon Eating Contest' in May, after the harvest. All the children were invited and asked to eat as many watermelons as they wanted. Many years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. Then I returned to my village after 6.5 years. I went to the market to look for watermelons. But they were gone. The ones I found were very small. I went to meet the farmer who used to hold the 'Watermelon Eating Contest.' Now his son had taken his place. He still held the contest, but there was a difference. When the old farmer offered us watermelons to eat, he would ask us to spit the seeds into a bowl. We were forbidden to chew the seeds. He was collecting seeds for the next crop. We were, in effect, unpaid child laborers. He would keep his best watermelons for the competition, using them as the best. He obtained good seeds, which produced even bigger watermelons the next year. When his son arrived, he thought the larger ones would fetch a higher price in the market, so he started selling the larger ones and keeping the smaller ones for competition. The next year, the watermelons grew smaller, and the next even smaller. A watermelon generation lasts one year. In seven years, Parra's best watermelons were wiped out. In humans, a generation changes every 25 years. In 200 years, we will realize the mistakes we were making in educating our children. Selecting good seeds, that is, talent, is a huge task in itself. Due to irrelevant ideas and useless things, our good watermelons will go to market, leaving us with useless, inferior seeds. We must think about this in today's context.