Keshav

 The young lad was in school. At that time celebrations were going on throughout the colonies of Britain to mark the 60th year of the ascension of queen Victoria. In Bharat also it was celebrated in a grand manner. Public meetings were held in which the queen was eulogized. Decorative arches and banners were erected on roads; parties and dinners were thrown by zamindars and the gentry.

In young Keshav’s school also the event was marked by distribution of sweets to students.

The sweet was in Keshav’s hand. But a stab of pain went through his young heart. He asked himself “Do these Englishmen belong to our Nation? They came from afar and enslaved us; and they are ruling over us. What if it is 60 years of their reign? Why should we celebrate it? And eat this sweet? Does it not amount to approval their rule? Does it not mean that we are happy to be slaves? It is a sin to eat this sweet. It amounts to betrayal of our Nation. No, I will not eat it”

The next moment the sweet flew off into the gutter. The other pupils were aghast. Keshav tried to convince the other students also to do like him. But they did not understand it at all.

He went home. He was still seething with anger. His elder brother asked him 2Keshav, why do you look upset? It seems they distributed sweets at the school. Did you not get it? “

“Sure I did .But I threw it into the gutter”

“Into the gutter?”

“Why, are you out of your mind throwing the sweet into the gutter?”

Keshav retorted “who said it is sweet? It is verily poison. The English want to keep us slaves by giving us sweets”

Every one was wonderstruck.

A relative present said “oh God, he is not an ordinary lad. He is made of different stuff”‘

Keashav is none but Keshav Baliram Hedgewarji, the founder of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh.

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