This incident happened during the later part of 1800s, in Bengal - TopicsExpress

This incident happened during the later part of 1800s, in Bengal when Sri Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar and his few friends were busy collecting donations to start Calcutta University. One day Vidyasagar stopped at the door of the palace of Nawab of Ayodhya. Nawab was not exactly known to be a generous person and many people tried to dissuade Vidyasagar from taking this mission. Vidyasagar met Nawab and presented his cause. On hearing Vidyasagar’s plea, Nawab got up, pulled one of his shoes and dropped in Vidyasagar’s bag for donation. Vidyasagar did not say a word. He simply got up, thanked Nawab and left. Next day Vidyasagar organised an auction of Nawab’s shoe in front of his palace. Lot of Nawab’s knights , Jahagirdars, court members, who wanted to impress Nawab started bidding. By the mid afternoon the shoe was sold for Rs 1000. Nawab, happy to hear that his shoe fetched a princely amount of Rs 1000, matched the auction money. He added his own Rs. 1000 as donation. When the destiny dropped a shoe in his basket, Vidyasagar could have walked out furious. He could have thrown the shoe on Nawab as revenge of insult. He could have got depressed and gone home and cried that nobody is willing to give him donation and given up his efforts to raise donation for the university. But he did nothing of that sort. He remained focused on the main goal. He rose above his personal feelings, ego, and insecurities and exploited the situation creatively. He rose above his insecurities and exploited that of others around him. He took that shoe and converted it to the biggest donation to University of Culcutta. Calcutta University became a reality. It became a center of education for fine arts, social studies, science and technology. Moral : Throughout our life, we will come across situations that will bring disappointment, anger, frustration, depression. There will always be a way we can use this situation to our advantage if we remain focused on our real objective.