Misunderstanding

An agriculture professor was giving a lecture on fertilizer and manure. At the end of the lecture, one student stood up and addressed the professor, “I fully agree with your statement that old cow dung is the best manure for plants. Kindly tell me, how old the cow must me?”

People have tremendous capacity to misunderstand. At times I used wonder that people must be consciously developing their capacity to misunderstand others. I also have come across students waiting to confuse the teachers.

But sometimes it is the teacher who has the last word. Once a professor who was expert on Gold Fish was lecturing on ‘the history and geography of Gold Fish’, when the hour long lecture finally got over, one student raised her hand and asked the question, “How will you identify whether a gold fish is male or female?” The professor answered promptly, “It is very simple; male gold fish will eat male worm and the female gold fish will eat female worm” The student did not give up, and asked, “ How will you identify whether a worm is male or female?”. The professor looked at her and said, “ I am an expert on Gold Fish, you must ask this question to the expert on worms”.

Misunderstanding others deliberately is a skill; you can use it effectively to confuse others. But if you misunderstand always without fail, then you should seriously contemplate on taking sanyas, because others will take advantage of your innocence.