418. Quiz Partner

"Our friend Ganapathy's hearing sense is very sharp. He can clearly hear people talking, even if they are at some distance from him" said Krishnan.

"If that were the case, people living next door to him should be very cautious, while talking among themselves" said Suresh. 

"I think that even people living in his house are being very careful with their conversation, when Ganapathy is at home! I had been to his house once. I was talking to him sitting in the living room. His brother, who was in the adjoining room, received a phone call. He went out of the house, completed the conversation and then came back. Maybe, he was afraid that if he attended the call from his room, Ganapathy would hear him!"

"Are you making this up? This appears to be exaggerated!"

"I am not making up anything. I only narrated what I had seen. Ganapathy has another skill too. If he hears anything once, it will be impressed in his mind, like a recording!"

"If that were the case, then Ganapathy is gifted, no doubt!"

Suresh had an opportunity to verify that what Krishnan had said about Ganapathy was true.

During the Anniversary Day of their college, there was a competition. The prelude of a film song would be played. The task was to identify the song and recite the first line of the song. Whoever identified the song first would be the winner.

To everyone's amazement, for almost all the preludes played, Ganapathy was able to sing the first line of the song within a few seconds.

"How did you do it? You are not someone who listens to film songs often?" asked Suresh.

"I would have heard the song a couple of times. So, I remembered the prelude and the first line!" said Ganapathy, as if it was a natural thing for him to do.

There was a Science Quiz in their college. Suresh took Ganapathy as his partner. But their team could not answer most of the questions. The score received by their team was among the lowest of the scores received by all the teams.

Suresh told Krishnan, "I took Ganapathy as my partner, thinking that he would have known the answers to many questions. But he didn't know the answers to even as many questions as I did!" 

"Choosing him as your partner for the quiz competition was a wrong decision on your part!" said Krishnan.

"You told me that whatever he listened to would be deeply impressed in his mind. That's why I chose him as my partner."

"Yes, he would retain whatever he listened to. But he doesn't attend the classes regularly. In fact, he skips most of the classes. When he has not listened to the lectures given by the professors, where is the question of his remembering them? He will read the textbooks a few days before the examination, and manage to get the minimum score required!" 

"He has such an extraordinary talent, but he is not making use of it!" lamented Suresh.

Thirukkural
Section 2

Materialism

Chapter 42
Learning through Listening

Verse 418 (in Tamil):

kEtpinum kELath thagaiyavE kELviyAl

thOtkap padAdha sevi..

Meaning:

The ears that are not pierced by aural learning are (to be considered) deaf, even when they are capable of hearing.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'viyakka vaikkum thiRamai' by the same author.)

Verse 419
Verse 416