Gandhi and the One-Sided Sandal

Mohandas Gandhi, whom everyone lovingly called “Bapu” (Father), traveled all over India. He did not travel in fancy carriages or expensive cars. He preferred to travel by train, and always in the third-class compartment with the common people.

One day, Gandhi was rushing to catch a train. The train had already started moving! He ran and grabbed the handrail, pulling himself up into the carriage. But as he scrambled aboard, one of his sandals slipped off his foot and fell onto the tracks below.

The train was picking up speed. There was no way to get the sandal back.

Everyone around him looked sympathetic. “Oh no, Bapu!” they cried. “You have lost your sandal! Now you will have to walk with only one shoe.”

Without hesitating for even a second, Gandhi immediately took the other sandal off his foot and threw it onto the tracks, right near where the first one had fallen.

The other passengers were astonished. “Why did you do that, Bapu?” one man asked. “Why throw away your good sandal?”

Gandhi smiled his gentle smile. “The poor man who finds the first sandal lying on the track will have no use for it,” he explained. “A single sandal is useless to anyone. But now, when he finds the second one, he will have a full pair and can wear them!”

The passengers were amazed. Even in a moment of loss, Gandhi was thinking about how to help someone else.

Moral of the Story: True generosity is thinking of others, even when we lose something ourselves.