The Land of Hero Worshippers

How many players’ name, can you remember from Indian cricket team that won 1983 world cup? Most of us would only remember Kapil dev and Sunil Gavaskar. There were other players who contributed significantly and were the backbone of the team but were unknown. In a football team usually the forward, the captain or the goalkeeper are famous. When Ronaldo strikes, the credit entirely goes to to him. But the ball has actually been passed from several players to get converted into a goal.

“Be a team player”, that’s the cliché which is repeated everywhere. But the rude fact is that team players are never remembered or admired; Only protagonists are.

Why Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin shah etc are not considered for the title "Badshahs of Bollywood"? Why only Sharukh Khan(atleast in media) has been given the title?
Because from his earlier days he always used to maintain that “I am the best” and even today he says this sarcastically. Later on other top actor realized this art and declared the same through various movie titles like “Singh is King” or through their blogs or by criticizing indirectly. Only after “Singh is King” Akshay Kumar was considered in the race of being number one. Marketing oneself has become most important aspect with a pinch of boastfulness. In Sharukh’s interview one can notice that he promotes himself as the numero uno indirectly.
What is “Best Actor” award? In simple English it is an award given to the best actor in a movie”. But actually best actor award is equivalent to best hero award. The villain’s acting may be superior to the hero but a villain is not even considered in the best actor category. Remember Amrish Puri as “Mogambo” or Amjad Khan as “Gabbar Singh” etc. Hero’s are worshipped everywhere.

My next statement might generate hate mails against me. But first of all let me clear that I am a big fan of Sachin Tendulkar. But, would he be able to achieve 30000+ runs if he had batted at no 4 or no 5? Most famous players in world cricket are those who opened for their team or were the captain. My point is You have to be the Captain of the ship or the Protagonist of the play to be the one. Only heroes are worshipped.

Take the case of Apollo 11. Only Neil Armstrong is remembered, but what about the other scientists who made the entire mission possible. No one knows them. The fact is the scientists sacrificed themselves to make one Hero called “Neil Armstrong”. Today we have become extremely egocentric and just to hide it we have invented a term called team player.

The Truth is, a Leader, a Ceo or any Top Honcho just pretends to be a Team Leader. Can you get the difference? Who made Taj Mahal? Answer is Emperor Shah Jahan. Is it? It’s actually the 1000 architects whose hands were sliced.

We have to pretend to everyone that yes “I am a team player” though in back of our mind the thinking goes “How am I benefited”???. This is the thinking of self-centered 21st century’s hero.

But a Real Hero is one who sees the entire world in himself. Bhagat Singh, Arjuna, Karna, Subhas Chandra Bose etc were Heros who kept the world above themselves. Today army is facing a scarcity of men. Why are people not joining army? Because we all want to be a selfish hero, a hero who is worshipped and revered everywhere. We won’t know the name of a single army officer from kargil war who got param vir chakra but will know who got the Filmfare award for the best actor. The Principle of Dualism works perfectly here "Though heroes are worshiped, everyone wants a Team Player".

Our Aspirations Goal or Greed?

A crisis makes you realize that you are just a human. When you fail or don’t achieve your goal you feel as if the world has come to an end. You don’t want to listen to anyone’s gyan on being positive, quotations on success, motivation etc. etc. etc. We are only concerned with that failure and even the future looks a failure because of the existing failure. One feels as if the entire world is only concerned about us. Actually we are not afraid of the failure but we are afraid of other’s reaction. We don’t know how we will face others.

450 million people in our country live on less than 1.25$ per day. That’s a meager Rs.57. We spend on an average an amount which is nearly 1300% times more. Still we are not happy. We want to earn more and more.

Goal or Greed?

Consider a terrorist who wants to blow an entire city. For this he works hard meticulously day and night. It’s his ambition, desire, aim, dream etc. “God help those who help themselves”. Then should God help him? All our answers will be in negative. Why? We will say “his intentions are wicked”. But who decides if one’s intentions are good or bad. It’s absolutely subjective. From a terrorist’s point of view his act is justified.

Goal or Greed?

I want to own a farrari and an island.

Goal or Greed?

Even a billionaire business tycoon is not contented. He is worried that his rivals are growing at a faster rate than him.

Goal or Greed?

A student is disappointed that he missed 99% by just one mark.

Goal or Greed?

Actually there is no relationship between money, happiness and goal. Today goal is perspicuously related to money. Majority of goals are based on wealth. It’s a rat race which has no end. In Mumbai if you are travelling from Church gate to Mallad, it doesn’t matter if you own a farrari or a maruti 800. Both will take the same time to reach its destination. Even a billionaire is as tensed as a common man. Then why the rat race? We have actually forgotten the essence of life. First is our health and second is spreading happiness. We don’t realize the importance of health till we fall sick. A person suffering from Cancer doesn’t want 100 million dollars, he just wants to be cared.

Philanthropy is considered to be the work of NGO’s or someone like Mother Terresa. WHY?

We have made our entire lives an Excel sheet which orders us what should we do. The movie 3 Idiots addresses the same problem brilliantly. An MBA aspirant in India is only concerned about pay packages. He may not know the full form of an institute, but will know the highest package being offered. I am not saying that packages are not important but making it the sole motive is a crime.

Today, in reality Goal and Greed have become synonym. According to Oxford dictionary goal is “something that you hope to achieve“. But in my opinion this definition is flawed, atleast in existing world. Our accomplishments should make others happy or atleast majority of the people are happy about our success. There is nothing called personal goal, its just greed.

In my opinion goal and greed can be defined by the simple means given below:

Suppose you achieve your objective and say

H - is the number of people who are happy when you achieve your aim

UH - is the number of people who are unhappy when you achieve your aim

If H > UH , It’s your GOAL

If H < UH It’s just your GREED

So are you following your Goal or your Greed? You are the one to decide.

Our World in desperate need of an AVATAR!!!

The last movie I saw in Chennai was $1200 million Avatar. It’s difficult for most of us to even imagine a cube in 3D. And here is man named “James Cameron” who has created a whole new world, Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system called “Pandora” with imagination so real that even “Earth” would envy “Pandora”.

Pandora is inhabited by the Navi, a ten-foot-tall blue-skinned species who live in harmony with nature. We land on Pandora to mine an extremely precious mineral called “Unobtonium”. For our selfish motives we burn the beautiful and the innocent Pandora to ashes just like a new born is crushed in a grinding machine. The comparison might arouse grotesque images in one’s mind but that’s what human’s have become ugly, callous and brutal creatures. We are walking murderers wearing the veil of suits. The recent attack on “Dr R K Pachauri” and “IPCC” by the advocates of economic development regarding error in their report is outrageous. They are celebrating victory as glaciers will not be melting by 2040 and thus want to continue burning our own Pandora (earth) in the same way as they have been doing in the last 30 yrs. The results of these diabolical activities can be perspicuously seen today. Earth has already started bleeding. The northern hemisphere is witnessing one of its coldest winters ever in its history. Normally in India festivals like “makar sankranti” or “lodhi” marks the arrival of autumn. But the temperature dipped further once these festivals arrived. The recent earthquake in Haiti has pushed the nation 10 years back. Just imagine an earthquake or some other natural disaster in populated cities like Mumbai or Delhi. The point is glaciers will definitely melt be it in 2040 or 2080. And the damages caused will be irrevocable. No amount of economic development can substitute for human life. Countries around the world must stop boosting about their GDP’s and quibbling about who must initiate the steps to stop carbon emission. What will the countries do with GDPs, development and power if these become the very reason for our extinction?

We must remember that our future generations would be cursing us for what we are doing to our own Pandora(earth). In the climax of the movie Avatar the Hero "Jake" and pandoran wildlife saves Pandora. But who will save us??? The answer is "WE". It’ strange that we the villains have to change their roles to we the heroes. We need another Avatar to save our world. I know its late, but then I also know that Hero always tastes victory in the end.