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".