Success

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

A victor gains new friends: A loser loses all. The world loves a flower in bloom, never waits for the stemless fall of a rose to say alas! The reason not far to seek. The world loves the winner, lauds the champion, extols the successful and thereby  pats his own Purusartha vicariously. History does not record the failures for that is of no value for posterity. What man needs is the celebration of life not regrets for failures. The language of  denigration is for the failures. Man has come to the present stage of his civilization ( self created) after a struggle of millennia. He has grown, expanded and has become powerful: That is the story of success, Surviving the vicissitudes if man has now become self confident to plan for his future how can man accept failure and why should he listen to sob stories? The present day writers who write such sob stories about defeated men and women are reasonably ignored. Man needs a hero who has fought his way through fire and brimstone and has brought the gem of life to brighten the paths of other men. He may fall  on the enemy's sword and die in the end but it will be a heroicdeath. In such cases he would be  glorified for his deeds which were successful. But in the present day world there are people who celebrate the birthday or death anniversaries of terrorists like Burhan Wani and Zakir Musa. The villain too claims heroism. It is an aberration in our value structure but such celebrations are often stillborn. Evil too has its own admirers for men want to succeed even in the art of eliminating genius in every field.

When a film succeeds, that is joins the 100 crore club, the hero is catapulted to dizzy heights. The director,  script writers all become celebrities and pricy.   But when we hail a Salman Khan success I doubt whether success has only one  meaning: get rich by catering to the baser and easily excitable instincts in man. Success, however , should not be  measured by  money and power. The success of Purusartha or manliness (gender neutral) ought to be measured by intent, work ethics and dedication of a man. Someone who discovers the unpercievable mysteries of life and nature is often derided by men habituated to and practising one idea or view of life. A Copernicus or Galileo is heard to accept by people who have  spent a life time in believing Ptolemy. But when you see the rise of a new star in the firmament  you are delighted for you see possibilities of things happening. But when a star explodes and disappears in the infinite space of blue you are  saddened. Society takes it as an evil omen. But when a heroic man adulated by people suddenly does something ignoble you get horrified. The darling of the masses suddenly becomes a target of man's  anger and hate. This happens because we expect constancy and consistency in all successful men; not stagnancy or fall, moral or otherwise.

Tendulkar in his days was master blaster. People chanted  Sachin Sachin all the way he went upto the crease and expected a century in each of his  innings. And he did not disappoint . The nation conferred on him a Bharat Ratna and expected  of him performances in social life as he did in his cricketing days. Similarly when the Indian Cricket Team goes to play in the ICC World Cup. We expect the team to come back to India with the cup we had pinned our hope on Virat Kohli's team and the team was definitely the world cup favorite. The team won handsomely against all teams except England. But in the semi final after limiting Newzeland to a meagre 240  we never expected  the famous trio- Rohit Rahul and Kohli to duck out at the most crucial moment. At three down for five India fell from grace. The darlings had to hang their faces and the fans out of  their regard for their past performance had muted their superlatives. But Indian middle order and the tail ender Ravindra Jadeja fought like real heroes with the old tested War Horse MSD. The world lavished all praise on them including the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi . As Macduff in Macbeth says seeing the chest wound of his dead son- why then God's soldier be he- the team's performance thanks to Jadeja , Dhoni was not a tame surrender. They died fighting. And that is the meaning of success even in defeat. Defeat becomes a temporary setback if the hero fights till the last moment straining his nerves. Man is not always crowned with success, what really matters is the positive intent, the grit and determination to fight. William Blake has said, man cannot cease from mental fight: and that is the mantra of success. To close with the words of Churchill : 'Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm'.