SUCCESS... my version!!!

SUCCESS... my version!!!

by Rahul Gam on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 11:52pm



Browsing through the collections in a bookshop, a singular category kidnapped my attention. Was it the irony attached or the intrinsic merits that its presence promised, I could not fathom. Still, it made me think. The section was on “Success”.
From Indian best-selling authors like Shiv Khera to international ones like Marci Shimoff, the section had over a hundred books spanning ‘various aspects of success’, or so it claimed. The list of authors also included some modern day social bigwigs and business tycoons. While some wrote on ‘100 ways to make money’ others put in writing their experiences of ways to ‘win in the boardroom’.
My concern here is not the presence of this section but the very necessitation of the huge number of books on success, or winning for that matter, that had even outnumbered the books on poetry. In this dog-eat-dog era, are we, by any means, becoming zombies desperately being sold on winning? I would not attempt negotiation on the importance of success in life. But what about the hype attached with daily wins that is getting over-board by the day?
A child learns to dance before it learns to walk, draw before it learns to write and sing before it learns to speak. But we find it easier to do the second step activities. It is because of our system of education that is also at fault for the plug attached with winning. A year’s knowledge tested in a three hour exam which decides who is the best. We are accustomed to putting the cart before the horse. And at the end of the day the student resorts to cheating, the player resorts to doping and the common man chooses the dark path to win the battle of life.
If you win, you are a star and if you lose, you are failure personified for which you ought to drown yourself to death. Needless to say, this very mindset has been the core rationale for the untold integer of suicide cases in India. Bright students making through various competitive exams reach the threshold of failure at some point and in desperation take their own lives that are invaluable as compared to the mere annual test. But who enlightens them on this? The society is under the spell of success and so are his parents. He is being fed and brought up to win and today if he fails, there lies no meaning in his life, right? Wrong!
If we dream of a world where winning and losing are two sides of the same coin, where losing is not as bad as we think it is and where winners are not gods but ones who have worked harder, then maybe the world will change face. Perhaps then there will be lesser, much lesser cheating and attempts of suicide. Healthier competition will grow as well as better sportsmanship not just in the playground but also in the rink of life.
If there could be a successful one-man revolution on ahimsa, then why not this? If we dream of a better world to live in, we must first invest in better comradeship.
Sometimes, winning is everything. But not every time. It deserves a thought and is worth an action.
dr rahul priyada raj taye gam
(written by the author in 2007 as the editorial for the magazine "puberun")