VAGABONDAGE

Have lots of free time, now that the frequent tests are a thing of the past (or so I like to think), and so my mind finds some idleness. And thanks to the idleness I keep thinking of completely random stuff. Here’s one such musing;

This is a hugely competitive world, the number of spots is trifling when compared to the number of competitors, and so only a small fraction can ever really succeed. You gotta keep your pace up all the while or somebody else takes you outta the frame (Hell, I love that line!). To win you have to be the best.

Or....you could just wait for everyone else to fail. Because one man's fall becomes another's opportunity. That is what many of us like to do;

"Is he going for his job interview? Hope he fails."

And when he really does, "Yippee!"

Though we ourselves have no hope of getting the job. We just can't accept someone else winning when we ourselves can't. I find it really crazy that some people even get some pride out of other people's failures! To them it is as if they’ve half won! It probably helps in soothing the pain when our peers fail too, probably helps by trapping us in an illusion where you start to justify your failure.

"I'm not so bad after all! They can't do it either."

But when you are really looking to excel you would better yourself rather than worry about others, you would be able to appreciate other people's success too. Especially your friends’ success, because then you’ll know your turn will come, sooner or later.

It's not just other people's failures but their faults too; we love finding faults in others. We love judging others and branding them as good or bad. If someone else is bad we automatically increase our goodness quotient, right?

If you've seen Mission Impossible-2, it would be easier to explain. In the movie, the narrator says "Every search for a hero must begin with something which every hero requires, a villain. So in a search for our hero, Bellerophon(the antidote), we have created a more effective monster: Chimera(the virus).". In our context it translates to: for someone to look good, everyone else must look bad, or at least someone should look really bad. Of course it is not required if we are of some real substance, but then that’s rarely the case.

So, we are always on the alert for the “wrongdoers”, ready to brand them. I’ve seen quite many old movies and have read my share of Indian and Hindu mythology. Take Ravana for instance, he is the epitome of evilness for most people. But if you look at his life, it is really exemplary. He was a marvelous achiever, second to none. He ruled Lanka like no one else, it prospered under him. Besides being an extraordinary warrior he was a scholar and a devoted son (see Bhukailash and you will know how devoted he was to his mother). The one bad thing he did was he kidnapped Sita and tried to force her into marrying him. I agree, that is horrible and cannot be forgiven. Fittingly, he met his end for that one mistake. Not just him but his whole family and many others too had to die. The righteous prevailed!

And now come back to today’s scene. Every year during Dasara people get together in huge numbers to burn down effigies of Ravana. It is done with great zest and fervor and people find some kind of satisfaction in it. We associate Ravana with all the vices of the world and act as if with him they all go down in flames too, all thanks to us! People feel good about themselves having won over evil! But if you come to think about it, are we really anything compared to what Ravana was, or what he had achieved (discounting that one mistake, of course)? I do agree that the idea of such a ritual is good; it brings us all together and is meant to awaken us. But again we are going into this comfort zone where we start to think we are good just because someone else is bad (Ravana is the victim here and probably, rightly so).

This is what many movie makers of today try to cash in on. To make the protagonist look good the villain is made to look exaggeratedly bad, even disgusting. That’s why actors with ugly and intimidating looks with all kinds of scars and marks but no real acting skills make it to the movies (in South Indian movies especially). And when the hero wins, we kind of feel as if the good has triumphed over the bad (though in a smaller context than before) and we helped too! We come out of the theater feeling elated, ready to take on the world! Unfortunately, it lasts for a very short period. This is what I'd like to call self righteousness induced orgasm.

And of course, the film makers make their money exploiting this particular weakness. They’ve hit the right formula, they know what chords to play. They know we can all go into mass hysteria over being noble or impeccable. They know what they are doing, the question is; do you?