Heroes

You may not realise this from my activity on social media, but I LOVE Facebook, absolutely adore it. Most people do - they get to catch up with friends, share happenings in their own lives, get interesting info/jokes. But that's not why I love it. I don’t like catching up with friends, don’t have enough going on in my life to share and know too much to need any info.

What I love it for is that it lets me preach without having to practice. It’s so easy here. I think of some idealistic things I should be doing and post these thoughts online. And some nice people on my friends list make suitably appreciative comments. The pages here are too public for any of them to give me a piece of their mind. My conscience gets a nice massage, as does my ego. The alternative would be to go out and actually do any of those nice things, but that is so much tougher. I mean, first you take the effort to actually put those thoughts into action, think of clever ways to tell people about it without sounding like a show off, and then wait for the right people to take notice and express their appreciation. Being a laid back (literally) pompous ass is so much easier. Whoever said that thing about good guys coming last, got it right the first time.

We do try and ignore the real do-gooders, the real deal. Maybe it’s because they make us feel inadequate.  And these heroes go unsung, as real heroes deserve to. There is a guy getting beaten up regularly cos he ensures education for children of sex workers. There is a guy who got a hectare of garbage dump cleared within no time and no money. A scientist gives up millions for the patent to a revolutionary plastic mix for roads. All very admirable, but too much work. All these guys got adequately ignored. The garbage disposal technique was ignored in favour of a garbage camouflaging technique that cost 5 times as much, while leaving the environment as damaged as ever. The scientist has got few takers for the long lasting, environment saving roads. Just imagine if these guys got to be famous, where would it leave honest, hardworking mediocre people like us? What would WE have to do for an iota of admiration?

But every society needs its heroes, so we go out and celebrate mediocrity, people who make us feel as if we cud have made it too. It’s always easier to see 'My kind of a guy' standing at the podium, rather than someone I never was. The first example that comes to mind is, and may the Gods forgive me for this trespass, Sachin. Great player, great human being, but Bharat Ratna? I mean all the people I mentioned above are doing whatever they are with only one desire - the greater good. Sachin does what he does for his own passion, and the money doesn’t hurt either. Can you imagine Tiger Woods getting the Amreeka Ratna, even if there were no birdies in the bushes? In this materialistic world, with zar, joru and zameen (wealth, women and property) being the basis of all transactions, financial gain (or the lack thereof) remains the only yardstick by which the nobility of intent is measured. But such minor details can’t stand in the way of creating heroes for our society, while giving the real heroes the anonymity they deserve.

I know, these statements can backfire on me. So many of my colleagues have been commended/rewarded for bailing out from a burning aircraft. It can be argued that the pilot did so only to save his own life. Of course, ordinary, folk can’t be expected to appreciate the professional knowledge, analytical skills, split second timing and courage such a decision involves. So we add a line or two about how he 'ignored grave personal risk in steering the stricken plane away from a populated area'. And when anyone does display any of the aforementioned skills in landing back a stricken jet, he has pretty good chances of enjoying relative anonymity.  A guy stepping out of a jet on the tarmac is so much easier to ignore than a guy descending from the heavens, leaving a wrecked jet in his trail.

No, I don’t grudge the Bharat Ratna, or the other awards. We all need heroes, heroes we can relate to. And the awardees are not totally undeserving. It’s just that there are other more deserving candidates. And when we overlook a more deserving candidate, the awardees- even deserving ones- appear unworthy. We may not be on the jury, but aren't we condoning the selection by celebrating these very selections?

I, for one, am not. I am just acutely aware of the greatness of the unsung heroes, of the insignificance, nay the absence, of any contribution from my side to society as such. I can’t be like them. And as I like to say, if u can’t join them, beat them.