Wait till death to be great
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Maswood Alam Khan
WE have a penchant not to praise people when they are alive and we lose control of our emotions in praising the same people when they are dead. Because we are emotional as a race and our hearts burn when living people are praised, more so if those people are by coincidence our relations, friends or colleagues.
We don't mind praising an alien singer or an American Nobel prizewinner but we are loath to praise or reward an artist who is our neighbour or a homegrown Nobel laureate. We praise a dead man to the skies -- the same dead man who was mocked by us to the hilt when he was alive.
We also praise people before they are dead. But that is not praise; that is flattery or even worse, sycophancy. We pamper our uncle who does not have a child to inherit his fortunes. We curse the same uncle if we later find that the uncle had willed all his properties in the name of an orphanage.
The theme of a Bangla drama (I forgot the name of the drama), broadcast many years back from 'Akash Bani Kolkata', was: a character wanted to find out whether he would be loved and respected by his beloved ones even after his death. He made a plot with one of his trusted friends that whenever there would be an accident like 'sinking of a ship in a storm' his friend would spread news that he (the character) was a passenger in the ill-fated ship and now missing.
Accordingly, after a ship had wrecked and sank in a storm, among a lot of passengers of the ship reported missing in a newspaper his (a concocted passenger of the ship) name was somehow inserted. He was presumed dead after a week or so. Meanwhile, he went into hiding and asked his trusted friend to report back to him what and how his friends and relations were doing.
To his unpleasant surprise, he found out that his wife didn't wait for even a month to marry her paramour; his sons were deprived of inherited properties and a friend who used to eulogise him for his honesty was condemning him as lacking integrity. The drama however ended more dramatically when he had reappeared as a live and healthy man.
We tragically maintain a double standard. We make friendship with enemies and forsake our friends as and when the situation to our advantage demands. We exhibit our blind loyalty to our leaders; and we also turn a blind eye to them when they are in a problem. We are blind and most of our leaders are also blind. In our society the blind is leading the blind, paradoxically.
We have sung all the praises about Senator Edward Kennedy when we heard he was dead.
We then made a helter-skelter dash to find out what he was like and what he did for Bangladesh. We let our people know after his death that he was a friend in need when we were in peril during our liberation war. But we didn't care during his lifetime to invite him to our country and crown him with an award. Couldn't we honour him with a national award like 'Bir Uttam' when he was alive? Can't we still honour him with a posthumous award?
M. Saifur Rahman, the three-term finance minister of Bangladesh, was mocked many a time when he made some gaffes. Maybe due to his advanced age he made some embarrassing comments unintentionally in a social or a public gathering but we did not spare him from the assault of our scathing remarks.
After his death the whole nation grieved and members of our think-tank have lauded him as the architect of financial reforms in Bangladesh. Now in television talk shows we are learning that even the Indian Prime Minister, when he was the Indian Finance Minister, praised him for introducing trade liberalization in Bangladesh to keep inflation at bay, a daring concept India later followed to mend their own inflationary economy. Couldn't we praise M. Saifur Rahman when he was alive? Didn't he deserve an award during his lifetime?
There is a problem with Bangladeshis when it comes to deal with competition. When we compete with each other we have a reputation of pulling legs of our competitors.
Instead of having our zeal and enthusiasm renewed to excel in our own jobs we lose heart when someone else, who is not even in our trade, prospers. We lose heart at others' lifts to such an extent that literally we fall sick, a peculiarity well exemplified by the Bangla word "Porosrikatorata"-- a word for which there is no synonym in any other language -- meaning "getting sick at others' well-being".
Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh shone like a polished diamond before billions of people in the world when in 2006 he earned Nobel Peace Prize as recognition for his endless endeavour as a 'banker for the poor'. We also rejoiced the great event that gave us a sense of achievement.
Dr. Yunus's stupendous success in both Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone, two diametrically diverse domains, proves that he has a rare leadership quality and he could also excel in politics if he would not have discarded his plan to bring about a change in our political environment through Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power), a new political party he had launched in 2007.
He abrogated his idea of bringing about a political U-turn in Bangladesh because we started making mockery of his multipurpose ambitions. We indulged in a faultfinding spree to find out defects in everything he did. We enjoyed dousing the fire of his enthusiasm by pouring cold water on all his plans. Should Dr. Yunus wait till his death before we can properly honour him?
Nevertheless, not all are as mean as most of us. The world is still teemed with people who are generous, who live to leave behind examples of sacrifices. There are people everywhere who are silently persevering to better our life, to pave new ways to newer frontiers, to serve people as pathfinders. Their mission is to illuminate the dark alleys of humanity. They may belong to the silent minority group of world population, but their jobs serve the loud majority of humankind.
Back in the year 2006, according to a news report a young small-time jewellery trader named Prasad confirmed by committing suicide in Kerala, India that potassium cyanide is extremely sour. This was perhaps for the first time in the history of science that the taste of potassium cyanide was recorded after a human tongue tasted this deadly chemical.
Prasad mixed cyanide in a tumbler, stirred it with the bottom of his pen, and sat down to write the suicide note: "Doctors, this is potassium cyanide. I have tasted it. It comes through slowly at the beginning, and then it burns, the whole tongue burns and feels hard. The taste is very acrid". Did Prasad want to do something good to the humanity before leaving this world? Yes.
There are people in the world who are not as great as Dr. Yunus or as sacrificial as the small-time jewellery trader. They are simple people; they are commoners. They are also givers; they also look for a chance to please you! They don't care whether we praise them or we hate them. They leave a permanent imprint in your memory; they are like that legendary patient we read about in our bedtime storybook "The man by the window":
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.
His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. Two men talked for hours whenever there was a chance. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their days in schools and colleges.
Every afternoon, when the man by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside. The man lying flat on the other bed began to wait for that afternoon hour everyday when his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.
Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window to the bed where his roommate had died. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, and painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.
But, the window faced a blank wall!
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate to describe such wonderful things outside this window.
The nurse responded that the man himself was blind and could not even see the blank wall outside the window.
She said: "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you".
Did the blind man wait till his death to be great? Perhaps No.
The writer is a banker. He may be reached at e-mail:
maswood@hotmail.com
WE have a penchant not to praise people when they are alive and we lose control of our emotions in praising the same people when they are dead. Because we are emotional as a race and our hearts burn when living people are praised, more so if those people are by coincidence our relations, friends or colleagues.
We don't mind praising an alien singer or an American Nobel prizewinner but we are loath to praise or reward an artist who is our neighbour or a homegrown Nobel laureate. We praise a dead man to the skies -- the same dead man who was mocked by us to the hilt when he was alive.
We also praise people before they are dead. But that is not praise; that is flattery or even worse, sycophancy. We pamper our uncle who does not have a child to inherit his fortunes. We curse the same uncle if we later find that the uncle had willed all his properties in the name of an orphanage.
The theme of a Bangla drama (I forgot the name of the drama), broadcast many years back from 'Akash Bani Kolkata', was: a character wanted to find out whether he would be loved and respected by his beloved ones even after his death. He made a plot with one of his trusted friends that whenever there would be an accident like 'sinking of a ship in a storm' his friend would spread news that he (the character) was a passenger in the ill-fated ship and now missing.
Accordingly, after a ship had wrecked and sank in a storm, among a lot of passengers of the ship reported missing in a newspaper his (a concocted passenger of the ship) name was somehow inserted. He was presumed dead after a week or so. Meanwhile, he went into hiding and asked his trusted friend to report back to him what and how his friends and relations were doing.
To his unpleasant surprise, he found out that his wife didn't wait for even a month to marry her paramour; his sons were deprived of inherited properties and a friend who used to eulogise him for his honesty was condemning him as lacking integrity. The drama however ended more dramatically when he had reappeared as a live and healthy man.
We tragically maintain a double standard. We make friendship with enemies and forsake our friends as and when the situation to our advantage demands. We exhibit our blind loyalty to our leaders; and we also turn a blind eye to them when they are in a problem. We are blind and most of our leaders are also blind. In our society the blind is leading the blind, paradoxically.
We have sung all the praises about Senator Edward Kennedy when we heard he was dead.
We then made a helter-skelter dash to find out what he was like and what he did for Bangladesh. We let our people know after his death that he was a friend in need when we were in peril during our liberation war. But we didn't care during his lifetime to invite him to our country and crown him with an award. Couldn't we honour him with a national award like 'Bir Uttam' when he was alive? Can't we still honour him with a posthumous award?
M. Saifur Rahman, the three-term finance minister of Bangladesh, was mocked many a time when he made some gaffes. Maybe due to his advanced age he made some embarrassing comments unintentionally in a social or a public gathering but we did not spare him from the assault of our scathing remarks.
After his death the whole nation grieved and members of our think-tank have lauded him as the architect of financial reforms in Bangladesh. Now in television talk shows we are learning that even the Indian Prime Minister, when he was the Indian Finance Minister, praised him for introducing trade liberalization in Bangladesh to keep inflation at bay, a daring concept India later followed to mend their own inflationary economy. Couldn't we praise M. Saifur Rahman when he was alive? Didn't he deserve an award during his lifetime?
There is a problem with Bangladeshis when it comes to deal with competition. When we compete with each other we have a reputation of pulling legs of our competitors.
Instead of having our zeal and enthusiasm renewed to excel in our own jobs we lose heart when someone else, who is not even in our trade, prospers. We lose heart at others' lifts to such an extent that literally we fall sick, a peculiarity well exemplified by the Bangla word "Porosrikatorata"-- a word for which there is no synonym in any other language -- meaning "getting sick at others' well-being".
Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh shone like a polished diamond before billions of people in the world when in 2006 he earned Nobel Peace Prize as recognition for his endless endeavour as a 'banker for the poor'. We also rejoiced the great event that gave us a sense of achievement.
Dr. Yunus's stupendous success in both Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone, two diametrically diverse domains, proves that he has a rare leadership quality and he could also excel in politics if he would not have discarded his plan to bring about a change in our political environment through Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power), a new political party he had launched in 2007.
He abrogated his idea of bringing about a political U-turn in Bangladesh because we started making mockery of his multipurpose ambitions. We indulged in a faultfinding spree to find out defects in everything he did. We enjoyed dousing the fire of his enthusiasm by pouring cold water on all his plans. Should Dr. Yunus wait till his death before we can properly honour him?
Nevertheless, not all are as mean as most of us. The world is still teemed with people who are generous, who live to leave behind examples of sacrifices. There are people everywhere who are silently persevering to better our life, to pave new ways to newer frontiers, to serve people as pathfinders. Their mission is to illuminate the dark alleys of humanity. They may belong to the silent minority group of world population, but their jobs serve the loud majority of humankind.
Back in the year 2006, according to a news report a young small-time jewellery trader named Prasad confirmed by committing suicide in Kerala, India that potassium cyanide is extremely sour. This was perhaps for the first time in the history of science that the taste of potassium cyanide was recorded after a human tongue tasted this deadly chemical.
Prasad mixed cyanide in a tumbler, stirred it with the bottom of his pen, and sat down to write the suicide note: "Doctors, this is potassium cyanide. I have tasted it. It comes through slowly at the beginning, and then it burns, the whole tongue burns and feels hard. The taste is very acrid". Did Prasad want to do something good to the humanity before leaving this world? Yes.
There are people in the world who are not as great as Dr. Yunus or as sacrificial as the small-time jewellery trader. They are simple people; they are commoners. They are also givers; they also look for a chance to please you! They don't care whether we praise them or we hate them. They leave a permanent imprint in your memory; they are like that legendary patient we read about in our bedtime storybook "The man by the window":
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.
His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. Two men talked for hours whenever there was a chance. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their days in schools and colleges.
Every afternoon, when the man by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside. The man lying flat on the other bed began to wait for that afternoon hour everyday when his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.
Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window to the bed where his roommate had died. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, and painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.
But, the window faced a blank wall!
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate to describe such wonderful things outside this window.
The nurse responded that the man himself was blind and could not even see the blank wall outside the window.
She said: "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you".
Did the blind man wait till his death to be great? Perhaps No.
The writer is a banker. He may be reached at e-mail:
maswood@hotmail.com