The world loves winners

The politicians of Haryana are vying with one another, irrespective of their party allegiances, to claim the credit for Sakshi Malik’s Olympic medal.  That’s the major advantage of being a winner.  When you laugh, the world laughs with you; when you cry, the world sneaks away in search of the next winner.  Politicians, being the direct descendants of bloodsucking leeches, will be the first ones to do that.  The chelas will follow loyally. And the whole world will applaud them along with the winner.

Never be a loser.  That’s the lesson, in short.  Otherwise, like L K Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi you get thrown out of the bandwagon even if you were its charioteer in your heyday. 

The world is as eager to forget the loser as it is to applaud the winner. 

Personally, winning or losing matters little to me.  I am a born loser.  There is no period in my life which I see as a winning phase.  There was always a winner eager to snatch my trophies.  I grew used to the process so much so I don’t expect victories in my personal life.  It’s good consolation: you are not buffeted by failures.  Yet I wouldn’t suggest this attitude to anyone.  Most of the time, you get what you foresee.  It’s better to foresee victories.  The world is not always hostile to you.  Not many people are ill-fated to be accompanied perennially by trophy-snatchers.   

I stand in awe of the winners.  I admire them.  And I console myself with Umberto Eco’s theory that “Losers always know much more than winners.” His argument is that the winner has to focus on one thing only.  The loser’s attention is spread across too many things.  Therefore “the pleasures of erudition are reserved for losers,” argues Eco.  “The more a person knows, the more things have gone wrong.”