Being Great!

On one of the dreary of many afternoons that I spent in the beautiful land of Goa, I settle or rather roll on my divan to stretch for my remote. As I switch the television set on and travel through the mazes of different television channels, a face suddenly catches my attention. Its deep blue-green eyes and the organ which to us is known as lips but on it was like the petals of rose and the opulence in the over all look, the elegance of manner and style of its talk and gestures incept in me, an emotion, which as I had then experienced and as I still recollect, was as novel to me then as the newly grown small silky hair of fur between my nose and lips. I did not then know that I was to be obsessed with that face for about 5 more yrs of life and I was also confused as all adolescents are…whether that emotion was love or attraction? Though love, as I today feel, was close to the meaning I would love to convey but attraction sounds to dry…too creepy!

This woman, who ever she was had without her or my knowledge created a bond in my heart which I am to hold to for the rest of my life as have previous generations held on to Madhubala and Marlyn Munroe. As by description, it by now must have been clear that this woman was none other than Aishwarya Rai but the motive of this article is not repeating the cliché which has already carved its niche in the 33% male hearts all over the world. This article is not about the beauty’s beauty but about greatness as it will divulge in the later half!

Recently a question was raised on the forum when Aish’s wax statue was incepted in madam Tussaud’s hall of fame that whether she was “great enough” to be in that hall….And me, to whom that woman means much more than just another painted face of Bollywood and who gave me that first instinct in that age which so required for a boy to turn into a man, stood against her without any hesitation. The gist of my argument being “she was not great because her beauty was nature’s gift to her as are my pimples to me! There cannot be anything great in it…she certainly deserves the credit but only for maintaining what she has got!” said I. But later I really wanted to ask myself what exactly greatness was? And what it meant to be “great enough”? These are the questions that I will try to answer in the later half of this article!

Nigara Falls or Mount Everest for instance too are natural, and as a matter of fact they don’t even have to maintain themselves! But still I feel they are great…”great enough” to be even in the seven wonders of the world. But why then is this beauty who appears to have been born out of ivory and rose leaves not great? ...even after maintaining herself so long?

Akshay Kumar’s Kicks, flying kicks especially are popular and so are Jackie Chan’s stunts but why then is Bruce Lee greater than these too?

Gandhiji was great and “great enough” to be anywhere on this earth, it was not his appearance or actions that made him great…it was the compound of elements, of those principles which he thought of and did preach. Which he, himself, with all religious fervour, practiced. It is not just the philosophy. It is the eccentricity in it that worked for him. If it had only been for the philosophy in it, I do not think that he’d achieve what he did. The fact that it worked for a nation’s independence is what made him greater.
Bruce Lee was fast, furious and it required special cameras for his stunts to be shot, as they were, in those days too fast for the then existing technology of cameras. It was him through which the common man saw and experienced what karate or martial art was though with some exaggeration. Jackie Chan or Akshay Kumar are only the copies, replicas or remixes to suit the modern times the act for which Bruce Lee was renowned and hence they do not command the same respect.

Greatness, I believe is a combination of eccentricity and respect. Eccentricity that commands respect rather! It is in the context in which one has been eccentric and has been respected for it that matters. It is a matter of being “great enough” that how one uses his virtues of eccentricity to command respect. Aishwarya Rai though is eccentric in her beauty, has failed in commanding that respect through her actions, through her profession…she is not great and neither “great enough” but certainly and only beautiful!