By
Ramesh Bijlani
The
tragic death of the highly talented and accomplished actor Jiah Khan very very
recently should wake us up to some uncomfortable facts about today’s society.
She saw herself as a failure. If she was a failure, how many in the world can
claim to be successful? She had accomplished in her twenty-five years what many
cannot in twenty-five lives. What then, was her point of reference when she saw
herself as a failure? The point of reference was the society. Every society has
some cherished values and goals, and that influences how we judge ourselves. The
most enlightened societies (India included) during their most glorious phases
have valued simple living and high thinking. Based on this dictum their
cherished goals have been peace, honesty, freedom of thought, self-reliance,
scholarship, and so on, and the ultimate goal has been self-realization. But
unfortunately we live in an age that values high living and simple thinking. The
prevalent simple thinking is to get as much money as possible any-which-how
because money can buy all the good things of life, which in turn will make us
happy. Based on this thinking, even the best of our schools prepare a child for
making a living, not for life. The upper-middle class that sends its children to
these schools has, in general, abundant resources and very few children.
Therefore, the life of these parents revolves around these children. Because of
their love for their children, and with all good intentions, they not only send
their children to the best school possible, they also pressurize the child and
the school to make sure that their child is successful in all the board and
entrance tests that pave the way to the best-paid jobs. Further, to ensure
success, they send their child for tuitions and coaching classes. They also want
their child to become an all-rounder, and therefore, for a few years they may
also send their child for additional classes in sports, music, dance and
painting. The result is that the child is hardly ten but the child and the
parents are on a roller coaster everyday, the child moving from class to class,
and the parents (usually the mother, or the driver) dropping and picking up the
child. Under the best of circumstances, the child succeeds in achieving the
goals that the parents determined for him, but not without paying a price. The
price that he pays is that he develops, what psychologists call an entitlement
personality, that is, a firm belief that he is entitled to get from the world
whatever he wants. Further, he grows up without learning many indispensable
lessons of life.
- He does not learn
that effort is not all, and results are unpredictable. He forgets that the
starting point of his success was his parentage and the unique gifts and talents
with which he was born. The beautiful beginning that his life got was
irrespective of his personal effort. What he observes instead is that it is
possible to get predictably from his parents whatever he wants without much
effort. In exams, he can reasonably predictably get whatever he wants, of course
with a lot of effort. At the work place, the relationship between effort and the
outcome becomes much less predictable. And, when it comes to life, so many
terrific as well as terrible things happen irrespective of, and sometimes even
in spite of, personal effort. That happens because superseding all human effort
is an unseen hand. Neither school nor home has prepared this successful boy or
girl for the uncertainties that plague life.
- He does not learn
how to face success or failure. Success needs gratitude and humility because it
comes not just from effort, although it may seem to be so. Unless the divine
will coincides with human will, no amount of effort can succeed. I saw this
message inscribed once by some simple folk behind a truck: mehnat meri, rahmat
teri (my effort, Your
Grace). Wealth and education make us forget what the simple folk of this country
know. Failure needs surrender to the divine will and wisdom. If in Its supreme
wisdom, the Divine has given us a ‘failure’, there must be something good in it.
Therefore, I should not just reconcile with what has happened grudgingly, but
should rather accept it happily as a gift from the Divine. If I cannot see
anything good in it, it is because of my own limitations. Neither school nor
home has prepared the successful boy or girl to accept success with gratitude
and humility, and to accept failure happily in a spirit of sweet
surrender.
- He does not learn
that success and failure are relative; one might even say they are misnomers.
What we get in life are not success and failure, victory and defeat, insult and
praise, but just conditions and circumstances for fulfilling the purpose of
life, which is spiritual growth, or growth of consciousness. And for fulfilling
this purpose, we need both types of events – those that are perceived as good,
and those perceived as bad. If everything went well with life, we might get so
absorbed in ‘wine, women/men, and music’ that we forget the purpose of life. On
the other hand, if all went wrong with life, we might get so depressed as to not
even feel like living. Therefore, we need both success and
failure. By accepting both success and failure in the right spirit, we can use
both as opportunities for spiritual growth. God does not give us everything we
want because that would not be good for us. He gives us everything that we need
for spiritual growth. Neither school nor home has taught the successful boy or
girl to look at success and failure in this dispassionate manner, and to use
both for fulfilling the purpose of life.
- He does not learn
to see beyond himself. The parents have been so focused on their child, and have
taught the child to do the same so effectively that the child forgets that he is
part of a larger whole, a fragment of a larger unity. He forgets that he cannot
insulate himself so effectively as to be happy when those around him are
unhappy. This has at least two ramifications. First, the successful boy behaves
as the owner of his wealth, not as its trustee. Secondly, if faced with failure,
he cannot see that his problem is very small as compared to the misery that many
others are living in. Sharing success, and helping others in need, help most the
one who shares and helps. The one who shares and helps forgets his own problems,
and grows spiritually through all happenings in life. Neither school nor home
has taught the successful boy or girl the paradox that it is in giving that we
receive.
- He does not learn
that life is precious. Human life on earth is a privilege. This is the only
phase in the long journey of the soul during which the individual grows in
consciousness. Neither school nor home has taught the rich and successful boy or
girl the deeper truths of existence.
Stereotypes
are never completely right. I am quite conscious of the many many honourable
exceptions among the rich and the successful to whom the above generalizations
may not apply. But I believe these exceptions exist in spite of the system of
education and the social milieu we have in the country today. This article is a
tiny effort to facilitate moving towards a society where we do not have
repetitions of the Jiah Khan tragedy. The fact that she was not totally Indian
makes little difference. In today’s globalized culture, the upper middle-class
Indians live more like those in London and Manhattan than in the Bharat that few
have the time to think about.
