Attitude
“Vinod Kambli was an exceptionally
talented batsman than Sachin Tendulkar but Sachin’s attitude and work ethics made
him great. The lack of it deprived Kambli of glory he was once worthy of.”
Harsha Bhogle said the above
lines at an IIM seminar.
“No politician was haunted by media as much as
Narendra Damodar Modi. For 13 years, they chased him like ghost but see who is
prime minister of India today?? He did not reply much to media’s persistent
campaign against him. But he showed them his power by his actions. It is
attitude.
He gave seven flop films in a
row and survived in the maximum city of India without hailing from a cinema
clan. Finally he emerged as Bollywood superstar. He was none other than Amitabh
Bachaan. Not only during his early career stage but even when his company ABCL
boomeranged into financial losses, he passed it successfully and maintained his
high stature in the tinsel town. How and why??
It is attitude. It is attitude
to combat, to fight and to fight unto death.
A 12th man of Indian cricket team refused
to bring water bottles to field during an international cricket match. He was not
selected in the team for 4 years. He made a comeback with a debut century at
the Mecca of cricket, Lords. He became one of the most successful cricket captains.
He is Saurav Ganguly. The attitude he carried was vigorously percolated into
the team and the team found its lost self-confidence under his captaincy and brought
many glories to the country.
Not only those who became very famous, have attitude.
There are many who carry and show their attitude through their actions in their
respective lives. The mother of the late Nitish Katara, fought for the justice
of her son’s death and got many powerful perpetrators of the crime inside the
prison. She had the determination and attitude to fight. There are many RTI
activists and social workers who have brought smile to many faces in their
region through their steel like determination. Few of them gained media’s glare
while other’s continued their job without much fanfare. There were many small
town kids who dreamt of achieving excellence in their lives in spite of many
obstacles. They did not only dream but achieved it through their attitude.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the prime example.
The attitude to look into challenges and strive to
overcome them flows in blood. The same bloodline flows inside most of Indian
youth who have zeal and a strong passion to take their country on the path of
development. The same thing reflects in the attitude of the country. India was
ruled by foreign powers for more than 800 years. The rulers even tried to
impose their religion, language and lifestyle over the native citizens of
India. But they were not successful. 82% of citizens remained Hindu. When the
last ruler British, left India, the country still had 22 major languages and
1642 dialects. Most of the Indians still follow their age old traditions and
rituals. It is not a trivial thing. Once I was talking to a Mexican colleague
in Florida. I asked him what his mother tongue is. He said, “Spanish”. I was
surprised. “What happened to your Mexican languages”, I asked. “Spain ruled us
for four hundred years and when they left, we had lost all our native
languages,” He replied. It was an eye opener answer for me. It made me proud of
my country’s resilience powers. My chest expanded to 56 inch. A small town kid
who barely knows how to speak English is earning in dollars in English speaking
countries. There are not one or two such examples, they are in thousands.
With handful of resources and a blood stained partitioned
country at the time of independence, we were importing wheat and rice from
other countries. We had no car manufacturing units in the country. There were
no import duties on Rolls Royce, Mercedes etc. Epidemics like plague, malaria,
kalazar (leishmaniasis) were frequent and deadly in
the country. Illiteracy and poverty were two common synonyms for India at
international level. But the road was not closed for us. We accepted the grave
challenges. Though the tunnel of progress was dark and long but there was light
at the end. It was the same attitude which helped us to preserve our cultural
identity in spite of 800 years of slavery.
The same attitude helped us to build one of the biggest armies of the
world. We started green revolution and became self-reliant in food sufficiency.
Small temples of modern India, dams and factories started to come up. The white
revolution made us self-reliant in milk production. We were able to control
deadly diseases. The effects of floods and drought were mitigated. Once cash
strapped and debt laden country, we moved towards a handsome economic growth. The
erstwhile snake charmers are moving computer mouse and I pads. Not only
helicopters and aircrafts, we are capable to launch ‘chandrayan’ (mission to moon).
Though we have miles to go before we rest but we are treading ahead.
Most of the facts mentioned above are already known to
most of the readers in the current information bubbling society. The whole
purpose of writing this article is to understand the importance of attitude. It
is not just a word but a very powerful tool which shapes the personality and
bloodline of not only individual but the society, the country. It is the
attitude which takes you to sky and the lack of it can bring you to ground
also. It is perfectly all right to sleep at night without food for a day or two
but sleep with dignity, sleep with self-esteem. The more resilient you become, the
higher you move.
