The Mother Teresa complex

I was watching a show on Mazhavil Manorama channel called Midukki (means Smart Girl). And I almost threw up listening to the contestants speak about themselves. Almost all the conversations went like this

-I like working with charities / underprivileged. I want to do something for cancer patients / leprosy patients / children / ….. , (take your pick )

- If I give my 100% at something , I will really be happy

- I don’t want money, I want happiness. My family is the most important thing to me

This is indeed a mysterious virus that seems to be affecting contestants of any beauty / fashion / multi-talent shows. I call it the Mother Teresa complex, which I formulate as follows :

“In a fashion / beauty contest, when a contestant is asked about what she would like to be, 99 out of 100 contestants will transform themselves to subtle variants of  Mother Teresa. The one contestant who responds with honesty will be laughed at by the entire world and will finish last in the contest”

Case in point -  Madhu Sapre who when asked “what would you do if you became the prime minister of your country?” answered truthfully that she would look to provide facilities for sports persons to practice as there are no such facilities in India now. As you would have guessed, she finished 3rd of the 3 people in final.

Honesty ? what is that ? Just not in fashion any more …..

Courage

We see examples of exemplary courage in our day to day lives. However we have been tuned to see and appreciate only acts of physical courage. A commando facing a terrorist is something all of us can immediately identify with. Would you think the same if I told you about Saina Nehwal rising to top 5 badminton players of the world, or Mary Kom becoming a multiple boxing world champion ?

I am quite sure not. “Hard work , dedication for sure, but where is the courage ? “, I hear you ask.

To continue to believe in your dream when no one else around you does, requires courage
To hold your head high and never waver from your vision even when you stumble along the way requires courage
And to tread a path along which others before you walked and failed requires courage

By this bar, I admire the courage of the above mentioned people.

Being a sports buff, I just happened to choose two random names that came to mind. But tell me, don’t you see lot more examples of courage now around you ?

Sentimental Idiot

Well, I am one. I am also often accused of being ultra-sensitive. But some situations do bring a tear to my eye

Case in point was my daughter’s annual day celebration. One of the events was a ball room dance with around 20 kids . This the one in which a boy has to partner a girl for the uninitiated

It so happened that one boy did not turn up for the dance , maybe he was unwell. There was this little girl who was partner-less and struggling to dance .She had to imagine that her partner was holding her hand while she tried to sway and whirl around. Even from the back of the auditorium, I could see her face fall as she stumbled through her steps.

What happened next was really a special moment. Her teacher ran up to her and took to the stage as her partner. Spinning and swaying with the little one, whose face suddenly lit up like a 100W bulb.  Had to flick away a tear from the corner of my eye as I watched it. I can guarantee that kid will never forget her teacher for the rest of her life.

Which reminds me, one of these days I should get back to teaching …..

Regret

Got this from a friend’s page on Google+

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
It is regret for the things we did NOT do that is inconsolable."
- Sydney J. Harris, American Journalist

I envy the people who say “I can look back on my life and say I have no-regrets in life” and really mean it. I cannot do that, I have several regrets :-(( Not necessarily ones that I brood over or spend a lot of time thinking about. But they are there still the same.

Now what are some of those regrets ? Well I regret blogging about this already for starters :-)