REVENGE

                                                 "Success is the best revenge"


Said the wryly man to his counterpart as he sipped his drink from the exquisite persian cup. He looked handsome, suave and his well-developed 17-inch biceps roared of his masculinity.  He seemed like some kind of CEO of some company, given the fact he was dining at one of the best hotels of Delhi- The Claridges. I happened to be seated behind him and was hearing their conversation quite eagerly when suddenly they stopped talking altogether. The man turned around, looked at me and said sternly in a perfect British accent," Do you want something?". I was already gasping at his impeccable hairstyle when I paused my admiration for a second. I knew how embarrassed it should be to be pin-pointed of such rude manners. But my mind was just swinging back and forth from their conversation to the present scenario. I could wait no longer and blurted out," Oh! No, not at all. I couldn't help but listen to your conversation about revenge." I said. He was as impressed by my speech as I was because it oozed with confidence and not some random pauses of umm, aa etc. "Yes." He announced," Success is the best revenge". I wanted to muddle with his brain, playfully, so I said wittily," And you seem to have gotten lots of it." My last sentence brought an enormously broad grin to his face and after exchanging some pleasantries, we decided to leave the topic as is and I concentrated back on the Belgian chocolate cake in front of me.

Coming back home, I let my brain digress about the topic some more. Suddenly, a mild realisation hit me complementing the glass cup I had dropped down at the same instant. It's pieces lie shattered around my feet. But rather than picking them up I rushed to read the HT sunday magazine. It had the article about Anurag kashyap and again I noticed the same thing I had been observing all around myself.

          "You need to be successful to prove that others were wrong to underestimate you"

This mantra was what I had been fed right from the beginning. And it's implications have been reverberating around me for quite some time. The cacophony of the same mantra had been humming very intensely during the last two years of school. I had already developed a hatred towards it, given the fact I am blunt, in my speech and in my ways. I plan later and act first. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Coming back to the topic, a lot has been already said about it. A lot more is yet to come. Afterall, many lifestyle books and many therapy sessions are based on it. How can one challenge the sanctity of this mantra? But I can and I will.


                                            "Revenge is the best revenge"

This is not exactly the mantra I dwell on but still it sounds way much better than our previous one.
We live in a dharmic world. Though many of us do not follow the religion as rigidly as we used to but religion always gets behind our ass. And it pinches us in the right area. Today, it is coming back to even with us in the form of lifestyle gurus and doctors who have excellently conundrum-ised the religious principles to more suitable demands of modern assholes. The favourite one being-"Forgive and live on". But do they fully tell you to let go? No. We are told to live with a grudge which can only be erased if we become successful in what we endear. How is that supposed to calm me down?

I had also embarked about this notion 'success is the best revenge'. But I have learned that what I am really doing is just shifting my goal from the larger target and giving undue importance to lame people. People who are in the hindsight not even worth anything to me. How can you live with a grudge all along the way? Atleast, I cannot dwell upon this feeling of 'revenge' within me. I cannot let it guide my every action, motivated to a wrong cause.Our actions, maybe to impress others or maybe even to benefit ourselves don't you think should have something more substantial, something more concrete force behind them rather than revenge? This notion to avenge becomes a burden before we even know it. Why do you think all these students are committing suicides these days? They have been fed on a dangerous principle. It will backfire. Depression is mostly about the things we were not able to achieve. But the thought of impressing other people is also a major factor behind it, don't you think? Basically revenge acts as a slow poison and it's effects go unaccountable most of the times. I think I am diluting my point here. So without digressing further, the crux of the whole instalment is that you cannot live your life on a platform that itself is quite shaky. We need better principles to guide us. And we surely need to act much more wisely than we are now. The world would have been a better place if we did.