A term we all have listened all throughout our lives. A term that impassioned our first dreams in childhood; when we all aspired to be like a film star – “My Hero”. A term that stands for a person who encapsulates all that is “Right” and the one who has the courage to defend it against all odds. We all want to be Heroes, don’t we?
Perhaps not. In our lives we all grow with our own dreams, dreams that were woven during our childhood, dreams which were not limited in their flight. And then, as we’re growing, we see them getting belittled every once in a while. We see our first “Heroes” getting soiled. We see our heroes failing us. And sometimes we fail our heroes.
It hurts when some of our heroes fail us. We elevated them to the status of divinity & then their fallibility becomes unacceptable to us. Most of us find our first “HERO” in our DAD and MOM. And then there are occasions when you couldn’t just grasp the reason of their failing you. As you grow you’re made to understand that life demands compromises. And these are the first inklings of our dreams getting shrunk. We start accepting life. We get complacent. We lose the ascent of our flights.
As we grow we find more heroes in art, be it cinema or books or music. Art, to me, is mere concretization of one’s value systems and aesthetics. They are mere expressions of their creator’s understanding of its surroundings based on his moods & temperament. To me real artists are the romanticists who still seek divinity in man, who still find references and provide us with beacons where a man is exalted to the status of God.
A hero to me then is just a vanguard of morality in any sphere; like Chomsky in Polity, Achilles in immortality, Ayn Rand in Philosophy, Ramajnujam in Mathematics, Leonardo in sculpting, Arundhati Roy & Michael Moore in media and so many more. They’ve all been loners. They’re like fighters with small troops fighting a large army. They’re active fighters and so far I’ve been just a spectator. It’s often said that if it’s not your battle; don’t spoil yourself in somebody’s battle. But I find honor in the mud that covers their faces, for their cause is just and their chase pure. Their glory is fleeting. But its legend follows. They are the real seekers of immortality in the minds of people who’ll read about them, who’ll see them being portrayed on the silver screen perhaps centuries later.
The strangest & also the worst thing that I’ve felt in the society is that many a virtues that we applause on the screen, when being practiced in reality, are subdued & looked down. Aren’t we cheating a real time hero at that time? Perhaps we’ve all grown so conceited that the virtues we appreciate on screens & in books become so hard for us to even stand by. We’ve been blinded by the society’s sheen of hypocrisy. I can say all this because I’ve seen a hero being crushed. How can you face yourself in the mirror when you’ve failed yourself…we’re all capable of being heroes in our own rights… our conscience embodies our truths…and all we need is to follow our conscience… how did you feel when you stood against the heroic ideals you cherish inside but didn’t have the guts to practice & endorse them in the society?
Discretion may be the better part of valor but valor is the foremost attribute required to fight wars that have never been fought before. And don’t forget the greatest of the battles are always fought in the minds of people & not on the battlefields. Let us all be a hero and more importantly we shall never be a hero-crusher.
Perhaps not. In our lives we all grow with our own dreams, dreams that were woven during our childhood, dreams which were not limited in their flight. And then, as we’re growing, we see them getting belittled every once in a while. We see our first “Heroes” getting soiled. We see our heroes failing us. And sometimes we fail our heroes.
It hurts when some of our heroes fail us. We elevated them to the status of divinity & then their fallibility becomes unacceptable to us. Most of us find our first “HERO” in our DAD and MOM. And then there are occasions when you couldn’t just grasp the reason of their failing you. As you grow you’re made to understand that life demands compromises. And these are the first inklings of our dreams getting shrunk. We start accepting life. We get complacent. We lose the ascent of our flights.
As we grow we find more heroes in art, be it cinema or books or music. Art, to me, is mere concretization of one’s value systems and aesthetics. They are mere expressions of their creator’s understanding of its surroundings based on his moods & temperament. To me real artists are the romanticists who still seek divinity in man, who still find references and provide us with beacons where a man is exalted to the status of God.
A hero to me then is just a vanguard of morality in any sphere; like Chomsky in Polity, Achilles in immortality, Ayn Rand in Philosophy, Ramajnujam in Mathematics, Leonardo in sculpting, Arundhati Roy & Michael Moore in media and so many more. They’ve all been loners. They’re like fighters with small troops fighting a large army. They’re active fighters and so far I’ve been just a spectator. It’s often said that if it’s not your battle; don’t spoil yourself in somebody’s battle. But I find honor in the mud that covers their faces, for their cause is just and their chase pure. Their glory is fleeting. But its legend follows. They are the real seekers of immortality in the minds of people who’ll read about them, who’ll see them being portrayed on the silver screen perhaps centuries later.
The strangest & also the worst thing that I’ve felt in the society is that many a virtues that we applause on the screen, when being practiced in reality, are subdued & looked down. Aren’t we cheating a real time hero at that time? Perhaps we’ve all grown so conceited that the virtues we appreciate on screens & in books become so hard for us to even stand by. We’ve been blinded by the society’s sheen of hypocrisy. I can say all this because I’ve seen a hero being crushed. How can you face yourself in the mirror when you’ve failed yourself…we’re all capable of being heroes in our own rights… our conscience embodies our truths…and all we need is to follow our conscience… how did you feel when you stood against the heroic ideals you cherish inside but didn’t have the guts to practice & endorse them in the society?
Discretion may be the better part of valor but valor is the foremost attribute required to fight wars that have never been fought before. And don’t forget the greatest of the battles are always fought in the minds of people & not on the battlefields. Let us all be a hero and more importantly we shall never be a hero-crusher.
