The rise to the pinnacle may be fraught with difficulties but the fall is much harder to handle. A brilliant Telugu lyric and dialogue writer who died an obscure death recently, penniless, abandoned and shunned by friends and family, has become the subject of hot discussion in the media. Opinions, discussions and interviews with all and sundry who claimed to know him and those with little or no knowledge about the inner workings of his mind are all over the place. It set me thinking about success and failure, two sides of the same coin. Just flip the coin and things can change beyond imagination. Kulashekhar, my colleague, many years ago in a media house where I was reporting and he was at the desk for a brief period, was a brilliant wordsmith and his conversations were often pun and fun-filled with a literary flourish that was astounding. He was a bundle of complexities, sporting the traditional vermilion mark and speaking about the epics and Vedas but pouring vitriol on the custodians of tradition. I wasn’t surprised when a few years later he took the Telugu film industry by storm penning some immortal lyrics that determined the success of a film. Wealth, fame and awards followed and he was the celebrated “single card” writer which meant that the film had only lyrics penned by him. I never had the chance to meet his successful version but was surprised to read about his arrest in the newspapers some years ago. He had apparently stolen the “shatagopam” (dome-shaped vessel placed on the head of the devotee by the priest uttering a blessing at the end of worship) from a temple in Andhra Pradesh and had spent time in jail. He was declared mentally disturbed by those who observed him during this time and the film offers stopped. His wife and children, siblings and friends were no longer around him. We may never know the real reasons behind his changed behaviour, the pain and anguish that he underwent and what exactly caused his fall from the zenith to the nadir as we listen to the beautiful lyrics left behind by him. He was clearly a genius who couldn’t handle his success.
When most people get to the top, they simply fall back with a thud because getting success and keeping them are two different things. If you are not careful success will destroy you. It will make you lazy, unmotivated, arrogant, apathetic and lethargic. Organizational psychologist and author Dr, Benjamin Hardy says “Most people can’t handle success, authority or privilege. It destroys them. It makes them lazy. When they get what they want, they stop doing the very thing that got them there”. Then there are also other highs, like the sidekicks, the fame, and the addictions that follow success. Bad investments as in the case of the Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan who faced a near wipeout with ABCL could also be a factor that breaks people who seem to lose everything they had with one bad decision. It can be extremely difficult to handle failure after success because of the fear of being unable to maintain or surpass your achieved level. Mr. Bachchan happens to be one of those remarkable people who bounced back from adversity to reclaim his success and continue to ride its crest.
Being the best version of yourself should be the benchmark of success which is often relative and is in comparison to someone else, which is stressful and draining. Most often material success or fame may not be parameters by which a person’s work is judged. The brilliant post-impressionist Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh is an example of this, simply because his 2000 artworks including his immortal pieces like “Starry Nights” and “Sunflowers” did not fetch him a penny during his lifetime. Unable to make a living, he was forced to rely on financial support from his brother and his bold and colourful paintings did nothing to add colour to his own life marked by tragedy hardship and internal suffering (he was also declared mentally unstable) which led him to commit suicide. That the same works brought his sister-in-law great fortune after she sold his paintings following his death remains the greatest tragedy of his life. He was extremely successful but didn’t live to celebrate it in his lifetime.
To have something and lose it is the greatest tragedy ever. To be ever conscious of the flip of the coin and to wade through the anomalies and contradictions of life with this awareness makes acceptance easier. To expect something to stay on forever be it money, fame or acknowledgement in the same measure always is to expect the rising wave to never fall. It just doesn’t happen. Winston Churchill’s definition of success among the many great sayings floating around to me makes the most sense. He says “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”. This makes achievement and acceptance of failure and success much easier. Nothing or nobody lasts forever.
