On Losing ...

Naradaa has decided not to join politics. And Naradaa is not going to contest any elections. Because Naradaa does not like losing. Also, Naradaa feels it is much better to be the 'criticiser' than the 'criticised'.

Whenever there is a contest, whether it is an election, a wrestling match, an olympic sport or any other fight, before the event the contestants have to boast of what he or she is going to do to the opponent. It had been a practce from the days of Ramayana and Mahabharatha or even earlier. Usually after the fight, the loser would not be seen or heard of or might make one more foolish challenge.

But today we have several ways of dealing with a losing situation.

1. just go on boldly as if nothing has happened. Once upon a time, Naradaa had virtually been removed from being the head of some organisation. But Naradaa got away by simply not accepting it and went on to represent the same organisation as its head. Let the barks grow louder, who cares?

2. Insist that what actually happened was a victory. After all, the magnitude of loss is relative. Earlier, one were losing with a much bigger margin. Now, the loss of margin is reduced. Theoritically, it is actually a victory.

3. Lost in the beginning itself with a real hard fight. Actually it was a glorified loss - after all in an equal contest one has to lose. Next round loss would have been worse and would have been with a humiliating margin.

4. One can sulk after the loss, putting the blame on someone else. Easiest is to put the blame on Government. Other possible targets are environment, weather, lack of support, lack of facilities etc. One can think of many. (It is worth having a contest as to who can present maximum number of possible excuses...)

5. If it was a team effort, it was always the other guy who made a mistake. or the team leader is to blamed. This excuse becomes easier as the number of people involved increases. Actually the strength of the excuse is directly proportional to the number of possible targets. Like a game has players, captain, coaches, managers, selecters etc. Or if a company loses a tender, there are people like head of the department, the purchaseman who made the tender, the engineer who estimated and so on. Or one would say, ' it is good that we lost the tender at that value. it would not have worked out.'

6. One can blame the media. How? Oh, one can't know always what the media is going to say or do - one can always find something. At least one can say media built up so much pressure and so one got crushed !!!

Naradaa has to collect a few more excuses. Because Naradaa is going to have democracy; and we are going to have elections and contests....