Column

Arvind and I used to sit on either side of Damodaran in Saraswathi Vidyalaya Nagpur. In class IX, the three of us sat in the front row.

Damodaran was the Hercules in academics; I was okay, while Arvind (Name changed) was the weakest link. Every semester, Damodaran stood first, I passed, while Arvind, who never quite showed any interest in studies, copied sumptuously from Damodaran, who was more than willing to oblige.

I never took advantage of Damodaran’s generosity though, despite the fact that I was awful in mathematics. In one particular semester, I failed in my bete noire. I cried and told my mother that if I went the Arvind way, this would have never happened.

It was then my mother said something I remember to this day, “You would have passed in the subject, but would have failed the examination of life. Life presents a contrast of good and bad. It’s in striving for good as a foil of bad that life acquires its true meaning. Appreciate the fact that it’s bad that leads you to good. If Arvind weren’t there, the thought of him doing the wrong thing wouldn’t have cropped up in your mind. You now know what to do. Strive hard in mathematics. Show Damodaran you can be better and prove to Arvind he is wrong. Decide now.” I did and succeeded.

While on a recent flight from Bhopal,I was reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of Baskervilles when a particular sentence caught my attention. Ace detective Sherlock Holmes tells his friend Dr Watson something like, “Good that the agents of the devil come in flesh and blood. This helps us identify evil and appreciate the value of goodness.”

Life becomes beautiful by way of contrasts. If there wasn’t evil, how could we gauge the power of good? If there wasn’t mediocrity, could we ever appreciate true talent? We need to change our perception towards the negative aspects of life. Let negativity act as a deterrent to create new benchmarks in excellence. So, look at anything evil, corrupt or immoral happening around us as tools to inspire good.

That’s how Nature wills it to be and as children of Mother Nature, let’s chart the right path by keeping in mind the wrong. It’s ever been my nature never to look down upon incompetence.

That perfection is an illusive goal and the secret of happiness lies in constant striving would have all but lost its meaning, had the opposites not juxtaposed themselves. It’s by comparing one with the other that we know how much yet we need to march on

—N Raghuraman is an editor with DNA