In Praise of Failing
Woh tifl kya girenge jo ghutno ke bal chale
(Only a fighter who rides the horse in a battlefield has a chance of falling, But how will those cowards fall who opt to walk on their knees)
I am pretty sure Azeem Dehalvi had me and folk of my ilk in mind when he wrote this couplet. If anything, it has given an intrepid serial failure like me some sort of validity.
I am a bulky foodie who is a veteran warrior in the Battle of The Bulge. My victories have been many, but alas temporary. That is one failure in life.
They say failing is bad, one should never fall down. I fail to see why. If I fall to my knees, I normally look around to see if I can grab that elusive five rupee coin that rolled under the table a few days ago. Since I am down, I may as well crawl to it, pick it up and consider the entire exercise profitable. Oh, and it does give my knees the necessary exercise.
The first time I heard of failure being praised was when I stood first in class for the umpteenth time. My mother was quite proud of my academic achievements. She bragged about it incessantly and my teenaged uncle, no doubt sickened to the gills with all that took me aside and said, “Try to fail once. It is kind of fun.”
I was in class V. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
“Everyone will laugh at me,” I said.
“So?” he asked.
I sniffed a rat. “You are only saying this so that you can watch Mama beat me up!” I accused him.
He winked and said, “Maybe.”
I was intrigued. I had never stood second in class, ever. And here was a whole new area waiting to be explored. And maybe if I failed once, it would make me likeable. Girls and boys would talk to me. So I tried to fail, I seriously did. I entered the exam hall with the full intention of giving the wrong answers. The question paper was so easy that I completely forgot my intentions and answered all of the questions correctly.
Let us say, I failed at failing. Read the rest here
