As the eventful month of August draws to an end with the Race4Pace contest in its final lap, there have been some success stories from Team Blue Caramel Jodhpur and to a certain extent Team Jaipur, with Team Mumbai being a work in progress and Team Udaipur, still a disaster. Though the month is not yet over but all Blue Caramelers can learn from the experiences of many distinguished personalities from the World theater that failures are the stepping stones to successes. I will take 2 examples today.
The first person who comes to mind, who garnered success after prolonged periods of failure, is the legendary Scottish King, Robert the Bruce. In fact his adventures gave rise to the idiom, "If at first you don't succeed, then try and try again". The legend goes, Bruce who was one of the greatest of all Scottish Kings, during his struggle with the throne of England, was defeated seven consecutive times. In desperation, he fled and hid in a cave. While he was pondering hard and cursing his fate, he came across a spider, which was trying to spin a web trying to connect one part of the cave with the other. The spider, slipped and faltered seven times, but did not loose hope. It was successful the eight time. Inspired by this incident, Robert the Bruce returned with a new vigor and started inflicting on the English a series of crushing defeats, which finally resulted in him becoming the King of the Scots.
Amitabh Bachchan, the super star of Bollywood, is a living example of the try and try again idiom. Bachchan who quit his job with an MNC to start off a career in acting faced hurdles right from the go. His height and voice were deemed unfit for acting initially by some directors of Hindi movies. But he did not loose heart and got his first film "Saat Hindustani" after a brief period of struggle. Then there was no looking back for this Super Star as he created a niche for himself as the "Angry Young Man". His voice and height which was ridiculed initially became his greatest assets and he started churning hit movies after hit movies. In 1982 while shooting for his film "Coolie", Bachchan suffered a near fatal stomach injury after which he quit films for sometime. He dabbled in the quagmire of politics during this period and was even a member of Parliament from his home town of Allahabad. Realization soon dawned that politics was not his cup of tea and he resumed his acting career.
The mid 1990s were a torrid time for the Bachchans. Amitabh Bachchan's popularity as a Super Star was in wane and the company he floated ABCL was in shambles and filed for bankruptcy. When everything looked dead and over for Bachchan, he fought back with a vengeance, this time through the medium of television. He became the host for the Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and the rest as they say is history. Not only did Amitabh Bachchan gain back his lost glory as a Bollywood SuperStar, he also overcame all the financial difficulties he had to face during the 1990s.
It was very easy for Bruce as well as Bachchan to call it quits and lead a life of failures but they understood that the tag of being a looser was much harder to carry than becoming a martyr in the quest for success and hence got inspired from happenings, when their chips were down. They learnt from their mistakes and strove hard and did not rest till they were the best. This is the spirit that is envisaged in all Blue Caramelers, the spirit of never giving up, the spirit of dealing with challenges head on and the spirit of succeeding and inspiring others with stories of success because Nothing Succeeds Like Success.
The first person who comes to mind, who garnered success after prolonged periods of failure, is the legendary Scottish King, Robert the Bruce. In fact his adventures gave rise to the idiom, "If at first you don't succeed, then try and try again". The legend goes, Bruce who was one of the greatest of all Scottish Kings, during his struggle with the throne of England, was defeated seven consecutive times. In desperation, he fled and hid in a cave. While he was pondering hard and cursing his fate, he came across a spider, which was trying to spin a web trying to connect one part of the cave with the other. The spider, slipped and faltered seven times, but did not loose hope. It was successful the eight time. Inspired by this incident, Robert the Bruce returned with a new vigor and started inflicting on the English a series of crushing defeats, which finally resulted in him becoming the King of the Scots.
Amitabh Bachchan, the super star of Bollywood, is a living example of the try and try again idiom. Bachchan who quit his job with an MNC to start off a career in acting faced hurdles right from the go. His height and voice were deemed unfit for acting initially by some directors of Hindi movies. But he did not loose heart and got his first film "Saat Hindustani" after a brief period of struggle. Then there was no looking back for this Super Star as he created a niche for himself as the "Angry Young Man". His voice and height which was ridiculed initially became his greatest assets and he started churning hit movies after hit movies. In 1982 while shooting for his film "Coolie", Bachchan suffered a near fatal stomach injury after which he quit films for sometime. He dabbled in the quagmire of politics during this period and was even a member of Parliament from his home town of Allahabad. Realization soon dawned that politics was not his cup of tea and he resumed his acting career.
The mid 1990s were a torrid time for the Bachchans. Amitabh Bachchan's popularity as a Super Star was in wane and the company he floated ABCL was in shambles and filed for bankruptcy. When everything looked dead and over for Bachchan, he fought back with a vengeance, this time through the medium of television. He became the host for the Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and the rest as they say is history. Not only did Amitabh Bachchan gain back his lost glory as a Bollywood SuperStar, he also overcame all the financial difficulties he had to face during the 1990s.
It was very easy for Bruce as well as Bachchan to call it quits and lead a life of failures but they understood that the tag of being a looser was much harder to carry than becoming a martyr in the quest for success and hence got inspired from happenings, when their chips were down. They learnt from their mistakes and strove hard and did not rest till they were the best. This is the spirit that is envisaged in all Blue Caramelers, the spirit of never giving up, the spirit of dealing with challenges head on and the spirit of succeeding and inspiring others with stories of success because Nothing Succeeds Like Success.
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