ON VICARIOSITY AND THE VICARIOUS HONOURS
BY
S. MAHESHKUMAR
BY
S. MAHESHKUMAR
“A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.”—Thomas Carlyle.
THERE is no point in arguing for or against Rahman, Illaiyaraja, R. D. Burman, Naushad, M. S. Viswanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, G. Ramanathan, et al., in terms of the Awards or Prizes they receive or not receive.
These kinds of tom-toms and hypes are vicarious. To judge one’s work of its value in terms of vicarious awards such as Oscars, Nobel Prize, and others, in no way stands testimony to the greatness of a person or a work.
For example, the greatest apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, was not given the Nobel Prize, even though he was nominated for the prize many times when he was alive. In order to please the British Imperialists, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to ignore the Nobel Peace Prize to Mahatma who was revolting against the British with his almighty weapon of ‘Ahimsa.’
Citizen Kane is regarded as the all time classic in the history of world cinema. It was released in 1941 directed by Orsen Welles who also played the lead role in it. It was nominated for the Oscars in nine categories, but won only for Best Original Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz and Orsen Welles.
It was alleged that the story of Citizen Kane was based on the life of the media giant William Randolph Hearst, and the film was seen by critics as a feeble imitation of Hearst. Film historian Don Kilbourne remarked that much of the information for Citizen Kane came from previously published material about Hearst and some of Kane’s speeches in the film were almost verbatim copies of Hearst’s. The Oscar Academy unjustly discredited Citizen Kane with its due honours only to evade the impending threats of William Randolph Hearst. It was one of the greatest blunders of the Oscars to be at loggerheads testifying the credibility of the Academy Awards.
The great Hollywood Film maker Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his work in any of his films except the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968 for lifetime achievement like the similar honorary award handed over to Satyajit Ray in his death bed in 1992.
The Bengali poet Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 but what about the Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar? Bharathiyar, like Gandhiji, revolted against the British and hence not considered for the Nobel Prize. What about Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, Henrik Ibsen, to cite a few who were not given the Nobel?
Till date, Musical Geniuses like M. S. Viswanathan, Illaiyaraja, and many others of similar caliber were conveniently ignored by the selectors of the India’s so called ‘Padma Awards’ or their culmination, the ‘Bharat Ratna.’ Even, they ignore a posthumous ‘Bharat Ratna’ to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. What a pity!
The Great Tamil Singer T. M. Soundararajan was belatedly given the Padma Sri in 2003 whereas his juniors like Singer Lata Mangeshkar, for example, who was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1969, Padma Vibhushan in 1999 and the ultimate Bharat Ratna in 2001. Both Lata Mangeshkar and her younger sister Asha Bhosle-Burman were given the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1989 and 2000 respectively. Versatile Actors N. T. Rama Rao and Kamal Haassan were given the Padma Sri in 1968 and 1990 respectively whereas people inferior to their ability were given the higher level Padma Awards such as Padma Bhushan, etc. The Acting Encyclopaedia Sivaji Ganesan was belatedly given the Dada Saheb Phalke Award by the Government of India and the actor par excellence Nagesh utterly denied any Padma or other higher awards. All the time, there are nasty power politics, partialities and other affinities that rot the vicarious awards with their due rust and end in jokes!
To aspire for such ignorant awards is another kind of joke. Illaiyaraja lamented recently that awards given belatedly would loose their values. What to say of this!
Such are the unworthiness of awards and prizes that vicariously harvest some other achievers’ hardships.
Mathematician Andrew Wiles had solved in 1995, the Fermat’s Last Theorem, one of the two greatest unsolved problems of Mathematics, the other being the Riemann Hypothesis, but the Field’s Medal was denied to him, citing that Prof. Andrew Wiles aged 42 years in 1995, had already crossed their age limit of strictly 40 years and below to receive the Mathematical Nobel equivalent! Crazy prizes and their curious idiosyncrasies!
Four mathematicians were awarded the Fields Medal for 2006 and during the awards ceremony, all the four were expected to collect their respective gold medals and glory in Madrid, Spain, only three turned up.
In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Dr. Grigory Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. The Fields Medal is the highest award in mathematics; two to four medals are awarded every four years.
Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, approached Dr. Perelman in St. Petersburg in June 2006 to persuade him to accept the prize. After 10 hours of persuading over two days, he gave up. Two weeks later, Dr. Perelman summed up the conversation as: “He proposed to me three alternatives: accept and come; accept and don’t come, and we will send you the medal later; third, I don’t accept the prize. From the very beginning, I told him I have chosen the third one. The prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed.”
On 22 August 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, “for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow.” He did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first person in history to decline this prestigious prize.
It was reported that a U. K. newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, reported on 20th August 2006 that it had tracked down Perelman to a flat in St. Petersburg, where he had been living with his mother. The mathematician was quoted as saying: “I do not think anything that I say can be of the slightest public interest. I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer the public.”
Nobel prizes have been turned down six times: twice by the winners, and four times because winners were forbidden to accept the award by their home countries. But the situation had been unprecedented for the 2006 Fields Medal!
Jean-Paul Sartre declined the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature because he always refused official honours. Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger jointly declined the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize due to their being awarded it even though Vietnam was not yet at peace.
What about the Musical Wizard Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? All his life, he was seeking an amicable patron to take care of the mundane necessities so that he could entirely devote time adoring Music. He was left to deteriorate but even in that miserable calamity, he bestowed the world with his lasting enchanting Music.
Rahman enjoys himself being called the ‘Mozart of Madras’ but it is like calling Actor Dhanush the ‘Indian Bruce Lee’. However, Dhanush had asked the media and his fans to stop addressing him like that. The only thing similar in the lives of Mozart and Rahman was that of their proposing and getting rejected on different aspects by the elder sisters of their respective spouses before marriage! Mozart was never converted to another religion even at the predicament of his or any of his family member’s severe ailments. He was subjected to penury and never yielded to the fakes and flatteries at the cost of his dignity. His genius transformed all his compositions into masterpieces. It is absurd to equate and compare one person with another in general and a clear case of the sickness termed vicariosis to associate oneself in somewhat like terms with that of a Bruce Lee or a Mozart in particular! Every number has got its uniqueness!!
Many a time, these vicarious prizes, awards and honours were given to unqualified people or for unsuitable reasons. Albert Einstein was never given a Nobel Prize for his celebrated contribution to Physics, ‘The Theory of Relativity.’ He was given it in 1921 for his paper on the photo-electric effect. Thomas Alva Edison never received a Nobel Prize for his numerous useful inventions.
The Prizes or Awards, constituted mostly to compensate a past sin, after their original purpose was satisfied, they add on their sinning value by yielding to manipulation, substandardness and the orgy of inflicting vicarious pleasures.
Mahatma Gandhi, Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Orsen Welles and his Citizen Kane, Andrew Wiles, Grisha Perelman and a gross of others of all times always constitute a separate class surpassing beyond the grips of vicarious awards. As long as there is darkness to blur with falsity, there is light to establish truth!
Johann Sebastian Bach humbly said: “I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results.”
Awards or Prizes will never ever measure the greatness of a glorious work. Great works survive the test of time and always inspire mankind as the guiding spirit. The greatest award or prize is bestowed to the Great Minds, who perspire with determination devoting even their minuscule moments, in the form of bliss while working that only leads to the great creations! Other ersatz recognitions only foster vicariosities of increasing orders nurturing proxy feelings which enormously corrupt the uninitiated minds. The vicarious honours are in no way equal to the inspirational primary delight achieved during the process of doing original work!
—S. Maheshkumar.
{Composed on 3rd & 4th and revised on 6th March 2009 at 5 PM & 2 PM and 12.11 PM, respectively, Indian Standard Time.}
THERE is no point in arguing for or against Rahman, Illaiyaraja, R. D. Burman, Naushad, M. S. Viswanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, G. Ramanathan, et al., in terms of the Awards or Prizes they receive or not receive.
These kinds of tom-toms and hypes are vicarious. To judge one’s work of its value in terms of vicarious awards such as Oscars, Nobel Prize, and others, in no way stands testimony to the greatness of a person or a work.
For example, the greatest apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, was not given the Nobel Prize, even though he was nominated for the prize many times when he was alive. In order to please the British Imperialists, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to ignore the Nobel Peace Prize to Mahatma who was revolting against the British with his almighty weapon of ‘Ahimsa.’
Citizen Kane is regarded as the all time classic in the history of world cinema. It was released in 1941 directed by Orsen Welles who also played the lead role in it. It was nominated for the Oscars in nine categories, but won only for Best Original Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz and Orsen Welles.
It was alleged that the story of Citizen Kane was based on the life of the media giant William Randolph Hearst, and the film was seen by critics as a feeble imitation of Hearst. Film historian Don Kilbourne remarked that much of the information for Citizen Kane came from previously published material about Hearst and some of Kane’s speeches in the film were almost verbatim copies of Hearst’s. The Oscar Academy unjustly discredited Citizen Kane with its due honours only to evade the impending threats of William Randolph Hearst. It was one of the greatest blunders of the Oscars to be at loggerheads testifying the credibility of the Academy Awards.
The great Hollywood Film maker Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for his work in any of his films except the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968 for lifetime achievement like the similar honorary award handed over to Satyajit Ray in his death bed in 1992.
The Bengali poet Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 but what about the Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar? Bharathiyar, like Gandhiji, revolted against the British and hence not considered for the Nobel Prize. What about Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, Henrik Ibsen, to cite a few who were not given the Nobel?
Till date, Musical Geniuses like M. S. Viswanathan, Illaiyaraja, and many others of similar caliber were conveniently ignored by the selectors of the India’s so called ‘Padma Awards’ or their culmination, the ‘Bharat Ratna.’ Even, they ignore a posthumous ‘Bharat Ratna’ to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. What a pity!
The Great Tamil Singer T. M. Soundararajan was belatedly given the Padma Sri in 2003 whereas his juniors like Singer Lata Mangeshkar, for example, who was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1969, Padma Vibhushan in 1999 and the ultimate Bharat Ratna in 2001. Both Lata Mangeshkar and her younger sister Asha Bhosle-Burman were given the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1989 and 2000 respectively. Versatile Actors N. T. Rama Rao and Kamal Haassan were given the Padma Sri in 1968 and 1990 respectively whereas people inferior to their ability were given the higher level Padma Awards such as Padma Bhushan, etc. The Acting Encyclopaedia Sivaji Ganesan was belatedly given the Dada Saheb Phalke Award by the Government of India and the actor par excellence Nagesh utterly denied any Padma or other higher awards. All the time, there are nasty power politics, partialities and other affinities that rot the vicarious awards with their due rust and end in jokes!
To aspire for such ignorant awards is another kind of joke. Illaiyaraja lamented recently that awards given belatedly would loose their values. What to say of this!
Such are the unworthiness of awards and prizes that vicariously harvest some other achievers’ hardships.
Mathematician Andrew Wiles had solved in 1995, the Fermat’s Last Theorem, one of the two greatest unsolved problems of Mathematics, the other being the Riemann Hypothesis, but the Field’s Medal was denied to him, citing that Prof. Andrew Wiles aged 42 years in 1995, had already crossed their age limit of strictly 40 years and below to receive the Mathematical Nobel equivalent! Crazy prizes and their curious idiosyncrasies!
Four mathematicians were awarded the Fields Medal for 2006 and during the awards ceremony, all the four were expected to collect their respective gold medals and glory in Madrid, Spain, only three turned up.
In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Dr. Grigory Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. The Fields Medal is the highest award in mathematics; two to four medals are awarded every four years.
Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, approached Dr. Perelman in St. Petersburg in June 2006 to persuade him to accept the prize. After 10 hours of persuading over two days, he gave up. Two weeks later, Dr. Perelman summed up the conversation as: “He proposed to me three alternatives: accept and come; accept and don’t come, and we will send you the medal later; third, I don’t accept the prize. From the very beginning, I told him I have chosen the third one. The prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed.”
On 22 August 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, “for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow.” He did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first person in history to decline this prestigious prize.
It was reported that a U. K. newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, reported on 20th August 2006 that it had tracked down Perelman to a flat in St. Petersburg, where he had been living with his mother. The mathematician was quoted as saying: “I do not think anything that I say can be of the slightest public interest. I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer the public.”
Nobel prizes have been turned down six times: twice by the winners, and four times because winners were forbidden to accept the award by their home countries. But the situation had been unprecedented for the 2006 Fields Medal!
Jean-Paul Sartre declined the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature because he always refused official honours. Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger jointly declined the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize due to their being awarded it even though Vietnam was not yet at peace.
What about the Musical Wizard Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? All his life, he was seeking an amicable patron to take care of the mundane necessities so that he could entirely devote time adoring Music. He was left to deteriorate but even in that miserable calamity, he bestowed the world with his lasting enchanting Music.
Rahman enjoys himself being called the ‘Mozart of Madras’ but it is like calling Actor Dhanush the ‘Indian Bruce Lee’. However, Dhanush had asked the media and his fans to stop addressing him like that. The only thing similar in the lives of Mozart and Rahman was that of their proposing and getting rejected on different aspects by the elder sisters of their respective spouses before marriage! Mozart was never converted to another religion even at the predicament of his or any of his family member’s severe ailments. He was subjected to penury and never yielded to the fakes and flatteries at the cost of his dignity. His genius transformed all his compositions into masterpieces. It is absurd to equate and compare one person with another in general and a clear case of the sickness termed vicariosis to associate oneself in somewhat like terms with that of a Bruce Lee or a Mozart in particular! Every number has got its uniqueness!!
Many a time, these vicarious prizes, awards and honours were given to unqualified people or for unsuitable reasons. Albert Einstein was never given a Nobel Prize for his celebrated contribution to Physics, ‘The Theory of Relativity.’ He was given it in 1921 for his paper on the photo-electric effect. Thomas Alva Edison never received a Nobel Prize for his numerous useful inventions.
The Prizes or Awards, constituted mostly to compensate a past sin, after their original purpose was satisfied, they add on their sinning value by yielding to manipulation, substandardness and the orgy of inflicting vicarious pleasures.
Mahatma Gandhi, Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Orsen Welles and his Citizen Kane, Andrew Wiles, Grisha Perelman and a gross of others of all times always constitute a separate class surpassing beyond the grips of vicarious awards. As long as there is darkness to blur with falsity, there is light to establish truth!
Johann Sebastian Bach humbly said: “I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results.”
Awards or Prizes will never ever measure the greatness of a glorious work. Great works survive the test of time and always inspire mankind as the guiding spirit. The greatest award or prize is bestowed to the Great Minds, who perspire with determination devoting even their minuscule moments, in the form of bliss while working that only leads to the great creations! Other ersatz recognitions only foster vicariosities of increasing orders nurturing proxy feelings which enormously corrupt the uninitiated minds. The vicarious honours are in no way equal to the inspirational primary delight achieved during the process of doing original work!
—S. Maheshkumar.
{Composed on 3rd & 4th and revised on 6th March 2009 at 5 PM & 2 PM and 12.11 PM, respectively, Indian Standard Time.}
