“oh! once again ‘NO” .why don’t they understand that once i ‘ll succeed in my “eterprise of orient”. we’ll be we bathing in the sea of peals and gold.
No ! but i shouldn’t stop trying .let’s go to Spain, Fedinand and Isabella has recently won a war they may show some curiosity in my enterprise”
thence Christopher Columbus packed his bags, left ENGLAND and reached Spain and eventually wooed ferdinand and Isabella to sponsor his voyage. he ventured out in sea with his crew to discover indies . after, almost ten weeks in oct 1492 he reached an island , not “indies ” but “america”.A nation ,which changed the course of world history .
he dared and acted though failed to get intended results yet his efforts didn’t go unrewarded .
thus it is said – “fortune favors the bold”
midnight of aug 14-15 ,1947 our first prime minster Nehru, unfurled tricolor on red fort and declared India as a democracy with universal adult franchise . Then, winston churchil barked:- ” this is the farce of democracy. how can you expect a nation, with 80% of its population illiterate , embracing universal adult franchise and dreaming of sustaining democracy”
and today we stand firm as the largest democracy of world .
what made it possible ?
yes! earnest efforts of our leaders and when leaders faltered , 1975 emergency, then masses in defense of their democratic freedom came on roads .we dared ,we ventured and thus earned our fortune which keeps our democracy intact till day.
Napoleon once said “if there would have not been Rousseau ,there ‘ld have n’t been French revolution”. Rousseau, an enlightenment philosopher of France,throughout his life talked about a “social contract” between king and his people, wherein king is there to guard some natural rights of people and if he fails to do so he should be overthrown. he was imprisoned , outcast from France but never succumbed to the pressure. and finally his ideas fructified in the form of french revolution sand today his ideas like popular will, liberty , freedom, and fraternity became the foundation stone of governance structure throughout world . Thus he, too had the shower of fortune though after death.
Gandhi adhering to his philosophy – “eye for eye ‘ll make this world blind” carried out Indian freedom struggle non violently with weapons like satyagraha , non- corporation , civil disobedience ,khadi etc. he relentlessly fought for freedom without compromising with his philosophy of non violence . and then had a shower of fortune when efficacy of his philosophy of.” eye for eye”. acknowledged by world leaders in the form of Atlantic charter and decided to efface colonialism from world . which further facilitated the struggle of Gandhi for freedom and we gained independence
Sardar patel, was given the uphill task of uniting more than 550 princely sates into one unified nation if then if ‘ld have failed to deliver guts to that challenge we ‘ld have never been united as a nation and dominating whole of the subcontinent. in his this pursuit when 3 states (junagarh, hydrabad and jammu and kashmir ) refused to yield, then he resorted to some hard moves which were favored by fortune .In hydrabad he used force , in junagarh he was blessed by public referendum and J &K was attacked by pakistan which made Raja Hari Singh of kasmir to sign the instrument of accession .so here too destiny admired the unprecedented effort of a brave man ,sardar patel and conspired in favor of him in unifying india
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after independence when world was reeling under the wave of cold war and and countries were aligning with either of the power blocs . then, we decided to remain non-aligned.both of the power bloc raised their eyebrows on this decision .But due to that policy of non alignment we managed to succeed in signing a civil nuclear deal with U.S.A. we dared in 1950’s and thus fortune showered in 2008 a civil nuclear deal.
History is rife with such examples where men dared , acted ,and fortune favored them in their pursuit and there are many instances where men failed to be gutsy and suffered humiliation. How can we forget the Chinese aggression of 1962 which was self incurred by J.L nehru .Chinese intentions were conspicuous by her actions like raising military infrastructure in aksai chin and showing arunachal as Chinese territory .ignoring such warnings he(nehru) preferred diplomacy “hindi chini bhai bhai” to military consolidation and carved out panchsheel . he embraced an easy way and failed to appreciate that without a military backing diplomatic endeavors fail to succeed .thus estranged fortune and India suffered humiliating defeat.
coming to modern era now. we as a nation boast of demographic dividend. our PM , wherever he visits, he voices out loud- we are the young nation with 65 % of our population is below 35 years come and make in india. but, imagine if PM after making such announcements comes home and relish a nap .does not envisage programs like ” skill india” to skill this young population and when investors from outside come to India at his behest find them(youth) skill scarce and refused to hire them . then ain’t this divindend ‘ll overnight turn into a “curse”. The fortune ‘ld have showerd upon PM and his youth if he had ensured the success of programs like skill india ,start up stand up india etc.thus rather than having a nap he need to be more dynamic to empower these young guns with proper skill which he had done by launching SKILL INDIA and the only challenge left is to make sure it fructifies in time.
being brave is undeniably necessary for taming fortune.but we should never forget that there a subtle difference between insanity and bravery . . you can not expect a sheep beat a lion in face to face confrontation .doesn’t matter how gutsy the sheep is . thus it becomes necessary that before venturing into any adventure we first need to fathom our own potential only then we should pursue it . we must acknowledge that we can’t break a an iron wall with our head stroke, as doing that folly ‘ll deliver us a broken head. and many leaders in the past failed when they defied this norm. for instance, Hitlar and Napolean both lost in Russia. central Asian campaign of Muhammad bin Tuglaq where owing to tough climate and terrain he lost his most of the army. Akbar and Ashok knew that fear and terror can’t keep India united and under their control thus both used the sword of love and tolerance to keep their rule intact.
.when you really want something whole universe starts conspiring in favor of you. and this conspiracy done in your favor is tittled as “fortune”. the relentless efforts by making day and night one, is the only way we can earn fortune . harder we work luckier we get.We should never forget – a faint hearted man never won a fair lady.we all know that dreams of “shekhchilli” never achieved reality. thus relying entirely on fortune and not acting is tantamount to expecting a field to yield crop without sowing seeds.fortune or good luck is nothing but a matter of persistence and hard work.
rOtten apple 