The story of the birth of possibly one of the greatest personalities known to humanity is thought provoking… I shall not mention which personality by name because we live in troubled times where taking names can be twisted and construed as anti-national activity… let’s just say this is a story not related to any religion, region, race or person…
He was the eighth born of a line of children who had been summarily killed by their own maternal uncle upon birth. All because of a prophecy that one of the children of his sister would kill the evil uncle who had usurped the throne. The sheer revolting nature of this cruel tale does not end at the brutal murder of the seven elder children (apparently heads smashed against the walls of the dungeon upon birth)… it goes on. So when the eighth was born it was raining very heavily, just like it’s been raining very heavily today some 5000 years on… miraculously the restrains on his dad fell off, the doors of the jail flung open and the guards fell asleep… the father carried him across the swollen, flooding river to his sisters house to try and save his eighth born. There as luck would have it a girl child had been born to the sister at precisely the same time. So now our dear personalities’ father devises a plan and for the greater good that plan is approved of by the sister and her husband as well. The exchange happens. With a heavy heart the girl child is transported back to the dungeons where the evil uncle had imprisoned his sister and her husband. She starts crying the moment her maternal uncle, he too was the new born girls maternal uncle mind you, lays her down next to his wife, at the same instance the guards wake up and everything else returns to as it was. The evil uncle appears upon being informed that the eight child is born. He summarily disposes off of the new born (there is some ambiguity between different sources some say she is disposed off some say she turns into a Goddess and informs the evil uncle that his end has already started growing up in another part of the kingdom and that even though she can dispose off of him right away she will let him live with the thought that the end is near for a few more days and then she disappears into the heavens above)…. Essentially to save the life of one of the biggest personalities (notice I still refuse to go into the territory which could get me in trouble with the right wing saffron clad terrorists out there… this is just about some random personality not the one you think it is about)… the life of a female child was sacrificed. To this day, 5000 years hence, we celebrate the birthday of that personality who taught us so much about life and how to handle challenges that it throws at us. We seldom however remember the new born girl who perished so this child could survive.
Five thousand years on in today’s life too this is true for so many of us. Some of us choose to take a back seat, we assume a supplementary role just so that our partner, our brother/sister/husband/wife may progress and succeed in life. This is not for a lack of ambition in most cases, on the contrary it is a supreme trust in ones abilities to succeed at life regardless of the role one assumes. The selection of who goes ahead and who is sacrificed is not something that is based on any real knowledge of the future, because, let’s face it nobody knows about the future. It is just a deliberated decision about who is more capable of the success that the team needs and maybe also considering who is stronger, ergo better equipped, to handle sacrifice. Sometimes, very rarely it is possible for both to forge ahead and be equally successful in the traditional sense though I feel that is again a compromise that both partners make and as a result the level of success they actually achieve is not the true peak that one of them could have attained had the other taken a backseat…. then again it’s all conjecture. Sometimes the distance that success and a backseat puts between each other is so humongous that bridging that gap becomes difficult. It’s nobody’s fault really that this happens because technically back seat offered to do that in the beginning for whatever motives, selfish or otherwise. It is only later, looking at the way society views back seats, that the resentment creeps up. Then again there is the thing about nobody knows the reality of an equation except for the two variables involved in the actual equation. People looking in from the outside are not expected to know and almost always they get the wrong idea about the whole equation. Success after all is not just about climbing the corporate ladder earning a certain salary or being a certain way. In such a scenario where success too can be defined in a multitude of ways how then do we really say that a sacrifice was actually a loss and not a different route to the same end?!
All these maybes, ifs and buts aside I think it is important for everyone to acknowledge the sacrifices they make for each other. While we celebrate traditional success it is equally important to acknowledge the reason behind that success. Remember the great personality on his birthday but never forget the great personality who gave up her life to make sure He survived and grew. Today of all days one remembers the child who was sacrificed so that God could live on…