WORK HAS NEVER BROKEN ANYBODY'S BACK










Pic.: Malabika Ganguly


“Talent is cheaper than table salt.
What separates the talented individual from the successful one is
a lot of hard work.”
- Stephen King

Work, no matter how hard and long it is, has never broken anybody’s back. The resistance to work, which essentially comes from lack of love for the work, has. If I do not love the work I am doing, I will be doing it reluctantly, with my grumbling heart...

Back is broken only when heart grumbles... Nobody has died due to hard work... Never, ever. But with a hard, complaining heart, plenty have died, and they are dying still!

I don’t watch TV serials. But, whenever KBC comes, I do. Why? Besides the fact that I am a huge fan of Amitabh Bachchan, I watch it for this reason, too: He makes you feel that work can be a great pleasure even at an age when many retire, sit at home and keep complaining about their knee-joints, backache, poor eyesight and hard hearing...

Age is only in your mind. Amitabh says this with the title of one of his movies: ‘Budda Hoga Tera Baap’!

Seriously. Whenever I tend to complain in my own heart, just a thought of Mr. Bachchan, who is going to be 72 this October, is enough to give me a hard shake... “Get off your lazy butt,” I hear him shout at me...

The other day, some of my ISC-twelfth-standard students began to grumble about their heavy syllabus, the hard work and stress... When I heard this, I said, “Watch ‘Yudh’ tonight. I added, “If not for anything else, darlings, watch it for Amitabh Bachchan. At 72, hard work has not succeeded in killing him or breaking his back...”

The grumbling stopped for a while, even though I have no idea whether my students went home and watched the episode... But, then, it is okay... I wanted to tell them: “Look dudes, stress comes only when you resist, when you grumble. Embrace your work gladly... Look forward to it, love it...”

And, more than wanting to tell my young-students, I wanted to tell it to myself... “Dude, it is not work that breaks your back; it is your grumbling, the resistance.”

Seventeen or Fifty-six or Seventy-two... They are just some numbers. Aren’t they?

Go, work... Sorry, enjoy!

GERALD D’CUNHA

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