IF YOUR ACTIONS INSPIRE OTHERS TO DREAM MORE...
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn
more,
do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
- John Quincy Adams
“Sounds familiar,” he said, “Do not remember where I came across it.”
He was my friend.
He was reacting to the title of my last blog post – ‘O Captain! My Captain!’
My last post was
inspired by the gestures of two Cricket captains. Steve Smith. He had to step
down as the Captain of Australian cricket team in March 2018 after the infamous
ball-tampering incident. He had addressed the international media and publicly
broken down… Though he was not found directly involved with the act, being the
Captain of this team, he had taken full responsibility and accepted the
punishment – one year ban from playing international cricket.
By that one act,
Smith had won millions of hearts. I remember getting choked with emotions
watching that video… “What a leader! What a man!” I had exclaimed.
To err is human.
To say genuinely ‘I erred, I am sorry,’ is super human… It’s divine. Of all the
qualities in the world, this quality makes a man a true leader. “Own up… Take responsibility.”
The other Captain
was our own, Virat Kohli. During the India V Australia World Cup match in
England, Smith, who was fielding at the boundary line, was being relentlessly
booed by Indian supporter with the chant, “Cheater’, ‘Cheater’, and ‘Cheater’.
It was then that Kohli stood up there in the field facing the Indian supporters
and asked them to stop jeering and start cheering. Later, on behalf of the
Indian supporters, Kohli apologized to Smith…
Virat Kohli, not
only won for us a world-cup match against the formidable Australia, he also won
our hearts by his classy gesture…
“What a leader!
What a man!” Yes, that’s how I exclaimed, here, too. My last blog was a tribute
to these two Captains… Smith and Kohli.
So, after reading the title of my last Post- ‘O Captain! My captain!”
this friend of mine was curious to know why it sounded so familiar…
I told him the
story behind ‘O Captain, My Captain!”…
Abraham Lincoln,
the 16th American President, was assassinated in 1865. Walt Whitman
composed the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" after Lincoln's
assassination as an elegy or mourning poem, and was written to honor Lincoln.
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 and died in 1892, and the American Civil War was
the central event of his life. Whitman was a staunch Unionist during the Civil
War. He was initially indifferent to Lincoln, but as the war pressed on,
Whitman came to love the president, though the two men never met.
"O Captain!
My Captain!" became one of Whitman's most famous poems, one that he would
read at the end of his famous lecture about the Lincoln assassination. Whitman
became so identified with the poem that late in life he remarked, "Damn My
Captain... I'm almost sorry I ever wrote the poem." (Source: Wikipedia).
My friend hadn’t
heard of Whitman’s poem. “I think, I heard it in a movie,” he said.
“Yes, you are
right,” I said, “In Robin Williams’ amazing movie, ‘Dead Poets Society’ (1989).”
Ironically, in
this movie, too, Robin Williams, who plays the role of an English teacher, goes
about inspiring his students through the love for poetry… and, his unconventional
way of teaching his young students invites adoration from his students and
wrath from the school authorities… The teacher is asked to leave, and, leave
immediately… There is this heart-stopping scene in the movie, where, as their
teacher is forced to leave, the students, one by one, mount on the desks and
cry, “O Captain! My Captain!”
“Yes, that’s what
I was trying to recall,” my friend said, “What a movie! What an actor!”
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Rekha Srikar Shenoy
Videos: Poetry In Voice/ CineGraf/YouTube
Comments