LIKE A FERRARI WITHOUT FUEL
“Talent
without enthusiasm is like a Ferrari without fuel.”
Sebastyne
Young
Some
weeks ago, I received a call from an elderly woman. She said, that she was
referred to me by her neighbour. “The reason I called you is to tell you, that my grandson writes beautifully, both prose and poetry. My neigbour said, that you
are into publication of books. So, I wanted to check if it is possible to
consider my grandson’s case,” the woman said.
“Ma’am, I am a
small man. I just write something simple every day in my Blogs… Occasionally, I
bring them out in books… Also, I regularly bring articles of little ones and
young ones through the books published on behalf of a centre I have started
(THE DAWN CLUB CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE)… But, all these are self-published and not
commercial.”
The neighbour
woman, who had referred my name to this elderly woman, had shown one of our
books for which the neighbor woman’s daughter had designed the cover. The
elderly woman was impressed and, so, was genuinely checking with me, if I could
do something to publish her grandson’s work…
But, then, when
she learnt about the way I operated – without any commercial interest – she exclaimed,
“Oh!”
“But, ma’am, I
have this advice to offer to your grandson… Let him not worry too much about
publishing his work at this stage; let him keep writing and write passionately;
let him fully enjoy the process of writing and share his work through various
platforms like, Blog, Insta, FB, YouTube etc. These are free platforms… Let him
keep sharing his work without any profit motive.” Then, I concluded, “Please
ask your grandson to call me; I will be delighted to share these ideas with
him.”
The call hasn’t
come, yet. Maybe, I was the wrong person to be contacted! Well, I don’t want to
judge… Who knows the reason?
Throughout
the history of mankind, there have been only two kinds of ‘Success Schools’…
The one to which Arjuna belonged (The school of Dhronacharya, for the privileged
kids)… and the one to which Ekalavya belonged (The school of self-development,
for the underprivileged kids).
When nobody is
ready to teach you ‘archery’, when nobody is ready to publish your work, when
there is no money or Godfather to push you up… what can you do? - Just sit back
and sulk? Rot in self-pity and blame? Come on, do what the tribal boy Ekalavya
did – go out and do something… be a street-performer… Just do it with all your
passion and, importantly, enjoy doing it… Money and recognition may or may not
follow. But, then, what have you got to lose?
You have only to
gain!
That’s why, one of the things in my favourite watchlist are the videos of brilliant street-performers… They are the underprivileged gifted kids, who belong to the ‘Ekalavyan Success School’…
“Ma’am, I am an
Ekalavya,” I had told the doting grandma of her gifted grandson…
“What’s that?” she
had asked me, genuinely!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Maksim Goncharenok/Pixels
Videos: 1. James Marcal 2. Danile Vitale & Karolina Protsenko
3. Miguale Motalgan Music 4. Talent Recap (Malik Dope Drummer)
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