THERE IS A FELLOW BY THE NAME ROWAN
“There is a fellow
by the name Rowan
who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”
Elbert Hubbard in his essay - ‘A
Message to Garcia’
During
my initial days in this big city (Bombay, now Mumbai), I had picked many inspirational
books on the city’s footpaths… Napolean Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and ‘The
Law of Success’, Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, ‘How
to Stop Worrying and Start Living’, Norman Vincent Peale’s ‘The Power of Positive
Thinking’ and many more had come to me from the footpaths… like at 5 bucks or
10 bucks. But, to tell you the truth (and it was inscribed on the front cover of
‘Think and Grow Rich’), each book was ‘worth a million dollar’ to me… I was
hungry, not only in my stomach… I was hungry in my heart, too…
As a pleasant
bonus, Dale Carnegie had included three famous essays at the end of his book, ‘How
to Stop Worrying and Start Living’. ‘As a Man thinketh’ by James Allan, ‘Acres
of Diamond’ by Russell Conwell and ‘A Message to Garcia’ by Elbert Hubbard.
I loved and was
inspired by all three of them…
Last evening, I
dearly remembered ‘A Message to Garcia’.
For those, who
haven’t heard of this essay, Hubbard’s essay has a ‘hero’ by the name Rowan, an
American soldier. During the Spanish-American war, President William McKinley
wanted to send an important and urgent secret message to the Cuban rebel leader
(call him the freedom fighter) General Garcia, who was hiding somewhere in the distant
Cuban jungles. But, the message had to be urgently delivered. “There is a
fellow by the name Rowan, who can carry the message to Garcia for you, if
anyone can,” the President was told by his advisor. So, Rowan was called in and
briefed about the secret mission to be carried out… Brief taken, off goes Rowan,
crossings rivers, mountains and jungles… A few weeks later, the message
delivered, he reports before the President…
The Story of
Rowan ends there… The rest is Hubbard’s priceless commentary on the vital leadership qualities needed for success in life – initiative, enthusiasm,
determination, patience and endurance.
I was reading
this essay, over and over again, and absorbing that essence of the
million-dollar virtue, which has been, down the ages, hailed as ‘Killer instinct’ by some, ‘Fire in
the belly’ by some, ‘Do-or-die spirit’ by some,’ ‘Bulldog determination’ by
some. etc., etc., etc…
Steve Jobs made
the expression ‘Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish’ very famous… He had borrowed it from two young
men before him; and our own Rashmi Bansal baptized her best-selling book, much
later, by the same name…
A 'Go-getter attitude' means exactly that – ‘Go for it, like a bulldog’…
‘Go Kiss the
World’ was how the dying mother of the author, Subroto Bagchi, bid him goodbye
when he was leaving the town… She was telling him, “You have kissed me; now go,
kiss the world.”
And,
I have not yet told you what makes me remember all of this, today…
Last evening, a well-wisher
of mine shared through, the Messenger, this advertisement on FB:
“I remembered
you, when I saw this ad,” my well-wisher said with all her sincerity…
Maybe, in her assessment,
I possessed all the qualities needed for job. But, outright, I knew I was
failing on the quality no. 3… I was a ‘Mr. Nobody-from-Nowhere’ during my
entire years of academics… Shy like a touch-me-not, scared, dumb!
I knew I
possessed rest of the qualities. And, the quality no 5 – ‘Get-shit-done Attitude’
made me smile…
Did I possess
it?
I am sure, late Elbert
Hubbard and Late Dale Carnegie, both, will vouch for me. They will, also, smile
from their graves, amused to see how the vital attitude of ‘Go, carry a message
to Garcia’ has now been recycled into – ‘Get-shit-done attitude’!
“Thank you, my
friend, for remembering me to be qualified for this ‘Mission’”, I
replied to my well-wisher, “But, you know my ‘daud’… It is like Mullah ki
daud – only my Masjid tak.”
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic’s.: Pixabay 1. cp17
2. freestock.photos
Video: Rich & Spiritual
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