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Envy is a raw emotion. A face stricken with envy is the ugliest face to look at.
A few decades ago when color TVs were new in the Indian market, Onida ran an ad that had the slogan:
"Neighbor's envy...owner's pride"
The logo of envy that the ad chose was the proverbial green-eyed monster. Only, the monster that appeared in their ad was green all over, had a couple of horns and a tail, in addition to green eyes...at least that was how it looked on my greenish Oscar TV screen in the 1980s.
It is a different matter that some green-eyed beauties are envied even in their motherhood. In our boyhood we used to tease our green-eyed girls as 'cat-eyed'. It just shows...
I don't think all people like to be 'envied than pitied' a la Herodotus. Most folks want to be neither envied nor pitied...just accepted as they are, through thick and thin. But it doesn't always happen. When you do find someone who takes you for what you are and not what you are worth, you have found a friend.
Envy is funny. It is not only the wealthy, the mighty, or the pretty that are envied. Even folks who have nothing to show for themselves can be envied.
In the wonderland of sadhus, the flowing ocher-robed ones envy the loin-clothed Gandhis. And these in turn envy the cod-piece chaps...cod-piece (kaupeen) is the pocket-handkerchief worn across the unmentionables. And these in their turn envy the stark naked ones, calling them Digambars (chaps who have the very sky as their wear). These last are the naga-sadhus and, for their preeminence, they get the first ticket to lead the bathing-procession in the Kumbh Mela...although they have nothing to wash except their unkempt bodies and sins.
My Guru, SDM, had a torrid time during his long stay at his alma mater, the Calcutta University, during his prime time. He was not promoted from the meanest lectureship although his reputation went sky-high. He once told me in an expansive moment:
"It is best not to provoke envy in your colleagues. But you can't help it. I was not a great teacher. Nor a prolific researcher. Nor did I build a school. Nor did I ever crave for awards or membership of sundry august professional bodies. Nor did I fetch project funds. Nor wrote bulky tomes. Nor was I rich, nor handsome. Still I could see that everyone at Calcutta University envied me and that made me miserable. I had to leave Calcutta and run to KGP. Here I am happy. These engineers are innocent people. They find nothing in me to envy and so leave me alone. My decade at KGP has been the happiest of my life"
Cassius had no reason to envy Julius Caesar. He was just another senator with neither the ability nor ambition to replace Caesar. But he so resented the very existence of Caesar that he plotted his assassination, roping in Brutus, a friend and admirer of Caesar, with all his vile and guile. Here is his famous provocation:
For three years we were renting an apartment near Banjara Hills, where my son's office was a walking distance away. We were quite happy there on the whole. My son was rising fast in his profession, he got married and had a cute wife and a cutest daughter. And my pension too was bloating by the year. And we were a stone's throw from my friend NP's place.
Then my son shifted to a job in the Hi-Tec city far off from Banjara Hills. And we too wished to shift to an apartment nearer to his office. My D-i-L was browsing the net for suitable flats. And found an ad for a 3-bedroom flat in a spanking new NRI gated township. And applied. And there was a telephone call from the owner asking my son and his wife and infant kid to visit him and his wife at the said apartment for a face-up.
The owner and his wife were simply charmed by the youthful couple with a lovable kid in their arms. He was praying for a brahmin family as the first rental in his brand-new flat. He himself was an orthodox brahmin, he and his wife having retired just then from their government jobs in Hyderabad. He also wanted an educated family, not just rich. And he came to know that the father and mother of my son, who would be living with him, were sufficiently educated to qualify. He was so immensely pleased that he reduced the advertised rent by a couple of thousand rupees. The owner-couple practically embraced their god-sent first-tenants...an auspicious omen.
And he revealed that this flat and a couple of others belonged, not to him, but to his two sons who were settled in the US. He and his wife were merely care-takers. And he and his missus miss their kids and grandkids badly in their old age...they can only Skype them everyday.
And he was so moved that he blurted out to my son:
"I envy your parents!"
Little did he know that my wife was then a ticking time bomb ready to explode any moment, having been diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer...
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"It is better to be envied than pitied"
...Herodotus
"Man will do many things to be loved...he will do everything to be envied"
....Mark Twain
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Envy is a raw emotion. A face stricken with envy is the ugliest face to look at.
A few decades ago when color TVs were new in the Indian market, Onida ran an ad that had the slogan:
"Neighbor's envy...owner's pride"
The logo of envy that the ad chose was the proverbial green-eyed monster. Only, the monster that appeared in their ad was green all over, had a couple of horns and a tail, in addition to green eyes...at least that was how it looked on my greenish Oscar TV screen in the 1980s.
It is a different matter that some green-eyed beauties are envied even in their motherhood. In our boyhood we used to tease our green-eyed girls as 'cat-eyed'. It just shows...
I don't think all people like to be 'envied than pitied' a la Herodotus. Most folks want to be neither envied nor pitied...just accepted as they are, through thick and thin. But it doesn't always happen. When you do find someone who takes you for what you are and not what you are worth, you have found a friend.
Envy is funny. It is not only the wealthy, the mighty, or the pretty that are envied. Even folks who have nothing to show for themselves can be envied.
In the wonderland of sadhus, the flowing ocher-robed ones envy the loin-clothed Gandhis. And these in turn envy the cod-piece chaps...cod-piece (kaupeen) is the pocket-handkerchief worn across the unmentionables. And these in their turn envy the stark naked ones, calling them Digambars (chaps who have the very sky as their wear). These last are the naga-sadhus and, for their preeminence, they get the first ticket to lead the bathing-procession in the Kumbh Mela...although they have nothing to wash except their unkempt bodies and sins.
My Guru, SDM, had a torrid time during his long stay at his alma mater, the Calcutta University, during his prime time. He was not promoted from the meanest lectureship although his reputation went sky-high. He once told me in an expansive moment:
"It is best not to provoke envy in your colleagues. But you can't help it. I was not a great teacher. Nor a prolific researcher. Nor did I build a school. Nor did I ever crave for awards or membership of sundry august professional bodies. Nor did I fetch project funds. Nor wrote bulky tomes. Nor was I rich, nor handsome. Still I could see that everyone at Calcutta University envied me and that made me miserable. I had to leave Calcutta and run to KGP. Here I am happy. These engineers are innocent people. They find nothing in me to envy and so leave me alone. My decade at KGP has been the happiest of my life"
Cassius had no reason to envy Julius Caesar. He was just another senator with neither the ability nor ambition to replace Caesar. But he so resented the very existence of Caesar that he plotted his assassination, roping in Brutus, a friend and admirer of Caesar, with all his vile and guile. Here is his famous provocation:
...Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings...
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings...
For three years we were renting an apartment near Banjara Hills, where my son's office was a walking distance away. We were quite happy there on the whole. My son was rising fast in his profession, he got married and had a cute wife and a cutest daughter. And my pension too was bloating by the year. And we were a stone's throw from my friend NP's place.
Then my son shifted to a job in the Hi-Tec city far off from Banjara Hills. And we too wished to shift to an apartment nearer to his office. My D-i-L was browsing the net for suitable flats. And found an ad for a 3-bedroom flat in a spanking new NRI gated township. And applied. And there was a telephone call from the owner asking my son and his wife and infant kid to visit him and his wife at the said apartment for a face-up.
The owner and his wife were simply charmed by the youthful couple with a lovable kid in their arms. He was praying for a brahmin family as the first rental in his brand-new flat. He himself was an orthodox brahmin, he and his wife having retired just then from their government jobs in Hyderabad. He also wanted an educated family, not just rich. And he came to know that the father and mother of my son, who would be living with him, were sufficiently educated to qualify. He was so immensely pleased that he reduced the advertised rent by a couple of thousand rupees. The owner-couple practically embraced their god-sent first-tenants...an auspicious omen.
And he revealed that this flat and a couple of others belonged, not to him, but to his two sons who were settled in the US. He and his wife were merely care-takers. And he and his missus miss their kids and grandkids badly in their old age...they can only Skype them everyday.
And he was so moved that he blurted out to my son:
"I envy your parents!"
Little did he know that my wife was then a ticking time bomb ready to explode any moment, having been diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer...
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