Individuality and Success

Is life a trade off between individuality and success? The ironies I have been experiencing and observing around me, have forced me come into terms with the fact that individuality and success don’t coexist, in the best of their degrees

I have come across several real-life and fictional characters with strong individuality and some other successful people with good individuality but often diplomatically comprising to the situations favoring their public acceptance or appreciation. History talks about several such heros, in music, in art forms, in literature, in research, and in other realms of life.

What I try to imply by the term, Success, is the general appreciation or the glory conferred upon a person by the system or the society of which he is a part of, since it’s a highly relativistic term.

I have often wondered why some people maintain their strong individuality in all occasions. Probably because they have a self appreciation and the strong feeling of satisfaction about their quality of being uncompromisingly individualistic. And for them they may be certainly the most successful and satisfied folks on the earth. Or sometimes they may not be even caring to think about the meaning of success.

An artistic figure whom I respect much for his individuality is none else than Palghat Mani Iyer. How Mani iyer, maintaining in tact his strong individuality and tacit straight forwardness, could get renowned as a great starlwart by the people in common and simultaneously by the most knowledged, is something that always fascinates and perplexes me. But that is moreover an empirical truth which none could/can ever deny. Needless to mention is the truth that, his fame and glory were not something he earned in a day or two; much unlike the present day Guinness bookers or the Big brothers who shoot into immortal vainglory within a few days of public gimmickry. During MDR’s Padmasri award felicitation ceremony, Mani Iyer noted, “Never play for the masses. Instead, train them to hear and appreciate what we play”. I sincerely doubt whether there is any artist today, who have the guts to proclaim and adhere to this.

Another embodiment of individuality is the Varadadasar, Sri MD Ramanathan. He is, I would say, the man who gave a new definition for the term, ‘individuality’ in carnatic music. Much obviously, his was not such a colorful life in terms of glories and stardom.

The movie Fountainhead (based on a novel by Ayn Rand) comes to my mind in this context. The protagonist, an architect by birth and profession, is a quintessence of strong individuality. His uncompromising zeal for getting the buildings constructed strictly based on his designs, without any negotiation for aesthetic appeal and fame, makes him grossly an unsuccessful person. And in a tough situation of his life, when another architect pleads with him to use one of his marvelous designs, he agrees to it without demanding even a single dough as compensation, strictly on the condition that the construction be made exactingly according to his plan. But later when he finds that his condition has been neglected he intrepidly ventures to blast down the construction!

The list of such figures is endless. In Carnatic Music itself if I can cite the names of several such great artists as TK Murthy Sir, Palghat Raghu Sir… how many more such purists would have immortalized their niche in other forms of music, performing arts, literature, sciences and philosophies of other nations, other civilizations…It was nothing else for their undiluted faith in their meritorious creations, that they stood for. It was that confidence of them, the purists, to surpass all the powers of social doctrines based on superficiality and ignorance. Their contributions were out of the ample time they made found for themselves unlike their mediocre counterparts, who might have probably wasted their time in getting themselves preached.

My earnest salutations to all the masterminds, especially for the ones whose names are unknown to us just because they weren’t interested in getting their names carved on the sands of history. It would have been nice if our society, to the least, took care not to term them, appallingly as ‘gandhians” or ‘idiosyncratic brats’ if not try to become eligible and meritorious enough to realize and acknowledge their contributions.