The Sweet Aroma of Success

Does success have a smell? How do we know that we have succeeded? Is it just the material effect for the cause of our effort or is it the emotional kick we receive?

I was compelled to think of this on my idle lil train journey, back home from college. That unassuming moment just passed me by & it took me a full minute to realize its impact.

A boy (possibly aged 10 or 12) boarded the compartment at a station. The next station was 10 minutes away, atleast. He carried a sling bag on his right shoulder, with a pair of rubber slip-in soles in his left palm. His face was dark & covered with soot, his eyebrows mixed with the toil of the day. Hair silky yet disheveled, sweaty & dusty. He wore a GnR T-shirt with an indistinct cloth underneath which I presumed to be his shorts. He was the 'local train shoe shine', carrying his mobile business from station to station, from compartment to compartment, hoping that his next meal would come from shining a leather shoe. Before the pitch, he hummed a very fine tune under his breath. Totally unrecognizable but a tune nevertheless. His eyes gleamed with a sense of pride & sunk into a pitiful despair when the first prospect turned him down.

Unrelenting, he moved on from one alley to next in the compartment, soliciting his shoe shine service. He had no hope on his face, yet he knew the rules of the game. He knew that its not necessary that every person wearing a leather shoe will always have his shoes shone from him. Did this realization permit him the strength to skip a meal?

Still humming under his breath & only momentarily pausing while approaching a prospect, to ask "suu polisss", "suu polisss" & resuming the hum in perfect rhythm with the clanking of the train's wheels. His proverbial "suu polisss", "suu poliss" also seemed like a part of a song, with the clanky beat trying to convey a sense of integrity to not steal his next meal, but to work for it.

Finally, just a few minutes before the train arrived at the station, a prospect is converted into a customer. His brown shoes dont prove to be a challenge & he pulls out all the tools of the trade. Like an expert soldier re-assembling his firearm for the next round of fire, or a chef getting ready to make his best meal ever, he draws all his tools & small tin containers with a wax based polish. Within the next 20 seconds, the whole compartment's concentration is broken by a distinct "sqweaking" of the cloth licking the shiny surface of a shoe, rejuvenating it to its ultimate glory. The sunlight from a window nearby left a spotlight on the shoe which shone brighter than the brightest diamond that kid had ever seen. Five rupees went into a small slit of his sling bag & a smile went on the corner of his lips. Not trying to conceal his joy but also trying not to look too eager & show a professional class, he stood near the door.

A few seconds before the train came to a halt, he did the most unthinkable of all things. He discreetly drew his fingers closer to his face & had a whiff. The smile, now radiant & streak of jubiliance on his face, his hair responding to the pounding wind, in that moment of victory he gets off the slowing train & vanishes into the crowd.

Everybody in the compartment watched his gesture but I am not sure how many might have contemplated it this way. He smelt the aroma of success, that victory for which he toiled all morning. However miniscule it was, his tiny brain, over who knows how many years, had conditioned his response to that aroma. The sweet smell of success possibly will drive him to some other compartment of some other train waiting for his next fix.

Does success then become an addiction? Do we realize the importance of the hours gone in reaching it? I had read once that the anticipation of success is what drives us & not the success itself. For when success is achieved, the hype of the anticipation has already made us high on it, even before reaching it. Does it mean that this little boy, awaiting his next fix, didnt realize what he was losing in the process? His circumstance making him shine stranger's shoes, unfortunate enough to not enjoy a normal childhood, makes me question what is this normalcy anyway?

I have seen people getting so high on their success that next time they forget to try as hard as they had tried before & lose. For does the smell of success condition you to this response as well? Is the smell any sweeter when we have had it more than once?

Questions, questions & more questions cloud my mind even more driving to a high, anticipating the next moment of clarity.

The Philosphy of Russel Peters & The Art of Total Humiliation

"Be a man, do the right thing." the dj spun endless loops of this along with some other Russel Peter's classic phrases, scratching all the way till the applause faded.

I was watching Peters' performance in NY in Red, White & Brown, what I believe to be one of his latest stand up gigs. Peters is known to be one of the proponents of racist comedy (dont know the technical word for it, so till then). This has been the third Peters' standup act I have seen, but it struck me now how important this act was. How important racist comedy actually is!

Peters, somehow has found the ultimate weapon of mass humiliation, which ends up bringing together the neo-liberal junta from all the races he publically humiliates. This is a significant moment in time for people are tolerant & have a sense of humour decent enough to keep his act going. Its not just the freedom of speech or freedom of expression, its not just wise anecdotes & observation, but deep down we must have a sense of common belonging to the same species. Races or no races, we are humans rising out of the same conditions, living in different ones but sharing the same problems of the human condition. The racial bigotry we see around which seems to have no solution, has finally found one in humour. I asked myself, if Russel Peters was a political science professor or even worse a philosophy professor talking about racial anectdotes, would he be received with the same enthusiasm & cheer? Is it possible to believe that this sort of humiliation would work in any other context other than standup comedy? Do people react to his observations because they agree with him or do they react because of the way he enacts them? What part of public humiliation of their race do these people find funny? And the last & most important question, why do people of all these races come together to watch him rip apart the things that define their racial existence?

I love Peters' comedy, its in your face nature & his total disregard for being politically correct. But is public humiliaion of each other's races a major way to release our racial identity & the awareness that people of other races are also as messed up as people of our race ? What happens in our heads when we watch him make fun of our race or make fun of someone else's race? Does the reaction invoke the same sort of synaptic response or do we go into defensive when the joke is on us & back to normal when its on someone else?

Humiliation, is yet another beautiful tool. Probably as beautiful as humour which acts as its medium. Humiliating someone takes a lot of effort, especially to get the person intimidated in the first place. If there is no insecurity within a person about himself/herself, that person cannot be intimidated, let alone lead to humiliation. The embarrassment that we exhibit when we are humiliated is yet another way to release the truth about ourself out in the open. What Peters accomplishes in his 2 hour acts is very nature of exposing the racial prejudices & mannerisms which might be extremely juvenile & embarrassing once they are assessed by a third person. Again I bump into some questions, why arent these embarrassing qualities readily apparent to us once we are part of that culture/race? If we so zealously believe in our way of life & cultural mannerisms, why arent we aware of the most fundamental tenet of this belief, that its all human?

The acts of total humiliation which he subjects his audience to, the audience lap it up withhearty laughs & claps, with no visible aggression whatsoever. Does humour release some chemical in us which pacifies our racial identities?

"Be a man, do the right thing".