Getting Inspired By Chak De! India

Towards the end of the story in the Bollywood film "Chak De" India when the hockey team returns triumphant, ready to relish all the attention, coach Kabir Khan is conspicuous by his absence. He prefers instead to go reclaim a home he had left in disgrace many years earlier. Why does Kabir not wish to bask in his moment of glory after erasing the stigma that he carried for years?

It took him seven years after a failure saw him shunned, ostracised and branded a traitor to gather the strength to redeem himself. Taking up an unlikely challenge, he met with cynicism and indifference. He met further resistance from the very individuals he tried to shape into a team. His past record, integrity and judgment were all questioned. Even the players who seemingly believed in him succumbed to peer pressure; he saw the team apparently united for only one goal, that of ousting him. Confronted with this, yet refusing to do things differently he all but walked out. The innuendo and slander continued even after that storm blew over. At many points, the opposing teams were the least of his challenges.

All through this, Kabir did not question his fundamentals or his approach; neither did he become vicious in his responses. Whether officials or players applauded or smirked, he stood his ground. He was no longer concerned about disdain, once he believed in what he was doing. And he was equally unconcerned about gathering adulation after having proved himself. He had, simply put, outgrown the need for both.

Rudyard Kipling wrote of treating triumph and disaster just the same, but that is easier said than done. The moments that test our reactions are when the anchors that hold our sense of self worth are forced loose. These moments when we can only look within to know that we are right, while few seem to agree and most are indifferent. Those moments tell us whether our consciousness has grown in strength, or whether the absence of support breaks us.

Explaining verse 38 in the Gita's second chapter, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan describes the man who has discovered his true end of life: "Though everything else is taken away from him, though he has to walk the streets, cold, hungry and alone, though he may know no human being into ' whose eyes he can look and find understanding, he shall yet be able to go his way with a smile on his lips, for he has gained inward freedom". The strength to know no one in whose eyes he could find understanding, and yet go his way without wavering, is the strength that Kabir Khan displayed. It is the strength we need if we are to live without being at the mercy of world opinion. That strength comes from within, from understanding our real nature.

Rejection and failure can spur us to know ourselves, to go beyond the world's parameters of praise and criticism. Kabir was unfairly made to bear a cross for seven years. It could happen to any one of us. One of the unfair verdicts ever was given to the man who was literally nailed to a cross. But He faced crucifixion with courage, and He was the one who had the strength to get resurrected. If we know and believe in ourselves even when the rest find it convenient to crucify us, we would have the strength to resurrect ourselves, too.

Anshul Chaturvedi http://spirituality.indiatimes.com