In life, one’s support need not rest with the
powerful or the most likely winner – nay, nothing connected to present politics
of Tamil Nadu or of the local body elections.
For elections – there is only one request / one rule – do vote, never
give a silly reason and abstain – it is democratic right and exercise it
judiciously by voting for the right candidate, ensure that wrong ones are
defeated !
In games – Tennis – I was
a great fan of Ivan Lendl, time and again he would perform so well at Wimbledon
but falter at the last lap and I would not want to read the newspaper at the
finals, those details of how he lost would always be painful. Miles away in Australian Open 2022, Rafael
Nadal edged Medvedev in an epic final, roaring back from two sets down to claim
a record 21st Grand Slam title. Riding a
wave of raucous support from the crowd, a vintage Nadal pulled off one of his
finest performances to deny Medvedev again, less than three years after leaving
the Russian heartbroken in five sets at the 2019 U.S. Open final. In a match
steeped in drama, Nadal was two points from the title but was broken as he
served for the match at 5-4.He held firm to break Medvedev again and served out
the match to love, rushing in to deliver a backhand volley as a stunning coup
de grace.
With Novak
Djokovic forced out by deportation and Roger Federer recovering from knee
surgery, the Spanish great is now one major title clear of his ‘Big Three’
rivals after surviving the 2-6 6-7(5) 6-4 6-4 7-5 thriller at Rod Laver Arena.
.. .. and why
was Djokovic absent. In 2021 - Novak Djokovic had successfully defended the Men's Singles title
as he claimed his 18th Grand Slam title, defeating Daniil Medvedev in straight
sets. Sofia Kenin was the defending Women's Singles champion, but she lost to
Kaia Kanepi in the second round. In the final, Naomi Osaka claimed her fourth
Grand Slam singles title, defeating first-time Major finalist Jennifer Brady in
straight sets.
I am no
great fan of Nadal but one of Djoko. Words
like “indomitable” and “intransigent” have always figured in the accolades
heaped upon Novak Djokovic. But those same qualities may ultimately torpedo
Djokovic’s proclaimed goal of becoming the most prolific Grand Slam champion in
the history of the game.In telling the BBC that he is unequivocally committed
to sitting out the upcoming majors if they require him to be vaccinated against
COVID-19, the world’s No. 1 player is throwing his own left hook at the tennis
establishment. Now, with the pandemic seemingly on the wane, growing resistance
to protocols triggered by the health crisis, and tennis eager to return to a
semblance of normalcy, the question becomes, “Who blinks?”
Will the lords of Roland
Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open mount some form of campaign to ensure that
Djokovic be able to compete, or will they stand firm on rules that make
competing in their events contingent upon being vaccinated? A lot can happen in
the coming months, but it’s as if Djokovic and the tennis establishment are
playing an unprecedented game of chicken, only that proverbial cliff neither
really wants to go over keeps moving.“Freedom” and
“principle” are powerful words that ought to be used sparingly in the Covid
conversation. Nobody has ever questioned Djokovic’s freedom to be unvaccinated,
only the idea that he was free to game the system in January, or avoid the
rules governing entry into tennis tournaments. Incidentally, the
majority of Djokovic’s peers have quietly accepted vaccination and its inherent
risks as the cost of doing business, and they’ve done it without throwing
around loaded words like “sacrifice,” or “civic duty.”
The first element is
social comparison, “the way people manage
their own egos, how they wish to perceive themselves as good enough or
sometimes better than others … it is a reward experience, that feeling of
superiority when someone else fails”. This is the schadenfreude
that is rooted in envy or resentment, the kind you would be likely to feel
towards a friend who was also a rival.
Did some people
concentrate more on those who missed out on IPL auction rather than gloating on
the crores won by some else ? in the
much fancied IPL Auction 2022 – a total of 204 players were sold with value of
Rs.551.70 crores – obviously there were some big names that went unsold with no
franchise hearing when their names were sounded. That list
has Suresh Raina, Steve Smith, Shakib al Hasan, Adil Rashid, Imran Tahir, Aaron
Finch, Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan, Chris Lynn, Tabraiz Shamsi, Adam Zampa,
Cheteshwar Pujara, Ishant Sharma, Martin Guptill, Sheldon Cottrell, Amit Mishra
among many others.
Be it the
unsold or the case of Novak Djokovic – it was apparent that some fet happy in
them faltering ! - in career too, one
would have observed people enjoying and having a personal satisfaction when
rivals falter. When someone does not get
the promotion, one could see a barely recognizable twitch of grin before the
tumble of commiserations. Make no mistake. Over time, and in
many different places, when it comes to making SELF happy, we humans have long relied on the
humiliations and failures of other people.
There has never really
been a word for these grubby delights in English. In the 1500s, someone
attempted to introduce “epicaricacy” from the ancient Greek, but it didn’t
catch on. In 1640, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote a list of human
passions, he asked, “that men take pleasure to behold from the shore the danger
of them that are at sea in a tempest?” What strange combination of joy and
pity, he wrote, makes people “content to be spectators of the misery of their
friends”? Hobbes’s mysterious and terrible passion remained without a name, in
the English language at least. In 1926, a journalist in The Spectator asserted
that “there is no English word for Schadenfreude
because there is no such feeling here.” He was wrong.. .. ..
Schadenfreude
(German:lit. 'harm-joy') is the experience of pleasure, joy, or
self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles,
failures, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, with no
direct translation, that originated in the 18th century. Gleaning the web further, there appears
equivalents in many languages !! : The Japanese have a
saying: “The misfortunes of others taste like honey.” The French speak of joie
maligne, a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. The Danish talk of
skadefryd, and the Dutch of leedvermaak. “To see others suffer does one good,”
wrote the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. “To make others suffer even more so.
This is a hard saying, but a mighty, human, all-too-human principle.”
Today, Schadenfreude is
all around us. It’s there in the way we conduct ourselves, how we treat celebrities, in online fail
videos. But these heady pleasures are shot through with unease. Moralists have
long despised Schadenfreude. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called it “an
infallible sign of a thoroughly bad heart and profound moral worthlessness,”
the very worst trait in human nature. (He also said that anyone caught enjoying
the suffering of others should be shunned from human society !- if that be
done, how many or who would remain)!
17th Feb 2022.
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