True Hero

Watching a movie or reading a book, we cannot help but be impressed by the Hero, whose deeds win him name, fame, and a beautiful dame. He braves adverse conditions, scheming villains and many other difficulties that fate may happen to throw his way and, at the end, emerges victorious. At such times we curse our luck for not providing us with enough opportunities to let the hero inside us come out, and reveal himself. Don't they say, " adversity brings out the best in men. "

But then it is not out of place here to ask why we need adverse conditions to bring out the best in us? Why do we have to have our backs against the wall before we push the hardest that we can? Is it human nature or is it just because we are lazy and don’t want to do anything unless we absolutely have to.

Everyday life provides us with ample opportunity to be a hero, maybe not to the whole wide world, but to a select few. I don’t know how things are across the globe but in Indian cities one only has to visit a traffic signal on a busy road to see little children selling stuff, or cleaning windows or simply begging. Some of our hearts melt, and we search our pockets for whatever we have as change to hand out; Some of us are too busy in our lives to even pay attention. But, most of us forget about them as soon as the traffic begins to move.

A True Hero is one who would help a child out - even one, if that is all he is able to. It is easy to convince oneself that I am but one man, and there are millions of poor. But, if you help even one person you reduce that number by one, and if everyone thinks like that may be we can eradicate poverty from our planet.

A True Hero is one who does not wait for fate to provide him with the chance to become a hero, but makes chances for himself. He doesn’t only look for the bigger problems, but tries to solve problems – big or small - for everyone.

While I am on this topic, I will like to share a story that some of you must have heard or read. I got it as a forwarded email some time back and though, more often than not, I just send the forwarded emails to the trash bin, this mail somehow managed to pass through:

Once upon a time there was violent storm in the sea. A lot of starfishes were being thrown out of the sea and onto the beaches and they were fast dying. There was this little girl on the beach who was throwing the fishes back into the sea as fast as she could. An old man who was seeing her do this asked her, “What are you doing?”

“I am throwing these fishes back into the sea so that they don’t die”, she said.

The old man laughed at her and told her, “ You are foolish. There are so many of them and at best you can only save a few. You are wasting your time like this, and your efforts will make no difference.”

The girl without taking a break from what she was doing replied “ But for that one star fish , it will make a world of difference.”