Today I came across a poem which I read years ago when I was in school. Its amazing how different it felt this time. It wasn't just a poem about ugly and treacherous frog vs gullible nightingale. Oh yeah, the poem I am talking about here is "The Frog and The Nightingale" by Vikram Seth.
Remember when our elders would say, "you won't understand now but we do because we have the experience". Yes, this annoying statement has made me angry so many times that after 100 a stopped counting! Strangely, I have to agree with this statement now regardless of how badly I want to deny it because somehow its making me feel older than I am. Experience has added meaning and additional understanding to this poem which was once just a part of my school syllabus.
There was a bog where a frog would sing his heart out every night which was a torture for everybody else. One day comes the Nightingale, which was bestowed with melodic voice, voice that summoned birds from distant places. The praises for her made frog jealous. The frog presented himself as a music prodigy in front for her and she believed him, falling right into his devious plan. He criticized her voice, offered to help her improvise out of generosity & charging few shillings. He planned on en-cashing on her talent by charging other birds for listening to her voice and in return gave nightingale a hard time. She threw away her original song and started to work on sounding like what frog wanted her to be. Other birds noticed her unoriginal voice and started disliking it. He let her believe that her voice lacks passion and insulted her time and again. Attempting to please him she tried to do something she would never had done on her own, she tried to sing on higher note and ended up bursting her vein. She died..played & killed by frog.
Being bestowed with a talent is not enough because I believe we all are born with the skills of our own, some are natural and some have to work hard for it. The talent that helps you rise comes with a weakness that pulls you down. With every up there is a down, basic physics. The important thing is believing in your talent and appreciating it. You'll meet many people who'll try to target your weakness to destroy you because your talent is a threat to them. That thing that can keep you going in tough times is "Self belief and Confidence".
Be original, be unique, be yourself. In trying to copy someone else you are throwing away your true self. Don't be influenced by everybody. Listen to other inspiring people and adapt things to groom your personality instead of changing yourself and becoming a replica of someone else. It'll will be so sad that no one ever knew who you really were because you were a living homage to someone else. You can't please everyone because there are people who'll be pleased when they see you suffer. People can patronize only if you let them. They can't act as superior to you unless you don't accept yourself as inferior to them.
Live your life as being original instead of dying in trying to be somebody else.
Remember when our elders would say, "you won't understand now but we do because we have the experience". Yes, this annoying statement has made me angry so many times that after 100 a stopped counting! Strangely, I have to agree with this statement now regardless of how badly I want to deny it because somehow its making me feel older than I am. Experience has added meaning and additional understanding to this poem which was once just a part of my school syllabus.
There was a bog where a frog would sing his heart out every night which was a torture for everybody else. One day comes the Nightingale, which was bestowed with melodic voice, voice that summoned birds from distant places. The praises for her made frog jealous. The frog presented himself as a music prodigy in front for her and she believed him, falling right into his devious plan. He criticized her voice, offered to help her improvise out of generosity & charging few shillings. He planned on en-cashing on her talent by charging other birds for listening to her voice and in return gave nightingale a hard time. She threw away her original song and started to work on sounding like what frog wanted her to be. Other birds noticed her unoriginal voice and started disliking it. He let her believe that her voice lacks passion and insulted her time and again. Attempting to please him she tried to do something she would never had done on her own, she tried to sing on higher note and ended up bursting her vein. She died..played & killed by frog.
Being bestowed with a talent is not enough because I believe we all are born with the skills of our own, some are natural and some have to work hard for it. The talent that helps you rise comes with a weakness that pulls you down. With every up there is a down, basic physics. The important thing is believing in your talent and appreciating it. You'll meet many people who'll try to target your weakness to destroy you because your talent is a threat to them. That thing that can keep you going in tough times is "Self belief and Confidence".
Be original, be unique, be yourself. In trying to copy someone else you are throwing away your true self. Don't be influenced by everybody. Listen to other inspiring people and adapt things to groom your personality instead of changing yourself and becoming a replica of someone else. It'll will be so sad that no one ever knew who you really were because you were a living homage to someone else. You can't please everyone because there are people who'll be pleased when they see you suffer. People can patronize only if you let them. They can't act as superior to you unless you don't accept yourself as inferior to them.
Live your life as being original instead of dying in trying to be somebody else.
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