Day 45 - Retiring at one's peak

Cricket is a passion in India. Its one sport where we have done relatively well than other sports in recent times. And that has resulted in our cricket players becoming stars and celebrities. But then again we seem to love cricketers from any country. The interesting part is that while we may hate them when they are playing, we start to like them when they retire - more so if they retire when they are at their peak. Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Geoff Boycott. Waqar Younis, Mike Gatting are just some of the names that come to mind.

What is it about liking a person when they retire at their peak? Why do we start to respect them when that happens?

When Rahul Dravid gave up his captaincy at his peak we all gave him respect and admired him for his actions. We also remember Saurav Ganguly who seemed to hang on to his captaincy and finally retired when he was at his lowest ebb. Today our respect for Dravid is much higher than that for Ganguly, although Ganguly was a much better and successful captain for India. As a mass movement what drives us to respect the peak-retirees more?

And this works in all strata of life. When a Narayan Murthy gives up his Infosys job, when a Madhuri Dixit or a Sridevi leaves movies or when Lata Mangeshkar decides to stop singing for movies, we make them into legends in our collective minds and treat them as special. If the person, however, continues in their career even when they are nor doing well, we seem to loose respect for the person. Only a few people escape that scrutiny like a Sachin Tendulkar or an Amitabh Bachchan who become legends even as they continue working. But even they have to face negative criticism along their elongated career. The same fate does not befall a Narayan Murthy, a Madhuri Dixit or a Lata Mangeshkar. They are the best.

I think this happens because as humans we revel in the fall-from-grace of a celebrity. Somewhere deep down we feel jealous of their success and want to see them fail. When we do not get an opportunity to do that, when the celebrity does not give us that chance we do not have anything low to compare their success to and the success makes a house in our minds. We make an image of the successful person and popularise that in our mind. The success becomes the person. The accolades at that time of retirement become the image of the person in our mind. We then do not forget the person at all.

And that happens when a successful person and a loved person leaves too soon as well. We remember the success, the happiness and the love of that person. A Kalpana Chawla will always be remembered as a successful astronaut. A Gina Campos Braganza will always be remembered as an entrepreneur extraordinaire, a loving friend and an ever-smiling person. She retired from life too soon but she packed ten lifetimes of us ordinary people into her one life and left behind an image of happiness and a legacy of smiles!