Dondu got his first car. An entry level hatch back (a small budget car). Excitedly, he took the delivery and left the showroom in his shiny new car with a ribbon across its bonnet and a big “L” pasted on its windshield. (“L” in India indicates that the person driving has learnt driving just recently, so that people can maintain a safe distance)
As he was waiting on the signal, a Mercedes S class stopped right beside him. Dondu admired the Merc standing next to him. The Mercedes was 1.5 times longer than Dondu’s car and costs atleast 12 times the cost of Dondu’s car. Dondu couldn’t help staring at its beauty.
The owner of the Merc saw Dondu in his new car and said “Nice car… Good choice… Congrats…”. The signal went green and the Merc shot off from the signal. Feeling good about himself, Dondu reached home.
When he parked the vehicle, his neighbor uncle saw the car and hobbled up to Dondu. (This neighbor uncle hardly ever spoke to Dondu).
He congratulated Dondu with a beaming smile kept his hand on Dondu’s head and said “God bless you my boy, take your parents out on a drive and make them happy. Let this be the first of the many cars you will buy”
Dondu was pleasantly shocked to see the Uncle was capable of speaking more than one sentence. He had hardly ever even smiled to Dondu.
Later that day, Dondu posted a pic of his car on Facebook. All his school friends who had not met him for ages, distant friends of friends liked his pic and posted nice comments.
One day, this elderly relative of Dondu came home and Dondu showed off his new car, the relative started off with “Why did you take this model, you could have gone in for a better car, what a waste of money. The music system is looks shabby, you don’t even have power windows, what will you do without ABS… blah blah blah blah blaaaaah”
Dondu was feeling so miserable, he felt like he had made a mistake.
A few more “close relatives and friends” came and did similar damage to Dondu’s joy by finding faults with his choice.
Then, one evening, the neighbor uncle again visited Dondu. Dondu was not that excited any more, seeing Dondu down, he asked him what happened and Dondu told him the whole story and how he thought that buying this car was a mistake.
The Uncle, took Dondu’s hand, took him to the parking lot, asked Dondu to sit in the driver’s seat and sat next to him.
Sitting there in the car, in the parking lot, the Uncle told him – “I was a teacher all my life, for 35 years I taught and I retired from the school owning only a Scooter. You have already achieved more than me at this age, and this is only the beginning. For every success of yours, there will be a few people who will be very happy and excited and will stand with you. And, there will be a few people who will try to put you down by downplaying your success. Strangely, it is always the strangers and those far away from us who are more excited about our growth, and somehow, our close relatives don’t seem that happy.
If you have some relatives who actually feel happy about your success, hold on to them, they are a rare species and you won’t find many.
End of the day, it is only YOU who knows the true value of your success. Nobody should be able to put you down in your moments of success and joy. This is only your first car, I want you to, stay hungry for more.”
With this, the Uncle got out of the car and hobbled away for his evening walk...
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