Common Man, Where Art Thou ?

As against Superman, A Superman can lift a truck, fly like a bird, be a Hanuman for a country with no mythological heroes and hence has to create them at the rate of dozen a dime...but I digress. A Superman can do all this things, but can he change a country, it's people, its attitudes, its poverty and its illiteracy? No, nope, nada. Not a chance. That requires lots and lots of Ordinary Men. Men with clarity of vision, with single-mindedness, with patience and fortitude and with burning passion to do something about it, and the most important - men who have self actualized, and don't care for money-material wealth.

To begin with, here's a bit about self-actualization - its based on a theory called "Hierarchy of Needs" developed by Maslowe about how humans are "structured". Its a bit like a video or PC game, say Prince of Persia, where you have to finish one level successfully to go to the next level, before you get to kiss the princess, and at each level you have to fight your enemies and clamber over obstacles to reach the final goal.

The first level called the "Physiological Needs". In other words, Roti and Kapda. Until you get these, you cant go to the next level (or die trying). The second is "Safety Needs" - Part of this is a home. After crossing these Rubicons, you come to the third - "Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness". The fourth is "Need for (Self) Esteem", and finally the fifth - Nirvana - "Needs for Self-Actualization".

Here how Maslowe describes Self-Actualization - As a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.

In other words, an Ordinary Man. (But is Osama an Ordinary Man by this definition? The answer is no, an Ordinary Man is creative and constructive, not destructive, even though he might claim he was "born to do". That is one hidden assumption here.)

Now, I would like to extend this theory to an organization - a country for example. Call it "The Addendum to Hierarchy of Needs", if no one has gone this way before. At what level is India ? How far is India from getting to kiss the Princess of Nirvana? How far is USA from the same goal? In other words, how far are these countries from self-actualization? Woefully, India yet to cross the first level…still worried about food and clothing and I am not talking about the blessed lot like you and I....The reality is that she still is trying to keep its head above water. USA, I think, is somewhere between second and third…Osama as the evil guard has suddenly popped up and challenged it in the second level.. otherwise it was about to graduate to the third level...where it was to face a lot of trouble…not many countries like USA as such. I am sure some European/Scandinavian countries are at the fourth level.

So how does a country move towards Self-actualization? By the people, individually moving towards it, by realizing their individual potential. And to be able to do that, you need a initial critical mass of Ordinary Men, who can set the road on fire and show the way to others. A lot of these Indian Ordinary Men are in USA, and I am sure, most of them have made pots of money, and wonder, What Next? A critical mass of Ordinary Men going waste.. reminds me of the 1001 wasted Midnights' Children written by Rushdie.

And I am sure there are a lot of them in India too, but Ordinary Man's Kryptonite is his single-ness… as long as lots of Ordinary Men do not band together, nothing will happen. Are there any Ordinary Men in India? Yes, but they themselves may not be aware of their true identity, they might still be looking for a telephone booth to go and change into Ordinary Man wear…and I think I might have found some…unable to group, their energies too are going waste.

PS: The attempt and the intention is to refer to both Ordinary Men and Ordinary Women. Just for the sake of reading fluidity, the former was repeatedly used.