Thursday, October 22, 2009

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

We live today in a cynical world. Are you doing something the majority frowns upon ? Do you have a thought that does not match with the current norm ?.... Hold onto it - don't let it go. The greatest of inventions afterall where all instances when someone chose to NOT follow the norm. The examples and instances are numerous - but the one which in my mind is most graphical of this truth is the one about the Fosbury Flop.

Mexico Olympics, 1968 : The customery way for a high jumper was to cross the bar with his body parallel to it - the Western Roll technique. Along came Dick Fosbury and did the unthinkable : he did it the other way round - he took off from the ground with his back towards the bar !!... the result - the famous Fosbury Flop. He beat the competition by more than a feet !!!

I have always been a non-conformist in many ways : I left my first job in HCL without any "backups" - because I wanted to do an MBA. Three months later, I was doing my MBA. In college there was this major academic craze to do as may papers as possible - perhaps to get an edge during campus placements. I firmly believed in doing only the minimum number required. And against the "norm" of doing two specialisations, I did only one : Marketing. The rest of the papers being divided between many eclectic choices. Did it make a difference eitherways - nothing really except that I perhaps had more time for fun. Another instance I remember was when a professor offered "Business Process Re-engineering" as a new elective. There was a mad rush for that. I did not even apply for that - my logic being that like all fads this would pass too - and anyways BPR work is initiated always top-down from the CEOs office - and by the time I become CEO, the concept of BPR would have disappeared. I am proud I got that bang on !!... something i keep chiding my wife about :-) The latest in my non-conformist streak ofcourse has been the decision to leave a cushy job and do something "different" professionally. No great success to report here as yet - but heck, am I learning or what !!! We tend to take things too seriously at times and believe that there is only one way up the corporate ladder - going upwards. But while doing so, we often tend to forget that the journey is as important as the climb too.

In an insecure world, conformity is appreciated and what the majority does is often seen as the right thing to do. From an Indian perspective, I really feel that the concept of "job security" is very highly over-rated. And somewhere I feel, its due to the cynicism we have developed as a society about most things which are fun. The thinking seems to be - if its fun, it must be frivolous - and if its frivolous, its not for serious adults.

In this context of all encompassing cynicism, I just happened to come across a piece of writing from the "Sun" - that a newspaperman (Francis Pharcellus Church) had once written to a little girl who had been told by her sceptic friends that : "theres nobody called Santa Claus". Its a beautiful piece of writing on the importance of believeing in such things. I am reproducing it verbatim :

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O'HANLON."
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

"VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.