Yesterday NDTV gave out the much hyped Indian of the Year awards.
It was and will become the most coveted awards in the days to come.
Imagine the winners: Dr Manmohan Singh, Rajnikanth, Mukesh Ambani, Vishwanathan Anand, A R Rehman...
Now imagine the audience - Virtually the who's who of India stretching from politicians from all factions, government heads - oh yes, Dr Manmohan Singh was there and so was Chidambaram and many others. There was Shah Rukh Khan and too many other biggies to count.
Well - Congratulations are due to NDTV for a fantastic offering. There must have been much hard work to come up with such an event and concept.
It was nice to see an awards ceremony shorn of the usual rifraf.
But one wonders - do those who have won so much accolades and honour, who have literally touched the citadal of succes - very much acknowledged and eulogised, imitated and followed, reverred and worshipped by the masses and their own select audiences - do they need these awards?
Why is is that winning an award makes the richest and the most powerful feel so proud and nice?
What made Nita Ambani gush with so much pride and joy when her husband, the richest man in India, stood there beside Chidambaram, the finance minister and spoke about how he wishes to be known as the man who transformed rural india in the coming year...?
One guesses that ultimately neither money, fame or power actually makes any person totally happy. True accomplishment is perhaps measured by the accolades and the recognition awarded to inviduals by their peers and the world at large.
So awards are the really measure of success?
Well, we dont know about that, but it sure works wonderfully for getting good PR out of it!
