Skip to main content

We love losers ...

The match was close. It was cricket match between Australia and Bangladesh. Most people believed the result would be obvious, but the Bangladesh team offered a tough fight. People were mostly cheering for the Bangladesh team. But this time they didn’t win. Few months ago though, they pulled a surprise victory against the Aussies though, and people would have loved if they had done the same this time also. We all love upsets, unless of course, we or our favorites are on the receiving end. Or in a broader sense, we often tend to love losers.

Be it loving Devdas making it a super hit each time it comes.
Be it loving a hero who loses
Be it cheering for a weak team against a stronger team
Be it seeing a dark horse win.
Be it suddenly having a new-found love for Sourav Ganguly, whom were abusing a year ago for non-performance.

… Or is it the other way round?
… Do we hate winners or achievers and love to see them fall?

Be it secretly hoping that Australia loses each time it plays
Be it seeing Ricky Ponting getting out for a duck.
Be it seeing Roger Federar lose in a upset (unless he is your favorite)
Be it secretly hoping that Bill Gates doesn’t get any richer.
Be it having a wish to see Microsoft lose a legal battle.
Be it hoping that the US economy doesn’t grow any larger.
Be it seeing the favorite of an award lose it

… All only if it is not our “favorite” on the receiving end.

Comments

  1. Nikesh Rathi3:00 PM, October 03, 2006

    @ silencekilled

    That was intresting.

    ... maybe a loser loves to see someone who is similar to him and thus empathize ... and most of the ppl have usually lost in some way or the other ... and that applies even to the most successful people in the world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:57 AM, October 05, 2006

    exactly i agre wid both of u.......every person likes to empathize wid those ppl who r under the similar circumstances as him........so normally human beings develpoe a soft corner for those ppl who r down and out in their lives.............

    ReplyDelete
  3. sharad shinde6:49 PM, October 27, 2006

    is it we love losers or we hate winners. Both things are not the same.. first we hate winners and so we love losers . we hate australia winning evry time so when it is defeated by weak opponent we become joyous in sadistic anand.
    Do we cheer for bangaladesh when they are oponent to india?. Do we have mercy for bolwer of bangaldesh when sehwag and sachin showing them boundry twice in a over? we dont .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nikesh Rathi10:11 AM, October 28, 2006

    Maybe 'loving' a loser actally never is.
    We may just want a loser to do good, but again we may like him to lose again if he reaches the same level as our favourite or ourselves.
    Maybe this loving a loser or a weaker part is just due to our fear of the winner winning further.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At
13 comments
Read more

The Forest

The Toyota Qualis and the Chvrolet Tavera stopped after a long journey. It was almost 9 in the night and it was pitch-dark. Night times in a forest are always pitch-dark. Adding to that it was a good `thirteen days since the last full moon day. Adding to this, the cloudy weather made visibility close to zero. Later in the night the forest would be engulfed in a fog making it nearly impossible to see. The only noise audible was that of silence, few random insects and that of a train going at a distance. After a long journey they all were quite weary and all they wanted was some rest so that the next day morning they can head for tiger and rhino spotting among many other species of flora and fauna in the wildlife sanctuary. Right now it was time for some parathas, maggi and booze. All fifteen of them headed for the cottage which they had booked, sat near the fire place relishing food, chit chatting about college life, universe and everything. But chit chatting wasn’t what they came
10 comments
Read more

Assured returns from stock markets?

Stocks (and hence mutual funds) are often sold as something that give "assured" long term returns over a period of time. While this has been true for most of the times, and all time if we consider a long enough time horizon in India's recent history but is this always true? Can it be possible that stock markets can give lesser, say 10% returns over next 10 years? Or 5 percent annual returns? Or, taking inspiration from Nicholas Taleb, a black swan event happens and your end up barely recovering 80 percent of your principal amount (i.e. 20 percent loss) -   Theoretically yes.  Hopefully no.  I am not a predictor of future, nor are thousands others who claim to have more than 1000% percent surety of future events. So, if you are contemplating taking a personal loan @ 12% for some financial need and want to be invested in a mutual fund for "assured" 12 / 15/ 18/ 25 percent returns, maybe you need to rethink. If you want to borrow money @ 12% just to inv
4 comments
Read more

Fan-o-phobia

Has there been some thing that you are worried about lately, something that might not seem too important that has been troubling you? ... Or that the very thought of it makes you shiver, tremble with fear or puts in the fear of god within you? Well ... I am facing one such thing of late. Somehow I have developed a fear of the fans, especially in cases where fans are a relatively lesser height, usually which I can touch easily with my palms or even elbows ... and even the ones that I can barely even touch by my fingers. This has not been without a reaon though. Recently I went to a relatives place where there was this combination of a fan being at lesser height and me being quite tall. After taking a bath (yeah ... I do take a bath ... in summers at least!) I switched on the fan, and raised my hands to wear a T-shirt. And suddenly I found something hitting my left thumb, hitting it really hard. Before the signal was sent to my brain so that I could realize what was happening, I put my h
5 comments
Read more

Survival

Dark clouds were looming at the horizon. In few minutes they would have traveled few miles in westward direction and came closer. This is not usually the scene at noon in the hottest month of the year. Dark clouds meant something ominous. Probably sign of an impending storm or maybe a cyclone approaching. Sea is a capricious lady. Bay of Bengal was no different. It was infamous for cyclones, and Orissa was often at the receiving end of nature’s fury. Ramdas was few miles into the sea. So were his brethrens of the fishermen community. There were around a hundred boats in the sea that day. No one anticipated the storm. So no one even thought of staying back at the shore and miss out on their livelihood of the day. Ramdas was alone in his boat. He owned the boat. His son helped him with his job. They managed to get enough as to earn a square meal a day. They had a good rapport with others of fishing community. But of late that relationship was breaking down. No reasons for that. Nor wa
8 comments
Read more