India my country, which has never conquered any other country in its entire history, was blessed with a conqueror, in 20th Century, who started his conquest from a tender age of 13. He later went on to build his own empire, which stretches across countries and continents. He has millions of followers, who adore him blindly, simply because he has spell-bound them with his magical spells. He is a magician with a special wand in his hand and his spells are more powerful than the spells of the most powerful wizard, the world has ever seen.
He is also an artist, who creates masterpieces, which are sure to be etched in annals of history. As one knows, masterpieces gain more value as the time passes by and his masterpieces are no different from those of great artists of earlier centuries. One possible difference, which we could draw is that the masterpieces, of those artists, are materialistic were as the masterpieces, of the Indian, are etched in memories of mere mortals of his time.
He used to be a ruthless and aggressive ruler during his early days, and then turned out to be a matured ruler with his conquests becoming more selective, more precise and most of all more beautiful. Beauty cannot be associated with wars, but he is the one who made it possible for beauty to tie the knot with war.
The battles he fought could be different, one being more competitive, other a mere cake walk or some being more tough that, he had to dig deep to come out winning but the results have mostly been in the way he wanted them to be. One needs to fight really hard to keep himself from boredom of fighting battles and winning, but he did that with so much aplomb, the main reason being the pride he has in fighting for his country and the joy he gets out of fighting these battles.
He lives his life as per the saying “When the Going gets tough, the tough gets going” and indeed he is a tough nut to crack. The way he plans his battle and organize it, is something which cannot be comprehended by mere mortals. He faced the battles head on against the most fearsome competitors of his time. Certain conquests of him led his competitors to suffer in pain for long and they conceded their defeat quicker than it was expected.
Greatness cannot be defined lonely by the number of victories one had achieved, but it mostly depends on the trying conditions, in which the battle was fought, the competitors who were at the other end and most importantly the way it was fought. One could go into a losing battle either with a defeatist attitude or with a challenging attitude : challenging the beliefs of the ordinary, challenging his personal best, challenging the demons of the defeat, and putting up a brave fight. He always belonged to the latter category.
Greatness can be, in a way, defined by the period of highs an emperor had in his ruling days, compared to the periods of low, but most importantly the way in which the ruler bounced back after hitting a low makes this comparison more meaningful. This ruler had hit lows after all he too is a human being, but the way he got up on his feet and fought defines his greatness. There is no need to mention the name and belittle his greatness because Great People are known by their achievements and not by their names.
agamthedal 