Who/What is better X (or) Y ?

Recently, I had a debate with my friend krishna on whether Shane Warne is better than Anil Kumble (or) not. Personally i like Shane warne for his heroics, his attitude on the field, his competitive spirit, his aggression and his sportsmanship. Even though, this blog is not about this comparisons, it is about comparisons. The need for this blog is just to outline how our views and focus gets towards comapring personalities / products etc.

I have been tired of people comparing Sachin with Lara, Federer with Sampras, Schumi with Kimi, Kapil with Hadlee, SPB with Yesudas, Illayaraja with MSV / ARR and the list is endless. I feel that comparisons should not be done in the first place, if done it has to be with proper analysis and parameters. I don't understand how people can compare Sachin and Gavaskar / Steve Waugh etc. The reasons for the akward comparisons are people played in different era / conditions / pressures / batting order / People's likes.

There are hundreds of Mamas/uncles (D-Stand Arm Chair Critics) who watched Vishwanath's 97 in Chepauk against the West Indian pace quartret, they would rate that as the best innings they would have ever seen, whereas in this era of 20-20, their comments would be stupid and outdated. It just requires small change in accepting that both the events / arts / people could belong to different era, genre and we just need to accept that positives could be available in all the stuff which we compare and rather focusing on who/what is the best.

If somebody who speaks to about different genres of music, I may not be able to appreciate Jimi Hendrix / christiana Aguilera when compared to John Mclaughlin to D K Pattamal, but we still need the tolerance to appreciate Norah Jones and Ghulam Ali. I still remember one of the conversation which i had with one of my English professors in my college. I asked him why he didn't do his Phd on his favourite poets. He conveyed that Shelly was his favourite, but if starts to focus to climb the summit of research on Shelly, he might have missed Tennyson,wordsworth et al on the way to reach his peak.

There was so much of truth, in what he said. If i start liking an actor / song, we have the tendency to get caught in the web of following them/that and missing out many things which we come pass by. I would like to remain on the basis of the summit and try to widen my horizon rather than have my likes to few things which distracts/doesn't allow me to see a wider canvas. We have this habit of being critical / judgemental of who/what is good, which i believe we need to stop and start accepting anything instead of discriminating it by our judgements.

~Lakshman

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