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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
September 23, 2014
Argument. Why does everyone always root for the underdog. Why knock the person or side that is closer to excellence? It seems so unfair considering how we exhaust our lives trying to get to the top. Then we kick the guy off the pedestal and hate him for winning.
I think the underdog is a bore. If the kitchen is too hot we shouldn’t be in it, we’ve retained this image because it appeals to the inadequacies in all of us. We’d like to believe that when the odds are against us we are going to give it all we’ve got and somehow come up spades, guts, gravel in the gut stuff. Nonsense.
When the odds are hostile you lose. Even when you do, on an off chance, win, there is a catch in it. We’ve all been bullied at some stage in our lives and we get even now through some surrogate whose luck is in. The point is that supporting underdogs is against the spirit of achievement. Me, I’ll go for the top dog any day. Funny isn’t it, how no one ever puts his money where his mouth is, when it comes to dark horses. What, risk my money on an outside chance when favorites usually win? Be honest, you’d be disappointed.
But there we are then screaming ourselves for the chap who is getting thrashed, finding much virtue in the mismatched competition. This person is not in the same league. He shouldn’t even be there. So why romanticize it so much.
Because it makes us feel good.
Because it underscores our largesse and sense of generosity.
Because most of us are underdogs anyway and resent winners while pretending to adulate them.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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