And those who came second……..

I generally write on topics like economics, business and current affairs but this time I am bringing in something to think about. One day when I came back home from annual sports day of my school and told my parents that I came second in a competition; my father gave me a lukewarm response and asked me “who came first”. So does coming first means you’re the best? What about those who came second…..
The question above is just not related to you and me, it is about those things which came second but became the world’s best in their respective field. I am not much of a film critic but how many of you have seen the movie called Shawshank Redemption, a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. This movie according to IMDB and rotten tomatoes ranks among top 5 movies of the world. Shawshank Redemption is a perfect example of the title of this article “And those who came second”. Despite a lukewarm box office reception that was barely enough to cover its budget, the film received favorable reviews from critics, multiple award nominations, and has since enjoyed a remarkable life on cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1994 (Best Picture, Best Actor—Morgan Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing) but, in the shadow of 1994's big winner Forrest Gump, did not win any awards.  In June 1997, TNT, an American cable network, showed the film for the first time. The film was the first feature in TNT's Saturday Night New Classics. Since 1997, TNT has shown the film about once every two months. In 1998, Shawshank was not listed in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, but nine years later (2007), it was #72 on the revised list, outranking both Forrest Gump (#76) and Pulp Fiction (#94). In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their favorite film of all time, beating others including Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and Back to the Future. So does that mean Shawshank Redemption which came second to Forrest Gump in Oscars is really the second best? If you think it’s not than read farther….
So let’s move from Entertainment to Art, “My Imagination is a Monastery and I am its Monk", this is my favorite line of my favorite poet John Keats. John Keats, whom we know for his Odes, considered being one of best romantic poets along with Lord Byron and P B Shelly. Keats whose literary work only published for four years (1816 to 1820) as he died at a very young age of 25. Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life, his reputation grew after his death to the extent that by the end of the 19th century he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. Keats poetic works were heavily criticized during his lifetime. It is sad that Keats's publishers, Charles and James Ollier, felt ashamed of the first book he wrote. When Keats died at 25, he had been writing poetry seriously for only about six years. Aware that he was dying, he wrote to Fanny Brawne in February 1820, "I have left no immortal work behind me – nothing to make my friends proud of my memory – but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered." Shelley often corresponded with Keats in Rome, and loudly declared that Keats's death had been brought on by bad reviews in the Quarterly Review. He wrote
The loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit.
In 1848, twenty-seven years after Keats's death, Richard Monckton Milnes wrote the first full biography, which helped place Keats within the canon of English literature. In 1882, Swinburne wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica that "the Ode to a Nightingale is one of the final masterpieces of human work in all time and for all ages". Critic Helen Vendler stated the odes "are a group of works in which the English language find ultimate embodiment”. Bate declared of To Autumn: "Each generation has found it one of the most nearly perfect poems in English" and M. R. Ridley claimed the ode "is the most serenely flawless poem in our language.
Now let us switch to entirely different field compare to literature, I don’t know how many of you know the name Ferenc Puskás. Ferenc Puskás was one of the best football player world has ever seen, played for Hungary and Spain. We all probably know Maradona, Pele, Zidane offcourse they are world top class players but you can’t deny the fact that they played football for some hugely popular football playing nations. Ferenc Puskás was equally talented but probably lesser known face among today’s youth, I have seen his vedio footages but generally I get to know about him from my father who is an ardent football follower. Puskás made his debut for Hungary team on 20 August 1945 and scored in a 5–2 win over Austria. He went onto play 85 games and scored 84 times for Hungary. His international goal record included two hat tricks against Austria, one against Luxembourg and four goals in a 12–0 win over Albania.
He became famous for his performance in 1954 world cup where he almost won the cup for Hungary. Puskás scored three goals in the two first-round matches Hungary played at the 1954 FIFA World Cup. They defeated South Korea 9–0 and then West Germany 8–3. In the latter game, he suffered a hairline fracture of the ankle after a tackle by Werner Liebrich, and did not return until the final.
Puskás played the entire 1954 World Cup final against West Germany with the hairline fracture. Despite this, he scored his fourth goal of the tournament to put Hungary ahead after six minutes, and with Czibor adding another goal two minutes later, it seemed that the pre-tournament favorites would take the title. However, the West Germans pulled back two goals before half time, with six minutes left the West Germans scored the winner. Two minutes from the end of the match, Puskás appeared to score an equalizer but the goal was disallowed due to an offside call. Though Puskás couldn’t win the world cup and he & his team came second in the competition but he became the hero of his nation.


So the purpose of this article is to let you know that, dignity is not in possessing but in deserving, the icons above mentioned may not be the winner in those days but they eventually become winner for ever.