Two Nobel Souls

Not even a week has gone by since the announcement of Nobel prizes in various fields for this year and each news paper has come up with its exciting piece of trivia about the winners. This has been followed by some interesting opinions from the common people as well.

This year’s two Nobel laureates who interested me the most are… yes you guessed it right!

• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan for Chemistry
• Barack Obama for peace.

Let’s start with Venky (as he is popularly known as). He shot to fame among a billion Indians just in one day. Every Indian was proud of him being Indian rather than an exceptional individual, in this field of work. In fact people further started crediting his success of him being born in a particular state or having studied in a particular state and so on. Let us get it straight. His achievement is phenomenal, but individual and has got nothing to do with his roots. Even he said that he believes more in people rather than nations. The bottom line is, such achievements are individual and not national and do little or no good to a country as such. Especially when someone represents an institution of other nation, it would be less apt to claim his credit on behalf of his roots. This reminds me of quote by another Nobel laureate, George B. Shaw. “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it”

Now coming to Barack Obama, here is what I feel. The question that arises first is, does he actually deserve it? Well, that’s for the Nobel Committee to decide, as per Alfred Nobel’s will. But in general the opinion amongst most people is that he doesn’t. To a fair extent, he may not deserve it this time. Though he might have a lot of positive ideas, hardly any of his ideas have been comprehensively converted into actions in such a short time. Also, a Nobel peace prize for a country head, which has highest nuclear arsenal, is a little ironical. Or maybe like Nobel, who invented 'dynamite' and believed that it will never be used for destructive purposes, the committee is also hoping that Obama will never use any of the nuclear weapons that the US possesses.

Whatever it is, there is always some sort of controversy that surrounds a Nobel Prize. Who is the right person to win it, is always a debatable point. In spite of all this, Nobel Prize has its own importance. Thanks to Alfred Nobel, for creating such an interesting will, which serves as a great source of motivation to many. And this reminds of one more quote by George B. Shaw, which goes something like this. “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a friend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize”