Rafiki's Priceless Lesson

"Success!!!", he growled out loud
Success is all that I want from thee.
Money, chicks, name, fame...all unbound
Let mine be a life, all shall envy!"


"Aye...", smiled Rafiki, a face so un-ordinary
For it had the brightness of super-human wisdom
"This definition of success, my child, isn't even the elementary
But if that is what you ask, then that is what shalt be done."

A wise baboon and god's own messenger,

Rafiki could grant good-doers a wish 

This man with his hard work, had emerged a winner
So the turn to demand something, was now his.


"Alright my son, then here you go
With what you think would satisfy you
Though it occurs to me most apropos
The outcome of this, is going to be huge."


Saying this, he took out his wand
God's messenger—the wise baboon, that is
Round-and-round, he swirled it around
Poof! The task was accomplished.

Very soon the man became
Everything he had aspired to be
A business tycoon, a world-known name
With 'chicks', money, fame: in no scarcity.


Day by day, more and more, he went on achieving
More money, more fame, more name and what not
Yet soon enough, something was changing
— perhaps, his idea of a perfect life's plot


It was sinking in again, that feeling so awry
Of being a creature so imperfect and incomplete
While everybody else envied the lucky guy
He was trying to figure out, "why am I not happy?"


He missed his family & friends he long back left
In pursuit of his so-called "bigger dreams"
"Why is it always the unsuccessful ones who preach about success?"
—he'd yelled at them then, most haughtily.


When all that they had asked the rising star
...was to slow down a bit and relax for a while
Lest there be a time when he'd have gone so far
...that he won't remember the last time he wore a real smile

Confused, he thought of paying Rafiki a visit
One after a rather long time
"He was who put me into this
Now he'll have to bring my life back on line"

"Rafiki!" he banged open the tree-house's door
"What the hell is happening to me!
Having got everything the world yearns for,
Why's it still so hard, for me to feel free!"


"But why my child" asked Rafiki simply
"Why at all do you complain?
I gave you all that you wanted from me
So your resentment now, to me looks insane!"

"Money, name, fame, girls and power
Altogether spelled your concept of 'success'
And now as you're fast climbing the ladder
You still dare to think, there's something amiss?"


"Yes yes yes!!" the man broke down to tears
"I have never before felt so empty
That with everything in my feet I still fear
..dying a life...unfulfilled really!"


"I have no one with who I could share everything
No one to rejoice in what I thought is "success"
Besides, there is this weird instinct bugging
That I'm never going to get, the key to happiness?"


"LOL," Rafiki chalked on the board in bold
"Is this what you were thinking then?
That with all things material in your hold
You'll get to be counted, in world's happiest men?"


"Sell off all your gold and gems, if you may
Bed, maybe, the hottest girls in town
Still, if you half as get for which you pray
I'll be the one, from that cliff to jump down."


"For, listen my child, I'll tell you now
What you missed out in this race
Was love, of the ones who mattered
—the ones you not long back caused disgrace."


"About the time when you'd asked arrogantly
'Why is it that about success who preach
Are the unsuccessful ones only?'
I've got here, a little lesson to teach."


"Imagine a bird flying bound for the skies
Not caring to spare a look, back around
And if that be the way there'd soon be a time
When it'd have lost its way, down to the ground."


"Works in a similar way for humans too, my friend
Much the same way, if you were to ask me
That it ain't success that stays in the end
But the way we first handled it."


"You could be big one day and have no clue
But never forget where you started from
Never think anyone around is less than you
'Coz sometime back, you too were at the bottom."


"And in the end, my child, all I can say is this
that love is love and money, money
The latter is to work for, aim, earn and spend
But it's the former that'll ultimately stay."


"So keep your loved ones close, be ego-less
They'll be there even when nothing's done
So in times of loneliness and distress
from a certain Rafiki, you won't need a lesson."


P.S: All credits mine for this attempt at writing this ballad-of-sorts. But all credit to the Timon-and-Pumba episodes I watched as a kid, that inspired me to use one of my favorite characters of those times, Rafiki, in this little tale. :)