Comparison Is the Thief of Joy
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
05 May 2026
The Sophomores (2nd year students) of Balliol College, arguably the best college in the world under the aegis of Oxford, were recently asked to write their views on " Mozart, Bach and Beethoven: Who's the greatest among them? " Now the very topic is perplexing. Comparisons are always odious. And when it comes to analysing and comparing the symphonies and musical styles of these three giants of western classical music, the task becomes all the more baffling. In the sphere of creativity and fine arts, comparisons are always misleading and never final. It's indeed a pursuit of failure and the thief of joy. Comparisons are basically vilifications and only humans indulge in this worthless and utterly meaningless pastime. When you compare, you attempt to vilify and run others down in the fray. Remember, a flower doesn't think of competing with the flower next to it; it just blooms. Comparisons stymie one's growth and shrink the vision.
In the early sixties, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore were being compared by the students of Calcutta's famed Presidency College, now a full-fledged University. The healthy discussion eventually degenerated into a dirty war of words. It became so abusive that the Calcutta University and now-defunct The Amrita Bazar Patrika had to intervene and request to stop the senseless comparisons which began to smack of prejudices and coteries. What started with a purely innocuous literary intention, turned into something very volatile and undesirable. Almost the same happened in the comparative study of Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray's cinematic genius in the late eighties. Who was more close to reality? Or who was a realist or a sur-realist? It was a bitter analysis with strong elements of subjectivity, the most crucial and also a recurrent ingredient in any comparison. Comparisons are seldom dispassionate. They're often biased.
Why do we compare? There's a basic human desire to put his / her idol on the highest pedestal and make that person acceptable to all. This is not possible, rather objectively impossible. This also reeks of a morbidly obdurate attitude. The critics of Sir Donald Bradman argue that the great man wasn't very comfortable on sticky wickets and even an irregular bowler like India's Vijay Hazare (who was the Vice-captain on that tour) troubled him with his nagging cutters during India's historic first tour of Australia in the 1947- 48 season (which lasted until February 1948) under the stewardship of Lala Amarnath. Hazare even bowled Sir Don twice on the tour. England's Sir Alec Bedser, perhaps the greatest medium pacer the game has ever seen, dismissed Don six times in his Test career and fault-finders say that Don wasn't that good at reading the away swing and Bedser's inswinging leg-cutters. On this count, English opener Sir Leonard Hutton was greater than him, but even Hutton was not very comfortable against the unnerving pace of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller. This will go on.
There'll never be an end to it. The point is: What does one get out of it? Do these perceived errors and chinks in their armour take away their greatness? Comparisons often highlight the not-so-sunny side and there's always a sort of sadistic pleasure hidden in it. When a person is compared, his/ her personal life is also unnecessarily publicised. In this way, comparison doesn't restrict itself purely to the skills of that person, but the character also comes in. This is completely uncalled for. Almost a decade ago, Lord Byron and Robert Browning's comparison appeared in a write-up in the The Daily Mirror. The writer wrote that Byron was an incorrigible womaniser, whereas Browning was an ethical, one-woman man. This was wide-off the mark in a comparison. But you're not comparing their character. You're comparing their craftsmanship. When we compare Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and G B Shaw as dramatists, we often highlight their limitations and pit them against an absolute genius playwright like William Shakespeare to make them look like pygmies. This approach is unfair as well as prejudiced.
Manna Dey, though himself an exponent of classical music, was always compared with his blind uncle, K C Dey, who was a doyen of classical music. Comparisons are a favourite hobby-horse of people who don't have much to do. There's no intellectual and creative rigour in it. Comparison can be compared to a perpetual conundrum like who came first: Egg or a hen? Or who's a greater poet: P B Shelley or John Keats? Who was a greater singer: Rafi or Kishore? We must never forget that ' Har zarra apni jagah par aftaab hai ' (Every particle is the sun in its own right). So, look in the mirror rather than at your neighbour. Enjoy the pulp. Don't count the seeds. Neither compare nor compete. Be creative.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/when-comparisons-become-vilifications/d/139896
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