Let us roll out the red carpet for the two already known, perceived to be the same yet very divergent elements.

Here is the first one, as he introduces himself:

“Hello! I am an invisible destroyer. I shall bite you, stab you, and poison you if you question my ability. I know everything. Beware of me! My name is ego.”

“Excuse me?” Self respect stomped abruptly introducing him: “Hey there! I pervade people with positive sense of confidence. I love to learn. I am

confident about my abilities. I am self respect.”

Often one confuses ego with self respect. The polarity of ego and self respect is less understood and knowing the difference between the two manifest wisdom. The two elements- ego, the self destroyer and self esteem, the humanly virtue is pulling a man by the two sides.

Now the decision dawns upon the man; whether he wants to be the ‘best in himself’ or just wants to be called ‘better than others’.

Aha, let’s get back to Mr. Ego and Mr. Self-respect and wallow in ourselves with their conversation, as it goes:

Ego slammed, “Ahem, Mr. Self-respect, do you think you are better than me? Look at me, I know everything.”

“That’s your problem dear. You only think that you know everything. What’s the point of being better than me when you only want to exhibit to the world that you’re better without actually being better?” replied Self respect confidently.

“I’m good at sport” and “I’m better at sport than her” makes an apparent demarcation of the aforementioned elements: self respect and ego. The latter is surely ego, who is much more focused on exhibiting his ‘qualities’ rather than realizing or improving the same. The acquired knowledge gets converted to ignorance and stagnates, becoming merely for exhibition. While “I’m good” shows he is aware of his inner potentialities. He doesn’t bluff. We can now culminate to the point that egoist go on exhibiting, while the self confident go on improving. And so the latter prosper. For instance, a student in class who maintained a consistency of scoring the highest marks every time is shunned by a new student who gets more marks than him. He always have looked down upon other students and always claims that he is the best. Thus he cannot accept his defeat; he is so overcome with ego that he thinks he is the only best and no one can take his place. As this havoc of jealousy invades him, it leads to his downfall. On the other hand, the other student went on working hard and outdid everyone.

‘Ego’ is a whitewash for our insecurities. Ego, the feeling of supreme, lingers to us because we gravely attach ourselves with our own ideas thereby neglecting others’ views and convictions. As a result when our opinions clashes with the other, we respond by showing anger, argue endlessly just to assert that what we think is RIGHT.

We would want to know what’s really with this “superiority” people craft to preserve the sense of being the most significant and most important?

This “false identity” mask people wear to perpetuate their supreme self is infamously known as the EGO.

Ego is a delusion: a ‘mirage of a superior personality’, which is aloof from our true self. We feed our ego only to uphold the ‘sense of superiority’ among others. Thus it leads to misanthropic beliefs, and is responsible for hatred, fear and isolation. The idea of ego gets apparent as we delve into the Indian legends and epics. As we dig into Indian legend, we see how the evil of ego leads to the downfall of powerful kings and rulers. All acquainted with the legend of Hiranyakashipu, we know that he even scorned down upon Gods and was so vain to believe that he was superior to God himself; and thus because of his ego he faced destruction. The mighty ego also connives to corrupt humanity, as reflected in the chirharan (the highest form of immorality) of draupadi due to the ego of duryodhan.

The pursuit to fulfil his ego made him shed the shreds of humanity. In Ramayana, Lanka was destroyed and Sita was kidnapped because of Ravan's ego.

Basically ego is a substitute for almost every vices. Ego is the bigger domain where every other human vices – jealously, revenge, pride, hatred, immorality dwells and flourishes. As for the egoist, in order to perpetuate itself in this strive for “I am better”, the ego connives to seek downfall of others just to see his ‘supreme self' rear its head in glory-this gives birth to jealousy and revenge; and that’s the point when one gets hindered from his way to progress-his skills and knowledge stagnates and dilutes in the process of being “I am better”.

Revenge is a waste product of ego and self conceit. Ego drives a person towards revenge- as they cannot bear others in the position that they place themselves in; and ultimately this drive for revenge takes its revenge on his own self- thereby causing self destruction. A constant conflict, a feeling of perpetual dissatisfaction and irritation with the self burdens him and paves the way for vengeance. He cannot see people rising; the only motive he harbours as a result of his ego is to pull the man down, as apparent in the character of Satan.

He thought he was superior to God himself and his pursuit of revenge was to corrupt mankind-the creation of God.

As in Othello, Shakespeare’s one of the famous plays, how ego plagued Iago for a bitter conspiracy against the protagonist. Since Cassio was appointed the lieutenant of Othello, and Iago was discarded; he could not bear the humiliation. Thus it induced the flames of vengeance which ultimately paved the way for his own downfall. Ultimately it is conspicuous that a man cannot rise pulling others down, it succumbs him to the abyss of failure.

The above instances clearly brings into consciousness that the mighty ego masquerades itself to human vices such a jealousy, stubbornness and vengeance which eventually cause the erosion of humanity, demise of relationships and paves the way for the ultimate destruction- death.

As we take recourse to Indian epic Mahabharata, we see how the grandiosity of some of the characters renders the whole kingdom in tatters. The epic Mahabharata reverberates vividly how kinship turns into ego battleships. It poignantly brings out how ego and megalomania blind Duryodhan, as he chose to siphon off his kith and kin, in the altar of his ego.

Duryodhan is staunchly stubborn not giving anything to the Pandavas, no matter what. He won everything in the dice game and when Pandavas returned after 14 years from exile, and demanded half of the kingdom, he denies. He is so gripped by ego that he says not an inch of territory will be given to them. This egoism paved the way for the deadly battle which cost him his entire kingdom, hundred brothers, his life and his grandiose vanity. Had he not clinged to his stubbornness and compromised on dividing the kingdom between them, this ill fate would not have befallen him. Ultimately this ego guided the Kauravas into battle and their eventual demise.

On the other hand, Shri Krishna inspired Arjun to fight for self respect. Lord Krishna admonished Arjuna to lift arms against forces of evil. It was a fight between righteousness and lawlessness. This is where “self respect” seeps in.

When we know that our cause is just and we are fighting for righteousness, it is our self respect.

In this regard, the wicked army of Duryodhana is potent as a metaphor for ego. And the Pandavas epitomises self respect. If we view the Mahabharata from this perspective, we see that the battleship between the Kauravas and Pandavas was a clash between ego versus self respect.

Another example epitomising self respect is our independence movement. More than to liberate ourselves from the clutch of the British dominance, the war of Independence was to solidify our respect which had been hammered upon by the British for many years. The condescending attitude of the British made them into thinking that they could have the whip hand over the Indians, thus domineering on them to fulfil their sinister interests. When the Indians realised that their respect was being sabotaged, they staunchly united against the British in defence of their respect. In this context, we can also cite examples of Rani Laksmi Bai and Bhagat Singh as an embodiment of self respect, who did not even think twice before forsaking their lives for our country.

...When the ego camouflages itself as self respect

There are many points and situations in life where the notions of ego and self respect gets blurred, We perceive one to be another and thus confusion arise this way. As for instance, two friends got into a misunderstanding and they stopped talking to each other for a while. At a later point in time, both realise that they have been silly and their friendship wins over the hurt feeling. However, neither take the initiate for reconciliation. At first they stop talking thinking that the mistake lies on the other person. Neither of them is ready to take the initiative of talking to the other person. They rationalise their behaviour by saying “I have self respect, why should I go and talk to him first, why can’t he take the initiative?” and both blame each other as having too much of an ego to take the initiative. Both the friends think that they are holding on their self respect, but it’s ego of both the friends.

There is a renowned incident of Mahatma Gandhi where we see that the notion of ‘ego' and ‘self respect' was blurred. Gandhi started an ashram in South Africa where each member of the ashram were supposed to share work, whether it meant even to clean the toilet. One day, Gandhi found out that the toilets of the ashram were dirty, and Gandhiji’s wife Kasturba was supposed to clean the toilets that day. When Gandhi asked his wife why the toilets were not cleaned yet, his wife retorted, “I don’t want to clean the latrines, it’s the work of the ‘Untouchables'. To this Gandhi said, “All work in this community is sacred than to devote ourselves to make the ashram pure by cleaning the latrines. It is an act of worship.” Seeing his wife’s reluctance, Gandhi said he would clean the latrines himself. His wife, understanding her folly, promised that she would clean the toilets that day. This incident connotes that refusing to do a work calling it as menial and beneath the dignity is not what enriches self respect. Its ego here which prevents us from doing this because we think we are superior and dignified enough not to do such work. Gandhi nullified this “sense of supreme” by cleaning the latrines himself, thus symbolising his lesson through his actions.

We all are acquainted with how the Dalits and untouchables have been discriminated, robing them off their voice, rights and respect from the mainstream “high class” society or people who accord themselves with more standard than others. They do not sit together with the Dalits or even refuse to talk to them thinking that their dignity will get lowered. Ensuing injustice to a particular section of people and calling it “dignity” is not preposterous.

There are many situation and points in our day-to-day lives, where we discard doing a work and gravely

attach us to a facade of “superiority”, which tells us not to do it because it is beneath our dignity. The reluctance comes from ‘ego'- which tags certain work as “menial” and we feel like ‘this is something I should not do”. Say suppose our mother would tell us sometimes to mob the floor, to which we will simply tell her that this is something that the maid does. This is where the notion of ego and self respect gets blurred.

...Role of ego and self respect in relationships

Ego kills love!

This is what the inner ego speaks to each one of us- “I am ego, I am your best friend and in fact, I am you. Let me tell you our rules: you better damn know that we are always right! Let us keep up this arrogance and not talk to them for a few days, see how they feel about it. Make them crawl back to us, begging for forgiveness. I am the EGO after all, my way of doing things is always the best. I must warn you about my enemy- “Love”.

Love always wants me to listen to the other side of the story, and also admit when I am wrong! Love requires a strange thing called “compromising”. It’s totally beneath me. I do not compromise since my opinion is the right one, why should I agree with anyone else? If love does not understand that, then she can drown herself in the toilet. I will be happy to push the handle and watch her flush down. My name is EGO, and I adore always saying “I” since “I am the centre of the Universe.

The problem comes when ego inflates to a feeling that the self is superior to other people. This leads to entitlement, that is, a belief that you deserve special consideration, which is bound to produce resentment and discord in relationships. When two people argue with each other and in the moment both say something wrong, but after the argument, we staunchly stick to our place and think that only I am right. That’s the point where ego seeps in relationships and poisons it. Its shows how you prioritise your ego more than the persons close to you. This is how you lose people. And this is where ego triumphs.

A dig into Hrishikesh Mukherjee's film “Abhiman” strongly foreshadows what role ego has in relationships. It intensely explores a troubled marriage caused by fragile egos. “Abhiman” deals with newlyweds; Subir Kumar, a flamboyant pop singer with a massive fan following and Uma, a classical singer. The couple encounter discord due to their differing levels of professional success. Interestingly director Mukherjee subtly suggest the differing points of view in the marriage. At their wedding, a music connoisseur, makes the uncanny observation that the wife was a far superior singer and this could trouble their marriage.

After initial happy days of marriage, reality invades their paradise. Exhorted by Subir, Uma sings a due with him and finds herself flooded with solo song offers.

Subir's fans are more attracted to Uma now, and they make beelines for autographs from her. The final blow to Subir's ego proves to be a producer offering Uma Rs 5000 per song, which is more than Subir's price. Subir's ego is badly hurt and he is envious that his fame and glory is out shunned by his own wife. Uma volunteers to stop singing, but ends up wounding Subir’s scarred self image further. In a moment of pique, he tells Uma that he doesn’t need her. Although the film culminates in a happy ending, it shows how ego can poison love in relationships.

Self respect is a very important part in relationships and happiness. But we need to differentiate the line between giving in and losing our own respect.

This is what self respect has to say here: “I respect and value relationships but that does not give “ego” the license to trample me over and get away with it. I value and love people, but when the boundary of toleration is crossed, the most important thing is to preserve my dignity.”

Love is a relationship based on reciprocity: value for value, respect for respect. If value is hindered from one side, then lingering on to the relationship is to slacken down on one's self respect. Someone with a fragile self respect would think that by choosing to accept the abuse and losing their identity, the other person will actually appreciate their loyalty and love them more. If you are always being belittled, insulted or abused, whether emotionally or physically by someone who says they love you, then no matter what they claims, you are nothing more than a toy over which they have control power. Compromising to a degree is okay to save any relation but you need to set boundaries. Once they transcend the boundaries, you should tell yourself enough is enough.

So it’s where the demarcation lies: It’s wrong to prioritise ego at the cost of relationships, but it’s right to abandon relationships when it infringes on our self respect.

Role of ego in poisoning married lives is very apparent. Ego clashes in marriage are one of the main reasons for divorce. When ego comes in between couples, then their married life is at stake. Couples need to maintain the gap between ego and self respect. There have been many instances of divorces only because ego seeps in to the marriage. When there is conflict of ideas and opinions, this results in misunderstandings and bickering of grudges between the couple. The more one holds on to the grudges, the more ego makes its hold stronger. Ultimately it weakens the bond of marriage.

The big, fat male ego

Patriarchal culture spanning over centuries and the dominance of male ego throws all the notions of female “self respect” to a bin. Men adopt the attitude of the women as a weak and inefficacious creature standing against the masculine might. The male ego always deems the woman as someone whose sole purpose of existence is to cater to his whims. He seeks in the woman, an object to enchant the fancies of his ego centric self. At the slightest threat to its supremacy, the Male ego's hidden, negative potential comes to the fore. As such, when the male ego witnesses the female soaring higher than him, his self proclaimed “supremacy” gets bruised to the brim. We have looked into Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film Abhiman, which validates this point.

The mere fact of being born a male cannot be the primary parameter to derive one's sense of self worth. The best way to deal with a bloated ego is to prick it.

There are instances how women ruffled the male ego and fought for their self respect. As we draw reference to movies, we see in the movie “Secret Superstars”, how the woman who has been subjugated for years finally gets the courage to speak in favour of her self respect.

Insia, the protagonist is a talented fifteen year old school girl from Baroda whose spirit is ripped because her mother is in a troubled and violent marriage. Insia's mother is subjugated to years of torture and humiliation by her sadistic husband, but she never complains. In the process, she gets so used to it that she loses all hope of ever breaking free. She dedicates to her daughter's aspiration to become a singer. After receiving constant abuse from her husband, when she sees that Farookh her husband is hindering Nasia to fulfil her dreams, for the first time Najma gets the unprecedented courage to raise her voice against Farookh. When Farookh threatens to slap her in front of everyone, Najma signs the divorce papers, hands it to Farookh and marches out of the airport. This was a shocking blow to Farookh's bloated ego, as he was surprised to see her taken-for-granted wife protest against her husband for the first time ever. Secret Superstars is a reminder that people can abuse and dominate us for only as long as we allow them to do so. The moment we decide to break free of the shackles, no force is this world can stop us from following our dreams to the fullest.

Self respect is the uplifting and propelling force which empowers an individual to retaliate in situations of unjust treatment.

Male Dominance and the factor of Ego in Islam: Islam is a male dominated religion. Men are more dominant and women are forced and suppressed and are not given any platform to express themselves. And however independent we term our country, the Islam of our country or should we say, more precisely the women are not getting their right or any sort of priority to enjoy their life and wants. Islam in India provokes and encourages male sentiments and ego to climb to a peak level and in the process dominate the female sentiments and respects. An example of this can be known from the fact of how Muslim women in spite of being one of the most beautiful species of women are forced to cover themselves up inside a black outfit called “Burkha”, from tip to toe, while a male person has no such restrictions, can roam around as they like and even are permitted to have more than one wife, and on the other hand marrying multiple times can be taken to be a criminal and social offence, if done by a lady. The male ego over their womankind is actually unhealthy for the progress of a civilised religion. Also the women must strive hard to rise above this male dominance and prove their self worth not only to the men of their religion but to the whole world that the women are not less than the rest. But women too, are ruffling this male ego by reaching the zenith in every field. Pakistan had a Muslim leader Benazir Bhutto, Bangladesh had Khalida Zia. Muslim men should shed their self proclaimed shell of “self importance” in the Islamic society and treat people of their opposite gender with the same dignity and respect that they hold for their own selves.

Digging more into “self”

Self respect encompasses a multitude of ideals, but it comes down to being the kind of person we are satisfied with and being confident of our capabilities. If excessive ego works like a poison in one's life, what a fragile self respect does in no different. A low self esteem can affect our lives in a myriad of ways. When negative influences and thoughts are prevalent- generated either from within ourselves or through others- it adversely affects the way we feel about ourselves. It also affects the experiences we have in our life. A low self esteem can also direly affect mental health leading to anxiety and depression, sometimes with tragic results. Our failing self esteem can propel us into making self destructive decisions such as tolerating mistreatment or harming ourselves. The signs of a low self respect is when you feel that you are a loser, you are not better than others and letting anyone treat you like a doormat that they can trample over. Person with a fragile self respect can do anything and can go to any extent in order to achieve something. There is no ethics in his life. The only thing he knows is to fulfil his pursuit at the cost of anything. Such persons are not valued in the society, and cannot shine in life ever.

A low self respect leads to the greatest downfall. And this fact can be validated by taking recourse to Vikram Seth's poem “A frog and the Nightingale”.

Seth's poem begins with the story of a frog in a bog. The ugly toad kept singing in his loathsome voice from dawn till dusk. The animals living in the bog had to bear this cacophony because the ugly toad was not willing to stop. One would hardly call it singing because everyone knows that frogs can croak and annoy, not sing. However, the creatures living in the bog were soon to be relieved from his croaking because a nightingale flew to the bog and started singing. As she sang, perched on a tree, the toad was dumbstruck by the melody of her song. They swam to the tree where the nightingale sang and admired her voice and her melodious song. The nightingale was not used to such applause and felt flattered. The frog, like a critic talked to her about her song and said she used a good technique but her song lacked certain critical elements.

She modestly accepted. She did not realise that her song was original and her own. The frog affirmed that without the training that the frog will provide, she was nothing but just a beginner. In modesty, she called the frog a Mozart in disguise and asked him to guide her. would make her sing in harsh weather conditions that made the Nightingale absolutely deprived of energy and sleep. The frog scolded the Nightingale like a strict coach and served her with criticism that were meant to break her morale and demean her. Gradually, her sales declined and at last the ticket office crashed. At the end, the frog pressed her to use her passion and sing at her loudest. Ultimately her veins burst and she died.

The main element for the nightingale's death was her low self respect. Had she been confident of her abilities, the frog couldn’t have cajoled her into doing

whatever he wanted of her. The nightingale had all the traits that made her a victim of cunning manipulation. This is a mark of a very low self esteem. Had she been confident and relied on herself, such ill fate would not have befallen the nightingale.

This gives us the lesson that once we start believing ourselves and develop a backbone, only then we will start respecting ourselves and others will not get the chance to use us for their own interest.

Consider the following instances:

Mother- “Son finish your homework, you can play

games later.”

Son- “Mom you don’t have to guide me with my

homework, you can play games later.”

Friend 1: “May I help you with the task you are doing?”

Friend 2: “What help are you going to do me? Look at

yourself, do you even know anything?”

In the above instances, the people are on the verge of losing their self respect.

But wait, what if

In the first instance, after receiving such rude and impolite response from her son, she would have scolded him and would have replied with a firm countenance.

“Talk properly. I am your mother, not your servant.”

Or in the second instance, the friend would have strictly responded against impoliteness.

People will respect you if you respect yourself. If you do not stand for yourself, people will take you for granted and will get the leverage to be rude with you because they know they can do so. This is where the importance of self respect lies. Once we have chosen to surrender our own self respect, we will be oblivious that we will no longer be able to respect anybody else.

Self respect is to stand rigid for yourself when you feel that your respect is getting pricked upon, it is to make our worth clear to others. If you feel you are deserving less than what you should get, self respect is to value yourself and stop compromising. Rather than stooping ourselves to the position of the people who does not respect us, it’s better to stop interaction with the person to preserve our honour.

Conclusion: Bringing to consciousness every positive and negative aspects of ego and self respect, we now can culminate to saying that excessive ego in a person and very low self esteem are equally poisonous to career, life, relationships etc. Striking a balance between the two is what manifests wisdom. Getting over the mighty ego is a Herculean task and upgrading our self respect is one of life's great challenges but truly holds with it one of the greatest treasures: unbridled self love. The best way of managing ego is to break the unhealthy attachment with the self. This unhealthy attachment does not let us appreciate other's point of view. By “breaking the attachment”, it does not mean not to respect our own ideas because that would ne hurting the self respect. “Breaking the attachment”, is to detach ourselves from the behaviour causing ego. We should respect our opinions but not jot the extent that we become defensive. On the other hand, to develop respect for our own selves, it is important to be true to ourselves, to realise our potentialities, to be able to handle criticism and learn from it.

It varies from the sensitive to the rigid, who chooses what; provide water to the blooming ego or flourishes self respect by removing weeds of the evil.