By Varun Shrivats:
Firstly, I would like to give my sincere apologies to all physics enthusiasts who stumbled across this article and thought that the title would do justice to a rigorous write-up on the physics of wave motion or to an article rooted on similar grounds. This article does no such thing. Instead, it aims to look at events in our lives whose trajectories of progress glorify the concept of crests and troughs.
If simple and straightforward words were employed to define crests and troughs, they would read: Crest is a summit point, and trough is a depression point. So many aspects of our lives experience crests and troughs over regular intervals of time.
One clear-cut example that leaps to the mind is the share market of our country (Or of any country, for that matter). The Sensex hit the 21k mark for the first time on the 8th of January, 2008. Crest. Then, the economies of almost all the countries in the world plunged into a depression, the magnitude of which threatened to give it the privilege of being compared to the Great Depression of 1930.
Subsequently, the Sensex found itself wandering in levels almost half that of the Glorious days. Trough. Well, I bet that by now you can see what I am leading to. The October and early November period of 2010 witnessed another crest, thanks to shares like Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, and Coal India. But sadly, the day on which this article was written was also the third consecutive day in which the Sensex had shed over 0.7% of its index. (Signs of an approaching trough?) I am also pretty sure that if I were to write one more article on the same topic after a year, I would be able to cite at least 2 more instances of crests and troughs in the share market.
Such manifestations of crests and troughs extend beyond the territories of economies and share markets. Students’ academic performances witness crests and troughs (though some students stir envy among others by managing to keep a trough-free record. I myself have managed to avoid punches from fellow students, having never committed the crime), as do India’s performances in sports like Cricket and Hockey. The examples are too varied and many in number to be penned in this limited space.
The main reason for choosing the share market to demonstrate the inevitability of occurrences of crests and troughs is the fact that the share market is an important part of many of our lives, and the fact that we would be able to easily relate to the happenings in that field. And the main purpose of the article is to say this: Crests and troughs, or if you will, Ups and downs are inevitable in our lives. They are the results of the rhythmic pull of the strings of our lives by fate. Let me say one more thing at this juncture. Fate is a word ascribed by man to the “forces out of his control”. According to me, fate is nothing but the result of human nature and behaviour, and the only forces that are not in our–the human beings’– control are those of nature.
Hence, the important and logical thing to do is to hang tight and work your socks off during troughs, and to enjoy the harvests in the crests, for these are the fruits of your efforts during the harsh times. Full efforts must be made to prolong the time period of crests.
Allow me to finish this article with a note on troughs. Determination and hope are two traits which no human being can afford to part ways with, especially in times of troughs. Doing so is definitely not the solution to set us on an upward journey. So, let us hope that this viewpoint is agreed upon by one and all, and that the word depression is only used to define troughs, and not any of our lives.