I give so much importance to encouragement

I always give so much importance to encouragement. Today I am an artist, all because of Ranjana’s encouragement. Right from the beginning she gave me encouragement, encouragement. My artwork is all gratitude to her encouragement.

In my weightlifting world, my gratitude goes to my Mahasamrat Bill Pearl. My disciples have done so much, but boundless encouragement I received from Mahasamrat. Before that, I knew nothing about weightlifting and I disliked weightlifting.

In my poetry-world I received such encouragement from my Bengali teacher, Prabhakar. From others also I got encouragement, but he was the one who encouraged me in my Bengali poetry-world. In English I got encouragement from somebody else. His name was Romen.

Encouragement! If you can encourage others wholeheartedly, then you can become something. You need encouragement and they also need encouragement.

In my song-world, right from the beginning I give my sister all the credit. She encouraged me. She taught me when I was practically an infant. And here in America, in the West, how much all of you have encouraged me! If you had not encouraged me, I could never have composed over twelve thousand Bengali songs and seven thousand English songs — never, never! These achievements are all due to encouragement, encouragement.

When children get encouragement from their parents, they become so successful in their life. Always we shall try to encourage others. You encourage others and they will encourage you. It is mutual. Encouragement is absolutely needed.

So many poets, so many writers, so many artists gave up their creations because of discouragement, discouragement, discouragement. Again, if one can continue in spite of being discouraged, then one can become successful.

One of my art teachers was very, very close to our family. He was a great artist. I studied with him for seven or eight months. He was very dear to me. When he saw my artwork, you cannot imagine his discouragement! He said, “Tell Madal he should never enter into artwork. It is silly. He only throws ink here and there. He will never be successful as an artist.” A few months later, Ranjana collected many nice comments, even one from a curator. Very, very famous artists and critics gave their opinions of my art and we printed them. My brother Chitta was always extremely eager to share my achievements. He went back to that artist with our booklet. When the artist saw the comments, he said, “O my God, Madal’s paintings are so beautiful, so beautiful! Tell him that he should continue!” At that time his opinion was totally different. He felt that I was an artist, a great artist!