And the winner is….

There is always a strange silence after applause. After the lights fade, after the trophies are lifted, after someone says these fantastic words: “And the winner is….”

We love awards. They are our civilization’s glittering mirror. Be it the Grammy, the Nobel, the Oscar, the Booker. All of these try to evaluate human excellence with an award. We regard brilliance by packaging it, by giving it a shape, a number, a name. However, who decides what is “best”? A few people sitting in a committee room. A small group who listen, read, vote and announce. And the world outside just waits. The world that is full of unseen brilliance, quiet labour and art that may never find a stage.

Actually, these choices are rarely neutral and what wins is not always pure merit. It is often what fits the world’s preferred narrative. These awards are subtly shaped by politics, ideology and the forces of a capitalist mindset.

The Grammys sparkle. Flashing lights. Red carpets. Glittering gowns. Loud music. But behind the show, there are stories of those who didn’t make it to that microphone. The best song of the year might still be the one a mother hums to her child at night. Music has never belonged to stages. It was born in kitchens, in downhearted, in lonely moments. The Grammys, for all their glory, cannot hold that.

Then there is the Nobel Prize. The grandest of them all. An award meant for the minds that shaped the world. Yet even Alfred Nobel, its founder, had to rewrite his own story. The man who invented dynamite read his premature obituary one morning. The newspaper had called him ‘the merchant of death.’ He was horrified. So, he left his fortune to honour those who bring peace, science and literature. The Nobel was born from guilt.

Maybe all awards begin as redemption. Still, we love them. The applause, the emotion, the trembling hands holding paper. We believe in merit because it makes the world feel fair. If someone wins, it means someone deserved it. Right? But life isn’t fair. Talent isn’t always visible. Some geniuses die in silence. Some writers never get published. Some singers never get a mic. The Nobel and the Grammy are not truth. They are snapshots. They are the moments frozen by opinion. But art, science and humanity don’t live in moments. They live in years of effort, self-doubt and quiet endurance. The Nobel Peace Prize once went to people who still had wars left in them. The Literature Prize skipped entire generations when politics got in the way. The Grammys ignored entire genres before realizing their mistake. The Oscars? They often remember too late. Then they convey “lifetime achievement awards,” like apologies wrapped in gold.

So maybe the real award isn’t a trophy. Maybe it’s persistence. The ability to keep going when no one claps. To work without validation. To sing in the dark, write through pain, discover without resources. To do it because you must. Awards acknowledge achievement. But greatness is often anonymous. It conceals in the teacher who starts early; in the doctor in a far-flung health centre; in the researcher who never gets cited; in the poet who writes in silence; in a thinker who observes mutely; and in the artist who never sells a painting; No red carpets there. Just quiet humanity. And yet, we still need awards. Because they remind us that effort matters. They inspire. They make a young student dream of a Nobel, a young musician dream of a Grammy. They give shape to ambition. Recognition, even if imperfect, fuels progress. The problem begins when the award becomes the destination. When art turns into competition. When sincerity is replaced by strategy. When “winning” becomes more important than “doing.”

Somewhere right now, the next Nobel winner might be sitting in a tiny lab, unpaid, unnoticed. The next Grammy singer might be performing in a café no one is listening to. The next great idea might be jotted in a notebook that will someday change everything. History moves slowly. It gives prizes too late, sometimes to the wrong people. But it also redeems. It remembers what matters. In the end, the lights will fade. The applause will die. The golden statues will gather dust. What remains is the work. The thing you created because you couldn’t not create it. That is the real prize. The work that outlives you. The story, the song, the discovery, the selfless service that becomes part of humanity’s collective pulse.

So, when the next big award night flashes across our screens, let us cheer, yes. But also remember those who never made it to the stage. The unnamed, the unspeaking, the splendid unnoticed. Because they, too, moulded the world. Noiselessly, without ovation, without trophies. And in the long run, history and humanity belongs to them.