New Delhi, March 26 -- "Success is the best revenge."

This line by Kanye West has been said by many people across many centuries. But, when Ye says it, it carries a particular weight. Few people in modern history have lived it as publicly, chaotically and defiantly as he has.

Kanye West has been dismissed, ridiculed, written off, cancelled and declared finished more times than most people can count. And, yet, at every stage, he returned with something that made his critics look small. The quote is not just philosophy for him. It is a biography.

The idea itself is ancient. It says that the most powerful response to those who doubted you, hurt you or counted you out is not anger, not confrontation and not revenge in the traditional sense...