“Parental love is the only love that is truly selfless, unconditional and forgiving”. –Dr. Thye Poh Chia (b.1941) In today’s technology-driven, self-centric world, this topic may assume some importance for sustaining humanity. I’m fortunate to have been born in a family that was mainly driven by duty and values. It is difficult to teach, especially the young ones, the concepts of duty and values. In my growing years, I had never bothered to understand these concepts. However, during my student years, despite all the distractions, I always ensured that I performed well in my academics and undertook a few household chores as and when needed, without any pressures. I’m doubly fortunate for having born in a family that was living in their ancestral home. As I continue to live in a house where three generations of my ancestors lived, I realize its role in developing the concept of responsibility in me. I managed to modify the ancestral home in instalments, spread over almost...

  “Innovation, an instrument specific to entrepreneurship, endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth”.  -Peter Drucker Until the age of sixteen, I never considered time, knowledge, or skills as resource. Born and brought up in a joint family environment, I always thought that the biggest resource I had was relatives. During my younger days, I could easily list the names of over a hundred relatives (paternal and maternal) with whom I was fairly familiar, although I could take liberty only with a few. I always received support from my immediate and extended family directly or indirectly. It is only when I received my first National Merit Scholarship of six hundred rupees in 1967 that I understood the importance of money as a resource and the associated freedom. All through my growing years I wasn’t greatly motivated by money; what pushed me more was to experiment with my life by doing something different from what my family elders were doing.  My paternal great ...

  It is not about proving anything to the world. It is all about proving your capabilities to yourself and stretching your own boundaries.” ― Manoj Arora, Author of Dream On (2015) Generally when we face failure or a situation that we don’t know how to handle, we worry about our capabilities. Sometimes, we develop capability just to meet the demands of the situation. From my younger years, I’ve had to bear additional responsibilities both at school and home, which I fortunately considered as part of my work and not as a burden. Till I entered high school, I was the class monitor and the school assembly in-charge; I also represented the school in several extra-curricular activities like debates and sports. On many occasions I got prizes and lavish praise from teachers. I also acted as the hero in dramas and happened to perform well in academics. Thus, expectations started rising within myself by the time I turned fourteen and had entered high-school. On entering high-school, I prefe...

  “When your values are clear to you, making decisions become easier”. – Roy E Disney (b. 1930) – Son of Roy Oliver Disney, Co founder of Walt Disney Co I think confidence and empowerment are interconnected. Empowerment comes from within; typically it stems from and is fostered by self-assurance. To feel empowered is to feel free and that’s when one can do his best. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), who believed that embracing difficulty is essential for a fulfilling life, considered the journey of self-discovery one of the greatest and most fertile existential difficulties.  During my growing years (1950-68), I wasn’t subject to great academic or peer pressure. I could spend sufficient time in play, reading a variety of books, and being with people, both young and old. This helped me build a general perspective of life for later years. Having spent most of my growing years in my ancestral home amidst elders, siblings, and visiting relatives, my focus was on sustaining family a...

  “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond power of reason to believe”. – Voltaire  I must have been three or four years old when my mother started teaching me Sanskrit shlokas. My mother recited many such shlokas in the early morning and also during the day when she was relatively free from work. Because of this, by default, some of them got embedded into my memory. Because the shlokas were taught by my mother, who has taken so much care of me, I believed that reciting such shlokas will make me happy and successful. Almost until I entered adolescence, I regularly recited some of the shlokas. Once I entered my teens, my curiosity, peer groups, extra-curricular activities, and academics occupied most of my mental space and reciting these shlokas stopped. After I turned sixty, when I tried to understand the meaning for these shlokas, I found that they mainly praise with gratitude the various forms of nature/God. When my mother desired that few of the shlokas that she was r...

  “Transformation does not happen by learning new information. It happens when you change how you view and react to other people, events, and things around you”. I started feeling helplessness when I was about seven. My elder sister who was suffering from Type-1 Diabetes succumbed to the disease when she was just about twelve. This happened within a few weeks of our moving to Khadakavasala (a small town situated seven and a half miles from Pune) following my father’s transfer from Bangalore. I saw the elders at home wailing and didn’t know how to console them. The fact that my sister didn’t return home after my father had taken her out with a few of our neighbours and his colleagues made me seek the reason for it. I was told that she has reached God. It was only a couple of years later I learnt a little more about death.   When I was almost nine, I was afflicted by eczema and it was terribly itchy and painful. I suffered from jaundice a couple of years later; there were severe...

  “We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen”. – Paulo Coelho, Brazilian Poet and Author During my younger years, I was mostly driven by the systems practised in my family, school, college, and the society at large. During those growing years, doing anything against the established norms I deemed as risky. In my early twenties I began perceiving risk in relation to a particular activity based on my capabilities, perceptions, and the environment in which I have to undertake the work. Until my late thirties, in spite of all my academic qualifications, while taking decisions, I was more driven by my nature, focusing on perceived needs and values (as per the frameworks that I had developed) rather than from the perspective of risk. I must admit that on many occasions things fell in place as I had expected, perhaps due to the frameworks or one can even attribute it to luck. Generally I’ve perceived risk from the perspective of reputation or...

  “Our thoughts shape us. We become our obsessions.” – Kilroy J Oldster, in his book Dead Toad Scrolls (2016) I saw opportunities with reference to my learning competence and ability to sustain. Born to middle-class and duty-conscious parents who lived in a joint-family system, during my adolescent years I did not develop any big ambitions. At every transition point in my life, regardless of the number of options that I had, taking care of the family was a sort of obsession.  After completing my tenth standard (1967), I was prepared to start working, in case I could not continue with my studies. I was fortunate to continue my studies as I got National Merit cum Means Scholarship. On completing my one-year Pre-University course, I had three options – join B.Sc. / B.Sc. (Honours), Engineering, or Medicine. I knew very well that I was not cut out for Medicine. My main objective of graduation was getting a job. I had scored well in Physics, so I could easily get admission to B.Sc....

  “Routinize the routine. Do things that are not important to you with the least energy so that it leaves you with more energy for other things” Like the adage ‘Practice makes a man perfect,’ we have generally been trained to follow some sort of routine – from the time we get up from bed until we go back to it. As we grow up, we follow a few of them but give up many, mostly due to lack of time or not finding value in them. In some sense, routine helps embed in the memory certain information, because of which an activity is done mechanically without applying intelligence, consequently one doesn’t derive fulfilment and satisfaction. As the environment and circumstances were changing often during my early years (fifth to tenth), I got used to uncertainties. This considerably brought down my expectations. As a student of engineering (1968-73), to break the monotony of assignments, tests, and examinations, I used to volunteer my time to some activities that kindled my interest.  On...

  “The secret of life is finding the right balance in everything you do” We achieve emotional balance when we allow ourselves to feel whatever we encounter, without getting stifled or being overwhelmed by it, and learn to accept our feelings without judgment. Most people try to avoid emotional and physical pain. Avoiding it doesn’t work because pain, emotional or physical, is an inevitable part of life, an essential aspect of being human. As we grow, we naturally develop aspirations beyond mere survival requirements. Money is a requirement for fulfilling aspirations and hence Economics becomes another inevitable aspect of human life. During most part of my childhood I focussed on the job on hand, be it academic work or playing a game of cricket, enjoying a movie or eating out with friends; I was driven more by the moment rather than analysing the process or the possible outcomes. This approach stood the test of time in various situations throughout my life. The purpose of education...

“To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. While virtue appears from good deeds, wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind”. –Gautama Buddha Human life is a mixture of necessity and freedom, chance and choice. The freedom of choice and how each one exercises it will depend on the nature and need of the individual. With his limited income, my father could barely manage to meet family needs during our childhood days (1950s and 60s). I was born and grew up in the house where I presently live. This is my ancestral house bought by my paternal great grand-father in 1877. As our house happens to be spacious (by Bangalore standards), relatives would visit regularly and there were times when their stay stretched for longer periods. Growing amidst different people exposed me to varieties of human nature. I also understood the economic pressures that my parents were subjected to, though they had never expressed. This motivated me t...

What you have learned is a mere handful; what you haven’t learned is the size of the world”. (Translation of a Tamil Couplet) -Auvaiyaar, 13th Century Lady Poet  While knowledge and technology have become the key drivers for today’s world economy, sensationalism has become the key for all forms of media to sustain and grow their businesses. Because we depend on the media for information and entertainment, it can become a major source of distraction for serious learning. For this reason, focussed learning has become an essential requirement to conduct our lives meaningfully and be happy. We are not born with the required knowledge and skills to conduct our lives. Knowledge comes with learning. Skills develop with doing. It is essential that the learning process becomes a source of joy rather than a painful practice. I recall that in my very young days I loved to be with people; it might be in a room or in a playground. I was a compulsive talker. When I had an attack of diphtheria (1...