Address by Subroto Bagchi

Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore on defining success. July 2nd 2004

I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep – so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today. As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government – he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep – we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance – a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do. The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed – I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' – very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant – you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors. Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha – an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition – delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept. Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios – we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios – alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions. Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success. My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper – end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness. Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success. Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light. Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places – I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him – he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day. He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts – the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world. My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum. Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity – was telling me to go and kiss the world! Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives. Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.

SHAHRUKH’S AUTO BIOGRAPHY

My mother was born and brought up in Hyderabad. She was a strong and beautiful woman. She resemble Waheeda Rehman. My father also was extremely handsome. I don't think I'm good-looking but they were a very good-looking couple. The met incidentally under strange circumstances. Injured in a car accident, my mother needed blood. My father who happened to be at the hospital at that time gave her blood. In this process of helping my mother to revive, they fell in love. And though my father was about eleven years older than my mother, her family consented because he had sort of saved the family. In bringing up my sister Shehnaz and me, my parents never made any difference, though I think my sister was closed to my parents because she is six years older to me. I was born at a time when my parents weren't doing well financially. But I don't remember facing any hardship on that account. My father was a chief engineer. My mother was a social worker, a first class magistrate. She had studied in Oxford. She was among the first few Muslim women to have achieved so much. She has been an executive magistrate for the longest tenure recorded. She used to deal with juvenile delinquents. I was not a stubborn kid.
But if I wanted something badly enough I would go out and get it. I was exposed to the Ram Leela, I acted in it as one of the monkey. I wrote short stories.. shairis.. My father made me recite them. I remember once there was this aunt who wore horrendously pink lipstick and I composed a corny poem in praise of her lipstick. I think she was secretly pleased. My parents let me do my own thing, they only wanted me to do well in my studies...which I did. There were no restrictions. I could sleep at any time, go out anytime. If I bashed up some child's teeth, my father saw to it that I dealt with the child's father myself... I realized that parents weren't authority but they were friends. I would imitate Mumtaz, I would mimic people. I'm doing all this even today. And guess what? I'm being paid handsomely for it. An outgoing kind of person, mom took a lot of initiative in everything. I remember when my father was ill, he had cancer for eight months, We lost everything we had. One injection used to cost about Rs 5000 and we had to organise about 23 injections in ten days. It was an expensive affair and our business went down. At that time my mother would work day and night. She would get the money some way. She really looked after my father. After his death in '81 she revived his business and ran it proficiently. I inherited workaholism from her. She never said no to anything. Like when I went to college, I said I wanted a car. And the next day, there was a car outside. She never forced me to do anything. She never even forced me to take over the big business that we had finally when she died. When I told her I wanted to act, join films she did not stop me. I wanted to do my masters in film making. I was very good. I had got admission in NSD. I didn't want to do it but she told me, "just get admission". So I gave my admission test and got in. I remember I used to be very bad in Hindi. I would get zero on ten. And she used to tell me, "If you get ten on ten, I'll take you for a film". And from that day to date I have topped in Hindi at all times I remember the first film she took me to see was DevAnand's Joshilaa. Her favourite actors were Bishwajeet and Joy Mukherji. I think Iinherited my sense of humour from my father, who too had a lot of respect for women. I remember once I had gone and blown somebody's letterbox. And this south indian lady came down and complained to my father, "Your son troubles my daughter". He looked at her and said, "If she is as pretty as you are and if I was as young as my son, I'd probably do the same thing". She started laughing. He said it so gently and nicely. He was very respectful to women because he had an older sister and a mother whom he was very close to. He taught me how to be gentle with women. When my father died, I didn't cry. I thought it was heroic. I was one of the pall-bearers, I thought I had become a little big man. But I felt cheated despite the fact that he had prepared me for his death... And my mother's death made me realize that nothing is permanent. I stopped hoping for anything. I cried a lot. Nothing shocks me anymore.
It was the most painful moment of my life, when my mother died in my arms. She had become alright and suddenly she died. Just like Dad. Her blood had become septic. It was very painful. The first time I prayed to God was when she lay dying. I never prayed, that's the kind of family we were. A Muslim family that never forced you to pray. And it was the first time, I really prayed, but she died all the same.
I imbibed my basic values from her, learned a number of things from my mother. Like never cut down on your expenditure, increase your income. That's why I'm a spendthrift. Never acquire or want anything that has a bad feeling in it. In Urdu it is called manhoosiyat. Like if you ask someone for money and he says, "nahin yaar kal de dunga," just forget it. That's the reason why I still have not touched my mother's money. Because I know she would not want it that way. I only took a television set she had given me last when I came to Bombay. My property, my business, my cars, everything is still in Delhi. I haven't taken anything because if she's not there to give it to me, I don't want it. And she'll be happy if I don't take them and instead get the all on my own. She also taught me not to hurt anyone. Like I said she would slap people if she got angry with them, but she would love them at the same time. Neither she nor my father have ever hit me. They were very gentle people. My mother behaved like a true friend, when I told her I wanted to marry Gauri. Is she Muslim or Chinese? Nothing was asked. My mother taught me how to act, some really sweet expressions. But what's most important, she has given me my present philosophy of life. She has taught me that nothing is permanent, including herself. So, enjoy what you have this moment, for it can be taken away from you the next. Everything is transient. That is why I don't give a damn to anything. It's a very macho way of putting it. But the whole rationale is that if she could be taken away from me, then everything else can be taken away also. If I can leave with her absence then I can live with the absence of stardom, money or anything. And that is the closest you can come to being contended, you die. People say the only cure for life is death. May be at that moment, that one second, when all thoughts of worry leave your mind, you die. I kept giving my mother a lot of worry, so she couldn't die. I kept pleading, "please don't go".
I still believe she's there and she looks over me. Otherwise I would not have had all that I have. She is my STD to God because there is nothing in this world that I want and I don't get. I don't ask for anything for myself because she wouldn't like it. But whenever I have to pray for someone who is poor, unwell or sad, I just tell my mother and I'm sure she does something because most of the time something good works out. Whenever I'm very happy I cry, because I can't share my happiness with her.
My sister Shehnaz is very naïve and sweet. She is also very spoilt and pampered. I love her a lot. I've grown in her shadow, as she was the older child in the house. I'd look up to her. She is very quite now, after my parents demise. She stays with me. She is an educated girl. She has done a management course; she used to work as an officer for the Indira Gandhi memorial. She has also done her MBA in psychology. She was extremely affected by our father's death. I was younger, so I think I got over Dad's death sooner. By the time she accepted our Dad's absence, our mother died. She went through a bad phase. She is my only connection to my parents. I see my father and mother in her. I keep telling Shehnaz, "you are just like mummy". Even she has her fits of anger. My mother still remains with me and my mother always taught me to work, she said, "it will help to tide you over anything". I retained that. As for my sister, before she could pick up this invaluable lesson, our mother expired. So she got very clammed. She was an outgoing girl before, now she has become very quite and silent. I still look up to her.
My one regret is that my mother never really saw my work as an actor. She wasn't there when I won my first award. No, but she must have seen it. I miss her a lot. I think she is a star. Whenever I feel too sad, I just go to the terrace and cry. And I know she is watching me from somewhere. Because I wouldn't be what I am, had it not been for her blessings.
Gauri's parents were dead against the marriage. Her mother had threatened to commit suicide. Her father called me over and said it wouldn't work out. For six years, we carried on our relationship clandestinely. Once I even went to her birthday party incognito. I used the name I was falled in Fauji -Abhimanyu. Her parents innocently remarked that I looked like a distant relative of Mr.Dilip Kumar. But when they got to know my identity later, all hell broke loose.
The're a typical Punjabi family. I was told that one of her uncle are very aggro. He kept a sword hidden in his underclothes. But when I got to know him he turned out to be a lamb. I managed to patao all her relatives one by one. I would take Gauri's cousins to the disco. Gradually everyone liked me and all her mamas and mamis kept assuring me that her parents would come around.
Things weren't working out, Gauri was locked up at home, she would keep on telling me, "Shah Rukh, you don't know my parents.. you take things so lightly" and I would tell her that things would be all right. I'd tell her that 10 years down the line, we'd be laughing about all the trying times. And that's just what we do today. Sometimes in the nights, we sit and think about all that had happened and have a good laught. But at one point, the pressure did get toGauri. She felt that I was stifling her with my possessiveness..
At one point of time, I was extremely possessive about Gauri. I would fight with her if she wore a swimsuit to the pool or even if she left her hair loose. She looked very pretty when she opened her hair and I didn't want other boys to look at her. It was basically insecurity because we couldn't talk about our relationship. We didn't meet so often. But I was extremely insanely possessive.
Eventually she could not take it. She needed a break. So in 89, she just came down to Mumbai with her friend without telling me. When I got to know I was frantic. The day before she left, she came to meet me. It was her birthday and I had decorated my room with balloons and bought her a lot of presents. When she came to meet me she cried and I thought maybe she was over wrought because of all the tension. I confided in my friends Ashish and Benny. I told my mother about it.. she told me to go and bring back the girl I loved. She gave meRs.10,000 and we all came to Mumbai. We spent the first two days at a friend's house. The rest of the time we slept on the footpath near Oberoi. I still remember we used to wash up in the Taj, the bathroom behind 1900's was being done up at that time and we used to sneakin early mornings for a wash.
We spent most of the time walking around looking for her everywhere especially the beaches. Gauri loves beaches. But I didn't know much about Bombay then. On our last day, here a met s Sardar taxiwala who spoke to us about Aksa beach. We took a chance and went there. By then we had run out of money. I had sold off my camera too. The cab dropped us to Aksa and we were left with 20 odd rupees. Then someone told us of a beach called Gorai. So we took a ferry across, searched a lot but couldn't find her. And then when we were coming back by rickshaw to reach the ferry on time, around 12, I heard some people shouting. The rickshaw driver told us it was a private beach (I was describing her to people, telling them about her hair, saying she's a friend and I've lost her. I used to love her hairstyle. But she cut it just to spite me).I told the rickshaw driver to take me to this beach. So we went and there she was.Standing in the water, wearing a T-shirt. By then it didn't matter even if she wasn't wearing anything. She came over and we hugged, and cried. It was then that I realised I was being unreasonably possessive. I also realised that no one could ever love Gauri the way I loved her and that gave me tremendous confidence.
Our wedding took place in the strangest circumstances. We had already rung up Gauri's parents from her aunt's place and told them that we were married. Pandemonium broke loose, her mother stopped eating and the whole atmosphere at their place was like a house in mourning. I entered to meet her father. I felt guilty. I think when I spoke to them they realised that they had no other go but to take this risk. I really identify with this feeling when I do a film like DilwaleDulhaniya Le Jaayenge.
I can understand Gauri's parents apprehension. After all they were a Punjabi joint family. About 15 people and Gauri was the youngest, the most sheltered one. Imagine she anounces that she wants to get married to this ruffled looking guy belonging to the wrong religion having a wrong attitude and working in the wrong profession. There wasn't a right thing going for me. I don't blame them. They may have thought that any day they would have got a better deal for Gauri. Let's put it this way. If my daughter brought in somebody like me, I would hit the ceiling.
Her parents had seen me on television and were quite fond of me. But they thought my name was Abhimanyu and then they got to know that I am Shah Rukh Khan. Then her brother would keep on threatening me in his best Amrish Puri voice "Keep away from my sister of else..." Finally when I saw him I was in for a shock. He was this fair kid with blue eyes not even remotely intimidating. In fact when my friend Ashok saw him he said "There must be more to him yaar, he sounds real deadly on the phone."
We never wanted to go against the wishes of our parents. The thought of eloping never crossed our minds. But we knew that we'd get married for sure. When I met Gauri's parents I just couldn't get myself to say that I loved their daughter. That I thought was a stupid thing to say... because I could never love their daughter as much as they loved her. They had given birth to and brought up Gauri... my love could never be a substitute for their love.
I had a Hindu style wedding as well as a court marriage. Court marriage is a must if it's an inter-religion marriage. You are supposed to do in on the sly and then wait for a month or so but it was out within three days that I am getting married to a girl called Gauri. There was a problem because some Muslim organizations thought that I shouldn't get married to a Hindu so there were morchas outside my house. This was very ironic because my mom was a social worker and special executive magistrate so she used to organise about 25 intercaste marriages at our house. We wanted it to be a short and sweet wedding but Gauri's parents wanted it in a typical Hindu fashion. And then I relented because I thought what the hell you get married only once in a lifetime. At least I thought I will.
Normally the dulha comes on the ghoda and he isn't supposed to see his bride till the pheras are over. But the car that was supposed to pick her up after her make-up was done, conked out.Then panick struck because the mahurat was at a fixed time so I picked her up, dropped her, went back and returned on a horse. And then halfway through, I changed over from the horse to an elephant. Climbing the elephant was a major problem, my friends pushed me up.
When my mother was alive, she used to call me anti-social, I used to never attend any functions or weddings. My mother used to always warn me that nobody would come for my wedding. I decided to have all the fun I could at my own wedding so I danced for the one kilometer stretch to the venue. At the wedding I stood on my toes and wouldn't let Gauri put the haar round my neck. All my friends know I have a sense of humor so they kept warning me repeatedly "Shah Rukh don't poke any fun there because you won't mean anything but people will misunderstand." As this was my only chance to see a wedding from such close proximity, whatever the pandit said I'd ask him to explain. And the whole ritual went on for hours. So my friend who'd warned me earlier kept telling me not to get this serious. Then there was some ritual that required Gauri to wash my feet and I didn't want her to do it. When it was time for the bidaai Gauri sat in the car and started crying. Soon her mother started crying, her father and brother followed. So then in all seriousness I said if you are all feeling so bad then you can keep her I'll come and see her regularly.
Since we are from different religions and me being the way I am (when they look at me nobody can ever think that I can be responsible about life) I could imagine how insecure her parents were feeling.
For the first time after knowing each other for seven years we spent the night together. Before this we'd always be worried when eve rwe went out even if it was for a stroll, as to what if somebody sees us. It was quite an exciting feeling that we were sleeping together and that when I wake up in the morning, she will be there.
Can you believe the next evening I took a flight back Bombay and the day after that I shot for Dil Aashna Hai. Actually I had gone on the sets because the unit wanted to congratulate me but they asked me to shoot one shot and before I knew it, one shot became five and I was late in coming back home and we had a big fight.
Very few guests came from the film industry - Rajiv Mehra, Vivek Vaswani, Aziz Mirza and G.P. Sippy. Juhi and her mom had aparty for us when we came to Bombay. All Gauri's friends came for the marriage. Mine was a house-in-mourning, so there wasn't any festivity.
I wore my Raju Ban Gaya Gentlema nsuits. At the sangeet and all I was the life of the party because the atmosphere was sogloomy I really decided to make things look a little more cheerful. In fact Gauri's mom is a good dancer and the life of any party but she wasn't dancing at her own daughter's sangeet. By the end of the wedding everyone grew very fond of me.
In the gifts there were none of the things that I wanted. No computer games. People are so stupid, they should give me what I want. Instead, they gave a lot of crystal.
Gauri's father had arranged an army band that played the songs from my forthcoming releases, mainly Deewana and Raju BanGaya Gentleman.
It was the first time I wore suits and th efirst sign of Gauri's mother thawing was when she told me that we never thought you were so nice looking. I wore a tuxedo for my reception and I gelled my hair.
My logic was that the person who should enjoy the most at my wedding should be me.......
I respect Gauri, because she is a woman and she is going to be a mother soon. If it's a boy, I want him to be a badmash. He should do all the bad things by the time he is 16, so that he can sober down after that. If I have a daughter, I'll give her all the love that's stored within me. Though my wife thinks I'm mad, I know I'll drop my daughter to the parties she's invited to. I'll want her friends to say, "Wow what a handsome father you have!" When she's with her boyfriend in the backseat of our car, I'll be at the wheel, driving her around. My parents were my yaars. Similarly, I'll be my baby's best buddy. I love Gaurima because she is so honest and she complements me. Gauri teaches me how to be diplomatic. She keeps telling me that I say too many things and that I should not. Because people don't know me well enough and then they completely misconstuc what I've said. So, it's better to keep shut. She had taught me to switch the lights off before going to bed, To have dinner at the proper place, to put my clothes in the proper place, she has taught me how to dress up well too. She has turned me from an animal to a man. She spoils me a lot. She is the stabilisng factor in my life. I would go haywire because I a man extremist. And its not my achievements, for which she respects or likes me. She likes me because I make her laugh. And boy, do I make her laugh?

SABEER BHATIA

Rags to riches - the Biography of the man who created hotmail and is oneof the richest man in US..... take time off to read this...May be feelpretty lengthy and too personal ...Even then worth to read..

Summoned to Microsoft's command bunker in Redmond, Washington state,he was deposited on the new acquisitions conveyor belt. Round and roundthe Microsoft campus he went. All 26 buildings. At every stop, Bhatia'sguide helpfully pointed out the vastness of the Microsoft empire. Theprocession ground on until it reached Gates's office. Bhatia wasushered in. Bill liked his firm. He hoped they could work together. Hewished him well. Bhatia was ushered out. "Next thing is we're takeninto a conference room where there are 12 Microsoft negotiators,"Bhatia recalls. "Very intimidating." Microsoft's determined dozen putan offer on the table: $160 million. Take it or leave it. Bhatia playedit cool. "I'll get back to you," he said.
Eighteen months later Sabeer Bhatia has taken his place amongSan Francisco's ultra-rich. He recently purchased a $2-millionapartment in rarified Pacific Heights. The place looks like a banker'slair, and Bhatia acknowledges that the oak panelling and crystalchandeliers might have to go. He hurries over to picture windows thatrun the length of the room and raises the blinds. Ten floors below,the city slopes away in all directions. The Golden Gate Bridge,and beyond it the Pacific, lie on the horizon. "This is me," he says. "Ibought it for the view." A place with a view for a man with a vision.A month after Bhatia walked away from the table, Microsoft ponied up$400 million for his start-up.
Today Hotmail, the ubiquitous Web-based e-mail service, boasts 50million subscribers - one quarter of all Internet users. Bhatia isworth $200 million. He is already working on his follow-up: a"one-click" e-commerce venture called Arzoo! And Bhatia is lookinghomeward with an ambitious plan to wire India. Bhatia was born andraised in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. His father, who helda high post at the Ministry of Defence, and mother Daman, a seniorofficial at a state bank, placed great value on education. Their onlyson did not disappoint them. "On parent-teacher days they would justsay 'Sir, why did you come? You don't have to come! We tell Sabeer tosolve the questions on the blackboard for us,'" says Bhatia senior.Once Sabeer came home crying after an exam. He had not done badly; hejust hadn't had time to write down everything he knew. Like manyIndian parents, Balev and Daman hoped their son would secure a lifetimeposition with a big multinational firm. Sabeer had different ideas."I was pretty entrepreneurial even as a schoolboy," he says. When acollege opened nearby, he decided to open a sandwich shop and drew uphis first business plan. "Then my mom said 'Stop thinking about thesethings and go and study.' But that's the culture in India."Maybe mother knew best. In 1988, Bhatia won a full scholarship tothe California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena. When his planetouched down that fall, 19-year-old Bhatia had $250 in his wallet andbutterflies in his stomach. "I felt I had made a big mistake," he says."I knew nobody, people looked different, it was hard for them tounderstand my accent and me to understand theirs. I felt prettylonely." Ten years later you can still catch a glimpse of the innocentabroad. The Westcoast accent retains the sing-song cadence of hisnative Hindi. The CD collection features Bollywood soundtracks anddance remixes of traditional Indian tunes. Yet Bhatia wears hisAmerican-style success easily, comfortable with his wealth yetunconsumed by it. His confidence and boyish modesty is an attractiveblend that lends Bhatia serenity and presence, sending friends andassociates into rapture.
People say when Bhatia enters a room he owns it. "I call him theHindu Robot," says Naveen Singha, Bhatia's friend, mentor and proudowner of the third-ever Hotmail address. "He is persistent, focused,disciplined. He's a superior human being." Others say he glows with abeatific, otherworldly air. On our way to his office, Bhatiaattempts a U-turn in his midnight-blue Porsche Boxster, stallingthe slick little roadster across two lanes of traffic - and in thepath of a garbage truck. "I'm not superhuman," Bhatia says. Rather, hehas joined the ranks of the over-hyped Silicon Valley celebrities heidolised.
Doing his masters of science at Stanford, Bhatia attended lectures bysuch legends as Steve Jobs of Apple and Scott McNealy and VinodKhosla of Sun Microsystems. Listening to them speak, Bhatia "realisedthey were human. And if they could do it, I could do it too." AfterStanford, Bhatia found work as a hardware engineer at Apple. "I think myparents expected me to stay for 20 years," he says. Bhatia lasted ninemonths. In his cubicle, he read about young men starting up for peanutsand selling out for millions. Bhatia pondered what the Net could dofor him, and what he could do for the Net. Then he had an idea.It was called Javasoft - a way of using the Web to create apersonal database where surfers could keep schedules, to-do lists,family photos and so on. Bhatia showed the plan to Jack Smith, anApple colleague and they got started. One evening Smith called Bhatiawith an intriguing notion. Why not add e-mail to Javasoft? It wasa small leap with revolutionary consequences: access to e-mail fromany computer, anywhere on the planet. This was that rare thing, anidea so simple, so obvious, it was hard to believe no one had thoughtof it before. Bhatia saw the potential and panicked that someone wouldsteal the idea. He sat up all night writing the business plan. "Thenwe wrote down all variations of mail - Speedmail, Hypermail,Supermail." Hotmail made perfect sense: it included the letters "html" -the programming language used to write Web pages. A brand name was born.Bhatia had $6,000 to his name. It was time to find investors. Drivethrough San Francisco today and every other billboard touts someInternet company or other. It was not always like that. "Four years agoit was a hard story to sell," says Bhatia. "Few people believed the Netwas real. They thought it was a fad, like CB radio." By the time hereached the offices of venture capitalists Draper Fisher Jurvetson, 19doors had slammed behind him. Steve Jurvetson and his colleagues quicklysaw the potential and put up $300,000. Bhatia and Smith stretched themoney all the way to launch day, July 4, 1996. By year-end they weregreeting their millionth customer. When Microsoft came knocking, 12months later, they'd signed up nearly 10 million users. But whatwere 10 million subscribers worth? Was it $160 million asMicrosoft said? More? Less? Bhatia polled his investors. DougCarlisle, whose firm Menlo Ventures had pumped $1 million into Hotmail,guessed $200 million. Bhatia chided him for giving the lowest estimateand joked that he might hold out for a billion. Carlisle promisedthat if Bhatia made $200 million he would erect a life-size, bronzestatue of him in Menlo Ventures' foyer.
Bhatia didn't know how to sell a company. But he did know how tobuy onions. "In India you've got to negotiate for everything," hesays. "Even buying vegetables, you've got to negotiate." When thebargaining started, Bhatia felt right at home. "They came in low with$160 million, so I came in at $700 million! And when they said: 'That'sridiculous! Are you out of your mind,' I knew it was just a ploy."Bhatia wouldn't budge and Microsoft's representatives kept walking out.Or rather storming. And shouting and swearing and hurling insults.But the Hotmail team had been warned of Microsoft's tactics. "It waslike a record being played," says Jurvetson, "which we thought waspretty funny. It gave us a real sense of strength." That andBhatia's unshakable faith in the product. During the negotiations, hehad bumped into a British backpacker in Prague. Bhatia asked him howhe kept in touch with family and friends. Hotmail, of course. Bhatiawent back and told Microsoft: "If that is the brand we have built inone and a half years, imagine what it will be in 20 years. Hotmail willeasily be bigger than McDonald's."
At $200 million, Doug Carlisle started looking for a sculptor. At$350 million, Hotmail's investors agreed: Sell. Bhatia returned to thetable, alone, and once more said: "No." The contract was inked on Dec.30, 1997, Bhatia's 29th birthday. The price: some three millionMicrosoft shares - worth $400 million at the time and twice that now.Today Hotmail users are signing up at the rate of 250,000 a day, andthe firm is valued at some $6 billion. "I'm pretty sure Sabeer and Jackregret selling," says Jurvetson. "Who knows what might have been?"Bhatia shrugs: "When we sold, it was considered an outrageous amount.In hindsight, yes, we sold too low. But I don't regret it because atthat time it was considered a great deal."
Fremont Business Park is a complex of low-rises as gray inside as theyare out. By most reckonings, this isn't even Silicon Valley. Yet itis here that Bhatia launched Hotmail and it is here that he hopesonce again to transform the Internet with Arzoo! - his latestbrainchild. The company is only six weeks old, and the offices arestrewn with boxes that once housed computers, monitors - and a pingpong table. "Stress relief," Bhatia explains and challenges me to agame.
He's a stern competitor with a wickedly curling serve. I note that hisgame has taken him to third place on the office scoreboard. "Oh! Thathas to change," he says, starting for the board. "I'm No. 2 now."Bhatia's office is monastic to say the least. There are no works of art,no priceless antiques, no backslapping photos of "Me and Bill."(Along with Gates, Bhatia has met Clinton at the White House. "He'ssuch a charmer. You want to believe everything he says.") He extendshis "cheapo" desk with a folding table. There is a mere sniff of luxuryin the black leather swivel chair, but all staff get one of those. Inthe office kitchen is a cartoon entitled: "How to form your very ownSilicon Valley start-up." You shake a tree until a venture capitalistfalls out and hands over a wedge of cash. Today Bhatia is a mover, nota shaker. "Venture capitalists call me up and say: 'Take my money! Idon't need to know what you're doing, just take it!'" he says. DraperFisher Jurvetson parlayed their $300,000 Hotmail investment into $180million. No one wants to miss the sequel - including a Stanfordclassmate who made the mistake of not joining Hotmail in the early days.All this despite Silicon Valley's Sophomore Jinx: get-rich-quickgeniuses are doomed to spend the rest of their lives trying to duplicatetheir early success. Bhatia seems not to have heard of it. "Arzoo!is another big, revolutionary idea like Hotmail," he gushes."Another 'Gosh! Why hasn't anyone thought of this idea before?'."Ever paranoid of competitors, he will say only this: "E-commerce portal.. dramatically enhance the user experience ... one-click buying..launch in November ..." And then:"Half of all Net users could beusing it within the next couple of years." Hotmail is one of thegreatest Internet success stories yet. And here is Bhatia casuallysaying Arzoo! ("passion" in Hindi) will be twice as big. As he discussesthe future over sodas and animal crackers, his enthusiasm fills theroom. I see why Jurvetson describes him as "infectious, unquenchable -almost hallucinogenic."
Not that Bhatia is swept away by his own PR. "I could very well fail,"he says. "The fun is trying and finding out." Yet even Arzoo! cannotkeep his mind fully occupied. Bhatia is lining up a project to throwhimself into once his new baby can walk unaided. He wants to wireIndia. Or rather wire India, create the conditions for asocio-economic revolution and lift the nation out of poverty. You can'tfault the guy for aiming low.
Hotmail has sizzled in India (the seventh-largest market) and notonly because the boy from Bangalore invented it. In a country wherethere are more than 50 people for every handset, sending e-mail iseasier than using the phone. Bhatia was convinced India was ready foran Internet explosion, but how to get everybody online? His answer: alink-up with cable TV. One in four households has a tube - andalmost all of them can get cable.
Bhatia planned to plant an information pipeline from London to Bombay,rope in some of the country's 600,000 cable operators, and sell a cheapset-top device to turn the TV into an Internet gateway. Total cost:$200 million. Then he got wrapped up in New Delhi's red tape."The task is not technologically difficult, physically it could bedone in a couple of years," he says. "But the laws are so against you,the business practices so archaic, that when I went in, I saw itwould take 10 years. That disappointed me."But it did not deter him. Bhatia has adopted a more subtle approach.He sits on the board of an Indian firm called Homeland Networksthat is collecting India-specific content for the nation's growingnumber of Web surfers. "We're capturing eyeballs," Bhatia explains. Itis the first stab of a two-pronged offensive. First, build up a userbase. Second, lobby government to put the laws in place that willfoster an information revolution. Once the public is ready and thelawmakers have clicked, says Bhatia, "I'll branch intoinfrastructure." Bhatia recently sponsored and spoke at a conference atStanford, inviting "all the people who can influence [Indian] policy."The message: On the World Wide Web, geography means nothing. Thenext Hotmail could emerge from Bangalore, not California. Bhatianever did get a life-size bronze statue.Doug Carlisle was as good as his word: After Bhatia managed to pushMicrosoft above $200 million, they found a sculptor and Bhatia wentfor the first sitting. When he got home he called his mother to tellher all about it. "She hit the roof!"Carlisle recalls. "In India you don't get to have a sculpture orstatue unless: a) you're dead, or b) you're really incredibly famous andhave done something great - like Gandhi or Buddha!" There was no secondsitting.
You can take the boy out of India, but you can't get him away fromhis family. Bhatia keeps in regular contact by phone and (of course)Hotmail.
His sister, 26-year-old Sameena, will soon join him in the U.S.,undecided between starting an MBA or launching her own start-up -a recruitment service to place Indian personnel in Silicon Valley.Big brother is advising the latter, "being a serial entrepreneurmyself." As for his parents, they will be happy once he getsmarried. "My mom says: 'You're getting old, you're getting fat,you're going bald. You'd better get married or you'll run out ofoptions,'" Bhatia laughs. The first time Balev Bhatia visited his sonin the U.S. it was on a mission from his wife to find out why Bhatiawas still single. He soon got his answer when he saw his son buzzingfrom dawn to dusk signing up thousands of Hotmail users. Little haschanged.
With the house, the cars (his other auto is a Ferrari Spyder), thesuccess and the nice-guy persona, Sabeer Bhatia is a candidate formost eligible bachelor in Silcon Valley. Many men in his position areparading a trophy wife to society balls. Isn't he tempted to join them,if only to quiet his parents' nagging? "Trophy wife?" he howls. "She'dgive me a headache! Gosh, I would be tense at work all the time."Indeed, there is much to be done. Destinies to change. I ask him toexplain how he plans to wire India and he lunges for the white board."Here I'll show you! So here's India. We talk to Hughes, set up asatellite network . . ." Pen in hand Bhatia gets that gleam in his eyeand I get the feeling that maybe he'll be needing that statue after all.

Creating Indian Entrepreneurs

By Rajat Gupta, the former Managing Director of McKinsey & Company andalso the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Indian School ofBusiness (ISB), Hyderabad.

India needs entrepreneurs. It needs them for two reasons:
to capitalize on new opportunities andto create wealth and new jobs.

A recent McKinsey & Company-Nasscom report estimates that India needsat least 8,000 new businesses to achieve its target of building a $ 87billion IT sector by 2008. Similarly, in the next 10 years, 110-130million Indian citizens will be searching for jobs, including 80-100million looking for their first jobs; that's seven times Australia'spopulation. This does not include disguised unemployment of over 50%among the 230 million employed in rural India. Since traditional largeemployers - including the government and the old economy players -may find it difficult to sustain this level of employment in thefuture, it is entrepreneurs who will create these new jobs andopportunities.

Fortunately, today's knowledge-based economy is fertile ground forentrepreneurs in India. The success stories of businesses built on agreat idea executed by a talented team have great appeal in India,where access to capital is scarce and regulation has often createdbarriers to success. And young Indians have a dream: to be the nextSabeer Bhatia of India. Estimates indicate that several thousand 'neweconomy' businesses were launched last year in India. This is not justa "big-town" phenomenon. For example, when McKinsey & Company launchedIndia Venture 2000, a business plan competition to catalyzeentrepreneurship in India, many of the 4,500 teams that participatedwere from small towns such as Meerut, Siliguri, Warangal and Pollachi.

I believe India has an extraordinary talent pool with virtuallylimitless potential to become entrepreneurs. India must, however,commit to creating the right environment to develop successful businessbuilders. To do this, I believe India must focus on four areas.

1. Create the right environment for success:
Entrepreneurs should find it easy to start a business. To do so, mostIndians would start slow with capital borrowed from family and friends,the CEO playing the role of salesman and strategist, a professionalteam assembled months or perhaps years after the business was created,and few, if any, external partners. Compare this with a start-up in theSilicon Valley: a Venture Capitalist (VC) or angel investor would bebrought in early on; a professional management team would drive thebusiness; a multifunctional team would be assembled quickly; andpartnerships would be explored early on to scale up the business.
To a large measure, culture shapes this style. Silicon Valley is abuzzwith ideas to build global businesses; deals are continually beingnegotiated, teams are pulled together and partners are identified.There is almost unlimited access to multiple VCs and angel investors.Critical support services abound, including professional managers,legal firms, venture capitalists, angel investors, and placementagencies. Combine this with excellent infrastructure - connectivity,communication, and office space - and getting started is easy.
A first challenge for India is to create a handful of such areas ofexcellence - the breeding ground where ideas grow into businesses.Some already exist in a very preliminary way (the businesses arethere). For example, Gurgaon and Hyderabad for remote services, orBangalore for IT services. But these areas of excellence needstrengthening before they can claim to be India's own "Valley." One wayof strengthening these areas is to consider the role of universitiesand educational institutions - places where excellence typicallythrives. Creating such educational institutions by strengthening theIndian Institutes of Technology (IIT's) and starting new ones is goingto be very important.

2. Ensure that entrepreneurs have access to the right skills:
A survey McKinsey& Company conducted last year revealed that mostIndian start-up businesses face two skill gaps: entrepreneurial (how tomanage business risks, build a team, identify and get funding) andfunctional (product development know-how, marketing skills, etc.). Inother countries, entrepreneurs either gain these skills by hiringmanagers or have access to "support systems" such as universities orother institutions that may nurture many regional businesses. Inaddition, business schools give young graduates the skills andknowledge required for business today.
India can move toward ensuring that the curriculum at universities ismodified to address today's changing business landscape, particularlyin emerging markets, and to build 'centers of entrepreneurialexcellence' in institutes that will actively assist entrepreneurs.
We believe the Indian School of Business (ISB) at Hyderabad provides astart in developing outstanding entrepreneurial leaders. ISB's programis designed primarily to prepare managers to respond to the challengesof rapidly changing business environments. Within an environment ofintellectual vibrancy, the 500+ students who graduate each year willhave studied entrepreneurship, strategy and the impact of technology oncommerce. They will have spent time developing their own projects,while utilizing state-of-the-art communications technology to interactwith members of industry and experts worldwide.
The ISB will have an Entrepreneurship Centre founded, led and managedby several leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who are on theschool's Governing Board. The Centre will help students becomesuccessful entrepreneurs by offering a diverse set of programmes,activities and facilities such as a New Business Development Project,an on-campus incubator, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence programme, fieldprojects, and a Young Entrepreneurs Club.

3. Ensure that entrepreneurs have access to 'smart' capital:
For a long time, Indian entrepreneurs have had little access tocapital. It is true that in the last few years, several Venture Fundshave entered the Indian market. And, while the sector is still in itsinfancy in India (with estimated total disbursements of <$ 0.5 billionlast year), VCs are providing capital as well as critical knowledge andaccess to potential partners, suppliers, and clients across the globe.However India has only a few angel investors who support an idea in theearly stages before VCs become involved. Our experience during IndiaVenture 2000 showed this to be a critical gap. While associations suchas TIE are seeking to bridge the gap (by working at creating a TIEIndia Angel Forum), this is India's third challenge: creating a globalsupport network of 'angels' willing to support young businesses.

4. Enable networking and exchange:
Entrepreneurs learn from experience - theirs and that of others. Muchof the success of Indians in Silicon Valley is attributed to theexperience, sharing and support TIE members have extended to youngentrepreneurs. During India Venture 2000, we were delighted by theeagerness with which established entrepreneurs, who still rememberedthe challenges they faced, offered to support start-ups. Clearly, Indiawould benefit from creating a strong network of entrepreneurs andmanagers that entrepreneurs could draw on for advice and support.
The rapid pace of globalization and the fast growth of Asian economiespresent tremendous opportunities and challenges for India. Throughplanning and focus, India can aspire to create the pool ofentrepreneurs who will be the region's - and the world's - leadersof tomorrow.

Speech of Anil Ambani

This is Anil Ambani's speech at this year'sconvocation at ISB. Quite thought provoking andpeppered with humor.

At the outset let me reverse the instructions given toyou at the start of the ceremony... please switch onyour mobile phones. See, I also have to work for mycompany.

I believe you need to have a special relationship withgod, that not too many individuals in their life timescan have opportunities of creating world-classinstitutions like the ISB from the cradle. And Ithought and I firmly believe, that this was a trueopportunity for me, personally, to contribute in myown personal small way to creating a greatinstitution. So, I am thankful to God. This schoolwould not have been here, if it was not for twospecific individuals, specially, amongst severalothers. One, the fountainhead, the visionary, thedreamer. That is Rajat Gupta. And two, if it was notfor the unstinted, unconditional support of one of ourmost dynamic chief ministers that India has seen, theChief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Sri. N ChandrababuNaidu.
When I was called a few weeks ago by Rajat, that hewanted me to be the chief guest for today's function,I mentioned to Rajat, that it would be practicallyimpossible for me to be here, since I had already pre-committed to another convocation and in the truemanagement consulting style, Rajat asked me 'what timeis that'? I said it is in the afternoon, then he said,fine, then we will have our function in the morning. Ihave the rare privilege and the honour of being partof two convocation functions on the same day andluckily in the same country. Otherwise I would have toborrow Deepak Jain's flying carpet. This morning, I amhere in Hyderabad at the ISB, and this afternoon I amat Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore for theirconvocation function. I am not, as yet, a paid Chiefguest or paid speaker. But at least this gives me anidea for alternate career in the future.

I had one of my colleagues talk to Vijay, the daybefore yesterday night at 9.28 pm to ask him and gethis views of what Mr Ambani will speak about? Afterhaving Dr Kalam, who was not President of India at thetime, when he attended the ISB, but became president Ibelieve later, and my good friend Kumar Birla, lastyear, I think that his being the chief guest at theISB really brought him to focus and limelight and hehas won probably every award post that event.
I was joking with Kumar and telling him that either wehave to invent some new award category, we can alwaystake inspiration from our film world, who has an awarda week; or he should stop accepting new awards so thatlesser mortals like us can also get them. After havingDr Kalam and Kumar speak to you, after hearing Vijayand Rajat, both of them have successfully communicateda large number of my thoughts and had spoken my mind,frankly there is nothing much more for me to add. WhatI thought that I will not talk about leadership,leadership styles because over the last one year asyou been through the programme, you had enough ofshowcasing of everything that potentially I learnt,that you have learnt at the business school.

For considering the fact that we are in Hyderabadtoday and ISB is at Hyderabad, it really is a strongendorsement for the fact that just 125 years ago,Sarojini Naidu, one of our greatest leaders, orator,poetess, who was born in Hyderabad in 1879, had toreally travel to Madras to pursue her schoolingeducation. There was no education infrastructure inHyderabad. And of course, amongst many things now,Hyderabad also boasts of the ISB. It then takes mythoughts to women in business and women in politics.

If Sarojini Naidu played a key role in the freedommovement of the country, and today in vast number ofstates, if we have women chief ministers, we had womenprime minister, not only in India but in the region.The leader of the opposition in Parliament, Smt. SoniaGandhi. Then why is it, we do not have women wellrepresented in the corporate world? And I start withthe fact that, we do not have enough women enteringbusiness schools.

I was looking at the statistics, which showed thatclose to 17% of the graduating class today is women.Let us just compare this to a lesser known schoolcalled Harvard, the class of 2005, more than 35% ofthe graduating class is women, more than double, theclass size is much much larger than where we aretoday. I said a lesser known school called Harvard,primarily because, I believe Rajat comes from Harvard,and I come from a better known school called Wharton.

I clearly believe that women, especially youngerwomen, have a very large responsibility and have toaim for the future as the future generations are notgoing to distinguish between men and women.

The second thought that really struck me was the powerof youth. It is the young power of India that isreally put India on the global map. When we talk IT &IT Enabled Services, the average age of the people whoare serving that sector is 26. Why is it that the bestand brightest of our people, do not want to joinpolitics. Is that changing? I feel the sense that ischanging.. Let us take the newer entrants to politics.

Sachin Pilot, a Wharton MBA, Omar Abdullah,Jyotiraditya Scindia, an MBA from Stanford. These areall people who are turning to politics and may be,their fathers have been in politics, so they areturning to it. After the education, they really hadthe choice of every possible alternate career theycould think of. And why do we really need youngerblood in politics? I have recently looked at the LokSabha website - 72% of the members of Lok Sabha areover the age of 50. More than 50% are over the age of60. More than 25% are even older. Let us contrast thatwith 75% of the population really being under the ageof 40.

As you think and I think and all of us put our mindstogether, we are talking about effectively runningorganisations in the future. Can we all really excelin what we are doing if we really do not have aconducive and vibrant and booming externalenvironment? Can we truly grow? Can we truly evolvesimultaneously both internally and externally?

In this case, internally I mean institutions,organisations, companies, and corporations. ExternallyI am referring to our political environment. And I dothink this as a large challenge, a challenge that allof us will have to face, we will have to contributetowards this. If there is one thing I would like to dowith the advancement of technology, I want to rewind,instead of graduating in 1982, from Wharton, reallygraduate in 2004 with all of you.

The world has changed, so has India. The opportunitiesthat bring with them the challenges, the trends are sodifferent, that I could not have imagined in mywildest imagination, when I graduated from Wharton,this is where our country is really going to be. So Ibelieve that all of you are very privileged and veryprivileged children of God, that you are here at oneof the most exciting times, this country has seen. AndIndia is clearly on its way to gain it's rightfulplace of being an economic superpower.

All of you are already armed with a lot of detailedunderstanding and lot of management and organisationaltechniques, that are really are needed in the newworld. But let me make a few observations. Compared tothe past, all of you will live much, much longer -this is the contribution of the rapid pace of science,that all of you are going to have a much longerworking life. Also you are living in a borderless,seamless, techno world, where opportunities reallyknow no boundaries.

This is the era of intellectual capital. Intellectualcapital is change. With these challenges, these newrevolutions, what you should be ready for really isCompetition at the individual level, at the familylevel, institution level, and country level, canreally come from anytime and anywhere, and this is nolonger local, global and original. The longer workinglife, longevity, your ability to live till 75 or 80will also mean that career planning and your choiceswill have to be made many, many times as you grow to70 and 80. So I don't believe there is going to beretirement at 50 or 55. This will mean that skillswill get redundant extremely fast. And they will haveto be replaced as quickly. This undoubtedly puttremendous pressure on each one of us. Lifestylechange, the faster pace of living also posestremendous pressure on individuals, creates bothconstructive and destructive tension leading to highstress. So that the importance of mental and physicalfitness and balanced life, I think will also beextremely important.
I would be really failing in my comments today, if Idid not share with you, what I call-"Conversationswith Dhirubhai". Because, if it was not for him, hisvision, his commitment and his dreams, Reliance and I,my brother Mukesh would not exist. I recall it was13th December,1982, when I landed back in to Bombay,now Mumbai, after graduating from Wharton.

I ran through some summer programmes for extra creditsand graduated in 14 or 15 months, through I was fromClass of 1983, actually I graduated in 1982. On myarrival I met him and I told him, Look dad, I becomean MBA, and I just going to take a break as I reallyworked hard, and I will see you in new year. He saidto me, I am very happy and delighted that you accomplished this, but since I did not go to anyformal school or college, I do not have any degree,why don't you tell me, from your learning at Wharton,what does an MBA stand for?
I thought that was a rather simple and easy question,Master of Business Administration, nothingcomplicated. He said in his inimitable style and hesaid to me in Gujarati, so I will say in Gujaratifirst and will translate if in English, for you. Hisinterpretation of MBA was "Mane Badhu Avadche"literally meaning "I am know all", I know everything.

He said, you are entering into India, and you need toIndianise your MBA. I said, That's fine, I am going towork here. So naturally that would not be a very, verybig issue. He said, did they at Wharton School teachyou about Customs duties, about excise duties, aboutincome tax, about sales tax, about Parliament, and Isee in the audience, a former Member of Parliament,Sri Kamal Choudhary, whom my father knew rather well,said that, do you know what is zero hour question,what is a calling attention motion, what is starredquestion and unstarred question?
If you don't really get to know all these things, letme assure you, all your formal education is not reallygoing to help you. You need your practical Indian MBA.And I am going to go and create that environment foryou, so that you can get the exposure. He went on thento ask me, Tell me , since you are fresh a MBA, justentering corporate life, what is the definition of aleader? I said, I really forgotten all my books backat Philedelphia and have really no mindset today totalk about theoretical definitions.

He said, it is pretty easy for you, just admit thatyou do not know what the definition is. So I said tohim, let us assume that I do not know the definition,why don't you tell me, since you have all the answersto everything, who is a leader? He said in hissimplistic style that is a leader is a person who canattract followers. If you think you are a leader,please look back, when you are walking. If there isnobody following you, you are not any leader of anytime. Very simplistic, but with a very deep-rootedmeaning.

Then he went on to say, you are entering Reliance. Iam the trustee of over 3.6 million individualshareholders, who are the real owners of Reliance.Anil, you have really a choice. You have the choice todemand respect, you have a choice to command respect.You choose. Your demand respect mode will be, you arean Ambani, you are Dhirubhai's son. So people willhave to listen to what you have to say. Your commandrole is really based on your skill sets, yourattitude, your upbringing, and your knowledge onissues. That is what will carry people with you.

But you still have that choice to make as you enterthe corporate life. And I would highly recommend toyou that you follow the command the respect moderather than demand respect mode. These are verysimplistic messages to me given to me more than 25years ago, are still very deep in my mind, my heartand my soul. I asked him, saying, I have had enoughbombardment this morning from you, everybody tells methat your father is a great visionary. Can you explainto me what do you think is your definition of being avisionary?
He looked at me and said, I do not know whether youeven will understand what I am going to say, becauseyour are an MBA, and I am MABF. I looked at him withsome puzzlement, and said, I have heard of FRCS, MBBS,MBA, Bcom, B.A, LLB, but never heard of MABF, what'sthat degree, knowing fully well he has no degree. Hesaid, Metric Appeared But Failed.
He then went on to say that, Anil, I am very, verygrateful to God. And he was, a very, very strongbeliever in God. God has been very, very kind to meand he has given me the power and ability to dream.The difference between your dreaming and my dreamingis very simple. Everyone of us dreams. There is asmall difference between the way we dream. God hasgiven the power to dream with my eyes open.

Dreaming with my eyes open, I have a better chancethan you to convert my dream into a reality. For you,to dream with your eyes closed, you have a lesserchance to make it into a reality, but a much higherchance to convert it into a nightmare. He saideverybody talks about karma, and everybody talks aboutdestiny. Let me tell you that destiny, fate is not amatter only of chance, it is also a matter of choice.And in my father's words, for all of you, all of us inIndia, I believe if you can dream it, you can do it.

–:// THE SPIRIT OF LAGAAN //:–

The Spirit Of Lagaan is the extraordinary story of a thousand days in the lives of Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowarikar and their mammoth team, which made the classic film – Lagaan. It journeys through the dreams and nightmares, the loneliness and comradeship, the despair and exhilaration of a unit numbering thousands, drawn from far corners of the globe, as it battled out in the heat of the Kutch desert.

It is a story of building a dream team amidst contradictions and of creating a modern and progressive work ethic in an industry blighted by feudal methods of work. It is a tale of how the Lagaan unit became a melting pot for diverse cultures to blend with a chemistry that created magic on screen and deep bonds off it.

The story behind the making of ‘Lagaan’ offers lessons to the managers in the corporate world and team leaders in every aspect of life on how ambition along with purpose, grit and above all team spirit can work magic to make the impossible a reality

The story goes back to 30th July 1996 when in the early morning hours Ashutosh Gowarikar narrates the story for Lagaan to Aamir Khan. The story is outrightly rejected by the latter. “It is difficult to describe all that Ashutosh feels that morning. Disappointment, dejection, hurt, pain, shock, and horror- nothing can quite capture it. …. This is his baby, born in his heart, conceived through suffering and pain. Ashutosh decides not to panic and not to take any decision in a hurry. He must endure the moment by thinking and reflecting on the journey that has brought him so far.”

Aamir was convinced that the genius of his friend would die unless he was roused to take a stand and believe in himself.” You will never make a good director Ash unless you display guts. If you don’t have conviction in what you do, if you make films in which you don’t believe in, you’ll never succeed.” His own experiences were telling him that he needed to beat another path.

If the films `Pehla Nasha' and `Baazi' had not been made, or if either of them had succeeded, Ashutosh would have probably never made Lagaan. It was important that these two films should have been made and they should have bombed because it was their debacle that forced him into creative hibernation and to ask the all-important ‘why’ a person asks himself when he is at the crossroads.

Ashutosh had tried the known route to success. He now knew that nothing about the box office was certain. Rather than trying to guess what the audience wanted it was far better to make something that he, Ashutosh Gowarikar believed in. Ashutosh decided to go into seclusion to write the full-fledged script of Lagaan.

Ashutosh meets Aamir again on 9th March 1997 and gives a full narration of the script. When Ashutosh finishes Aamir is shell-shocked. He is deeply moved by the script of Lagaan. He agrees to act in the film provided Ashutosh is able to get a producer for his film who backs his script, on the strength of the script, without knowing that Aamir has agreed to act in it.

Between 10th March 1997 to December 1997, Ashutosh meets producer after producer, but no producer is willing to buy his dream. The Mumbai Film industry revolves around stars. In most cases the stars are primary, the script is secondary. Ashutosh is trying to make a film on the strength of his script alone.

Aamir has not been able to get Lagaan out of his mind. On 30th January 1998, he asks Ashutosh once again to narrate the script to him. The power of Lagaan forces him to reconsider his decision. He asks Ashutosh to give another narration before his parents, his wife, Reena and financier Jhamu Sugandh. Once more Ashutosh pours himself into the narration. Nearly two years after he had urged Ashutosh to junk the weird story, Aamir finally decides to act in as well produce the film.

Jhamu Sugandh calls Aamir that he is ready to finance the movie. Aamir’s method is transparent. If you want to be involved with Lagaan you must believe in it. You must believe in the script and you must believe in the director. Jhamu would probably have financed Lagaan just on Aamir’s word, without even hearing the script. Aamir has instead placed Jhamu in the situation of making a decision on the basis of the script precisely because he knows that making this film will be like climbing a mountain that can only be conquered with loads of conviction and guts. Forcing Jhamu to see the scale of the task and its inherent risks will steel him for the climb ahead.

Aamir is deeply aware of the importance of bringing together the right team and also the challenges he faces in this regard. People should not join the film because of Aamir’s name but every team member should unquestioningly accept the creative leadership of Ashutosh. At this stage he should ensure that only those who believe in Ashutosh and Lagaan should join the film

Most Hindi films are shot over several schedules of a few weeks each stretching over a couple of years. Aamir believes that it will be disastrous for the unit to divide its attention across more than one film. The entire film must be shot from start to finish in a single schedule in which every member will live in the world of Lagaan. A new work culture is required to be created. “Can this be done? Can a new work culture be created among those used to working the old way”? Aamir knows this will not be easy. The only way to create a different work culture will be to put all his cards on the table, to inform every prospective unit member that this is how Lagaan is going to be made. Whether it is the cameraman, the music director or any of the actors they can be a part of Lagaan only if they accept its work culture.

From October 1998 to October 1999 Aamir gets into the act of putting his team together. Finally the heads of the departments fall into place. Aamir has zeroed in on AR Rahman for music, Nitin Desai for Production Design, Anil Mehta as Cinematographer, Bhanu designer as the costume designer, BS Rao as the production controller, Apoorva Lakhia as the First AD, KP Saxena for the dialogues, Nakul Kamte as the sound recordist for sync sound and Javed Akhtar for the lyrics. “Each is a star, arguably at the top in his or her field…. Perhaps as important as their stature and talent is that each has joined with a shared excitement about the Lagaan script. None of them have joined the team without accepting the work culture of Lagaan…they have a team that shares the Lagaan dream”.

Aamir asks his wife to take over as the executive producer of the film, who in turn asks his sister Nikhat to help her out. Nikhat and Reena are well matched in their lack of experience, a deficit they make up with their enthusiasm and commitment. Reena’s biggest advantage in handling the work is her lack of experience. This has relieved her of the burden of industry practices or settled ways of doing things, which essentially are a compendium of how not to do things. Reena has only a robust common sense to guide her and a desire to do things right. Something that counts more than a degree in business management.

Next starts the hunt for the perfect location for Champaner. Aamir encourages Ashutosh not to compromise on quality. He asks Him to go to different parts of the country and then decide on the location. His words are “Think big. Think cinemascope…Don’t compromise…. Whatever you want you are going to get.” Finally Kutch is chosen for the location.

Meanwhile the auditions for the film start. Ashutosh is convinced that only an actor who looks the part, who simply is the character, must get the role. This is highly unusual in the Hindi Film industry where screen tests are conducted only for the novices.

Production unit gets busy with making arrangements for the team at the location. Production obtains possession of the four floors at the top of Sahajnand Towers. This is to be converted into Hotel Sahajnand Towers .The author is stationed at Bhuj to prepare ‘Hotel Sahajnand Towers’. Finally it is ready. The author is awestruck at this incredulous feat- ‘I cannot believe that we have set up a sixty room fully air-conditioned facility in little over a month. I know that nothing I have done in my life has equipped me for this task………..Perhaps for the first time in Indian film history a hotel has been set up to make a film.’
Ashutosh and his team get busy with working out the design of the village Champaner. Ashutosh ,Aamir and Nitin decide to build a real village. For building the village they decide to use the local labour. ‘The people of Kutch must feel this is their film. They must have a stake in it. Using local labour to build Champaner was an important step in this direction. They look around for a local contractor who can build Champaner.They zero in on Danabhai, a millionaire of sorts, yet a Kutchi villager at heart. Aamir calls Danabhai to Mumbai for discussions. Danabhai would later confess to Rao –‘I came to meet a star and I met a human being instead.’ Aamir invites him to lunch. Although Aamir and Danabhai belong to two different worlds, the lunch initiates the process of melting their differences and flags off a shared journey, which will dominate their lives over the next 12 months. With Danabhai as the contractor production has procured something much more than a contractor. With Danabhai comes a massive network of contacts throughout Kutch.The power of the network is soon evident.

To ensure there is no ambiguity or misunderstanding, written agreements are prepared. The elaborate effort sets the relationship between Aamir khan Productions and the villagers on a sound foundation of mutual respect. It is a relationship that will play a role far more important than anyone could have ever imagined

In Kutch the construction of Champaner is proceeding in full steam and it seems Champaner will be ready ahead of schedule. Suddenly disaster strikes! Danabhai runs out of Gobar. Gobar or fresh cowdung is one of the key materials required for building Champaner and is to be collected while it is still sticky before it is hardened. The problem is that Danabhai requires an astronomical ten lakh Kilograms or one thousand tonnes of Gobar for Champaner. Danabhai sends men and tractors in the wee hours of the night into the far corners of the Banni grasslands where cattle graze. For days on end a line of tractors empty their invaluable contents on location. In the history of the film industry never has bullshit played such an important constructive role.

In Mumbai, at Aamir’s house Ashutosh narrates the script of Lagaan to the entire crew and cast finalized so far. Aamir invites Satya for the narration of the script of Lagaan and is quite insistent that he attends. “Do something different”-is the message from Aamir to Satya. At the sitting for the narration of the script, dozens of people, who would be working as the cast and crew of the film poured in. Their expressions were a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. Curiosity, because they knew little about the film or their role in the film and disbelief because this was the first time they had ever been called for a narration for the full cast and crew of a commercial Hindi film. Before the narration started names of all present were called out along with their role /department in the movie and they were all asked to record their presence by raising their hands. No names were left out as being too minor nor was any deference shown to big names like Jhamu Sugand or Aamir Khan. Everyone seemed to be a member of the team with a function to perform. The sitting together of the actors and crew members, for four hours, hearing the script, cheering the villagers created an intangible bond. They had drifted into the narration as individuals, in many cases strangers to each other-now suddenly they seemed almost like a team.

Ashutosh invited comments, reactions and suggestions from all present, despite the visible positive reaction of all. Any of the actors, who did not like the script, or the role in the film, were free to opt out. All the crew members and actors are asked to go through the draft agreement and suggest changes if any, unlike the normal trend of pressurizing the crew and actors to sign on the dotted lines.

Ashutosh and Reena go to England to cast the British actors. While negotiating with the actors Reena also warns them about what they can expect in India. Nothing can fully prepare the actors for the intensity of the trial they shall undergo, but the honest warnings create the foundation of a relationship based on truth, which the actors will reciprocate, and respect.

Aamir, Ashutosh and all the department heads land in Bhuj to make a dry run of Lagaan. Since Lagaan is a single schedule film there is really no scope for major changes during the shoot. It is critical that department heads check out all the locations and acquaint themselves with all the problems well in advance.

Aamir estimates the number of villagers required to make Champpaner look realistic. Ashutosh and Aamir squat in the center of a circle on the cricket field surrounded by the kutchis and tell them just how important a role they are going to play in the film.

The villagers do not fully understand what Ashutosh and Aamir have to say about the film. What they definitely understand are subtle intangibles. The very fact that they are all sitting together on the ground is an important statement. Today they are not hired labour. They have become partners. Aamir Khan is requiring their help and support to make the film successful. They listen in silence. On both sides they become ‘we’. It is a special moment. Intuitively everyone senses a mission is beginning.

Aamir realizes that the eyes of the industry are on the Lagaan shoot. The success of the new work culture that he wants to create –single schedule ,First AD ,sync sound -will to an extent depend upon the fate of Lagaan. If the movie is not completed in one go with the entire crew, cast, camping on location, if sync sound does not work out ,if so many creative first’s which are there in Lagaan do not work out ,no one will dare to bring about change in the work culture in the film industry.

The production team is proud of planning. They brag to their friends ’If you ask me what will be shot on a particular afternoon on a particular day on March , I can tell you everything. -which scene will be shot, what time the actors will be in make up…just about everything’.

On 2nd January 2000 the team lands up at the Bhuj Airport. The same afternoon they see their village. This is no set. This is the village of Champaner.The village inspires belongingness. Ashutosh forgets the names of all his actors. Henceforth there is no Aamir- there is only Bhuvan. There is no Amin Hajee, there is only Bagha and Ismail and Bhura. The actors have left their modern footwear behind and walk barefoot through the village. All actors begin the task of internalizing the characters they are playing.

The biggest challenge that Aamir faces is the task of team building – of creating a working atmosphere in which this mammoth unit fully accepts the leadership of Ashutosh and works as one body and mind to realize the director’s creative vision. Given Ashutosh’s track record, the bulk of the unit has joined Lagaan because it is Aamir Khan’s maiden production.

Aamir has laid the basis for strengthening Ashutosh’s hands. He is always but always formally respectful to Ashutosh to the point of deference. Any and every difference of opinion is expressed as “Correct me if I am wrong Ash, but….”and is never pressed beyond its first expression. No matter how great the difference in perception, they never, but never squabble in public.

All the unit members are transported to Champaner by a bus. It is decided that the bus will leave each morning at 5 AM sharp. On the first day there is one absentee –the heroine of the film-the bus leaves without her. Aamir himself has come early and is finishing his incomplete sleep on the last seat in the bus.

As days go by the mumbles in Sahajnand Towers are becoming grumbles. People are complaining about leaking taps, geysers that don’t heat water and so many other things. Reena sends out a letter –“Sahajnand Towers is not a hotel. It is your home. Please maintain it like your home.” The letter is well received. The unit is more careful and the number of complaints reduces. The word home replaces the word hotel. More important than the change in word is the change in attitude.

Shooting with ten thousand villagers was a mammoth task. Aamir does it all genuinely and with complete involvement. His transparent honesty and passion about his work communicates and carries through to them .He befriends the villagers. They feel he belongs to him.

Shooting the cricket game is taking more time than expected. As the days go by, people are getting restless. Ashutosh can feel the resentment building up. At times he hears snide remarks aimed at him. Yet he must not let the unit’s morale affect his own. Through all the travails of the shoot, he must protect his creative vision.

Notwithstanding the wide differences in culture and background within the multinational unit, adversity has brought understanding, it has brought everyone closer. At least four separate cultures are rubbing shoulders: forty British actors, a half westernized three hundred strong unit from Mumbai, sixty odd actors from the tiny town of Bhuj; a few thousand Kutchi villagers. Most Lagaanites believe, this is a
huge film that requires effort, dedication and sacrifice. In a hundred large and small ways they are creating and building the spirit of Lagaan.

For the entire unit Lagaan has ceased to be a film, or rather, that we are shooting a film has become incidental or secondary to our life experiences. Somewhere a sense of wonder has been awakened, a sense of pride in doing the impossible has been aroused.

Why does a man climb a mountain? Not just to get to the top, but to experience the challenges of the climb. As the shoot enters its fourth month, what is happening off screen has become larger than life, more so than what is happening on it. Solidarity and struggle has made everyone a few inches taller. We are not just making a film together, we are climbing a tall, steep mountain called Lagaan.

The shoot is coming to an end. Reena writes the following letter addressed to all-

“The shooting of our film Lagaan is coming to an end. It has been a long and difficult shoot. But you all have managed to go through it and can now return to your normal lives and family. We will each go back with many memories of our various experiences during the making of this film…through the last six months that we have lived together, there have been times when I have been hard on some of you. I did not get the chance to show or voice my appreciation for all the hard work and dedication of each one of you to the making of this dream. Now that you’ll are leaving, I would like you to know, that all of you have done an absolutely commendable job…I would like to thank each and every one of you for your contribution in this film….”

The shoot ends tomorrow –17TH June ,2000. The actors cannot bear to leave the village. For six months, Champaner has been their home. Now suddenly they must abandon it and leave for Mumbai. We had dreamt of the day when the shoot would be over and we could go back to the heart and home in Mumbai. Now, when the moment is at hand, we are unable to enjoy it. Part of the reason for this strange feeling is that we will miss each other. Man is a creature of habit and staying together for half a year, being in certain physical spaces and circumstances invariably creates a bond. The shoot had created an enchanted world cut off from the beaureaucracy of life. With the end of the shoot the enchanted period in our lives was coming to an end, never to return.

On 26th January 2001 devastation strikes Kutch in the shape of an earthquake. As the images of devastation appear on television screens worldwide ,anxious Lagaanites watch with sinking hearts their Kutch ,the Kutch of Champaner and Lagaan ,in shambles. On 31st January 2001 , Satya and Rao land in Bhuj. They go from village to village to find out the fate of Lagaanites. They also visit Danabhai’s house and are overjoyed to see him and his family safe. A few days later they return from Bhuj with the news that almost their entire team has survived. Steps are taken to organize relief by sending Ashok Shende from the production team with a truck loaded with material to make tents for the Kotai villagers. From Mumbai ,Chennai, wherever the Lagaanites are ,money pours in for the relief efforts. While the money will enable the tenacious villagers of Kotai to rebuild their shattered village, it more importantly reaffirms at a concrete level the unique bond within the Lagaan team.

Twenty Two months later,10th June 2001-The shooting of Lagaan has been completed a year back and the film was now ready for release. Through the shoot Aamir had promised the hundreds of Kutchi actors and the villagers who had worked in Lagaan that the first public screening of the film anywhere in the world would be in Bhuj.A promise had been made and a promise had to be kept. Without the show in Bhuj, the Lagaan experience would be incomplete.

The screening was to start at six in the evening. By quarter to three they started streaming in. Aamir, Ashutosh and the actors stood in the foyer of the theatre for over three hours, receiving every single one. Just before the screening was to start the Lagaanites moved into the hall. Aamir said, “The film that we shall now see is not my film or Ashutosh’s film, it is our film. For me the most important thing about this show is that we watch this film together. I know there are a lot of VIPs in the balcony. We welcome them to the show. But I and the rest of the Lagaan team are going to be watching the film down here with the people who made Lagaan.”

The spirit of Lagaan found its way on the screen. The tremendous commitment and teamwork of the unit members showed in each frame. ‘The Lagaan spirit was not created overnight. It was not created without the efforts and sacrifices of hundreds of people. It was not created without making mistakes…. This is a story of how things can be done differently even in India, resistant as it is to change. It is the story of a unique social experimentation in the annals of filmmaking and a great life experience that deeply touched all those involved with Lagaan. The journey began with the maxim-Do something different.

The movie has been released worldwide and has received tremendous response and many awards. Perhaps the big thing about Lagaan was that what had happened off screen was much larger than what happens on screen. The sense of achievement was in the journey itself ,in climbing the mountain, not reaching the top. The journey has now run its course and the Lagaanites know this.


The following are some of the lessons we learn from the Spirit Of Lagaan-

1. Ambition along with purpose, grit and above all team spirit can work magic to make the impossible a reality.

2. The urge to do something different embarks people on the path of excellence, adventure, creativity and innovations.

3. One should not shy from criticism –rather one should encourage criticism-one should encourage people to differ so as to get as many perspectives on a matter as possible-ultimate objective being that of success in the venture undertaken.

4. Involve all concerned in the project right from the beginning.

In a team all should be treated equally. The role of each team member is as important as that of another. Big or small all are equally important.

Sharing a common activity bonds people together and develops the feelings of oneness. Doing things together helps develop team spirit

7. Humility and eagerness to improve further, wins people over. It pays to encourage feedback-feedback contributes positively.

8. A team should consist of willing members. Only willing members having faith and conviction in the project can be contributing members.


9. It pays to be flexible. Being amenable to change increases confidence and trust in others. It also obviates the possibility of subsequent frustrations and complaints.

10. One should keep promises.

There is great strength in ‘we’. It develops a strong sense of belongingness and sense of involvement, which in turns leads to commitment and will to excel.

Developing team spirit should be the focus of leaders. Team spirit in its turn automatically generates commitment and loyalty, the results of which are always visible in the end product. Team spirit and commitment obviate the necessity of monitoring and supervising whether each member is doing the job properly or not. With commitment comes a sense of responsibility, which is crucial for the success of any project.

Friends and leaders sometimes need to reinforce the belief of others in themselves. Conviction in what you are doing is important It generates a feeling of belongingness, identification and ownership which push a person to translate his dream into a reality. Leaders should motivate and show the correct path. They should constantly reinforce the other’s sense of belief in oneself. They should put forth challenges-they should encourage others to go ahead. Courage and determination are the moolahs of success.


Failures serve an important purpose in our life. They should not frustrate. Failures are the stepping-stones of success. One should not be discouraged from failures –rather one should learn from the mistakes and use this learning in future projects. Failures should not be viewed as failures-rather they should be viewed as a learning process –a process of maturity, which gives a better insight into things. Failures make us stronger-they make us better. Failures encourage us to study, to learn and to analyse.

It takes a lot of courage to follow the inner voice of conviction, particularly when it is very different from the normal way of life. Only those who have the guts to be different, those who dare to do things differently succeed.

16. Transparency, honesty and openness morally bind the team together.

17. Concentration on only one project at a time is crucial for the success of the project.

Enthusiasm and Commitment have the power to make up for lack of experience. The other positive side to lack of experience is freshness, a newer perspective on things, common sense and an urge to do well.

Delegation involves reduction of powers to some extent. But it also frees a person to devote more quality time to his actual job.

Along with competence, capability and talent, having a common dream and sharing a common vision is important to keep the group together in a coordinated fashion. Only then do the synergies work.

21. Our real identity is that we are all human beings and remembering this helps in winning people over.

22. Respect is mutual –If we demonstrate respect for others, others will automatically respect us. Mutual respect forms a strong foundation for any relationship.

23. Meticulous planning down to the last details embarks us on the path of success.

24. Many times we do not have a second chance. We have to will our selves to make the first chance a success.

25. Nothing works like example

26. Managing time properly is crucial to the success of any project.

27. Always aim high.

28. Handle crisis with equanimity and patience.

29. Recognition and appreciation bring out the best in the team.

30. He who has truth and courage in his heart is the one who wins ultimately.