THREE REMARKABLE SPEECHES
NOTE: This blog was updated on 04-Sep-13. It was originally published on 27-Aug-13. I added a couple of details more about Dr. R. Balasubramaniam in the first paragraph. I had mis-spelt "this" as "thos", which I corrected. I added the word "which", which was missing in the last sentence of the paragraph that introduces Ms. Madhu Kishwar. I also changed the font to "Verdana".
On Sunday, 25-Aug-13, I attended a seminar organized to commemorate Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary this year. The website http://vivek150.org/ has information about the celebrations. The theme of the seminar was "Intellectual Meet for Vision and Thought Leaders". The speakers were Manohar Parrikar, the Chief Minister of Goa; Madhu Kishwar, the Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), based in Delhi and founder editor of "Manushi" (more information is available at http://www.manushi.in/about.php) and finally Dr. Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, who has devoted his life to service in the Heggadadevanakote (H. D. Kote) taluk of Mysore district in Karnataka. He started the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement at the age of 19, as explained in his blog http://rbalu.wordpress.com/about/. More information on him and the organization he started called GRAAM is available at the website http://www.graam.org.in/.
NOTE: My views here do not endorse any political party and only reflect my opinion on the speeches I heard and their effect on me. Secondly, like in my earlier blogs, I have deliberately avoided using names as much as possible.
To be honest, when I saw the theme, I was hesitant whether I ought to go, since one had to register for the seminar and the request had to be accepted. The only thing intellectual about me is that I write long blogs (like this one !), which only my friends and relatives read ! Also, there is little in common between Swami Vivekananda and me. My main act of social service is in writing a couple of cheques to charitable organizations. Compared to my friends, my contribution is little. Among my friends, one has organized scholarships for deserving students in his home town ; another professional acquaintance participates actively in educating students in Bangalore. These are people who truly follow Swami Vivekananda's ideals. I wondered if I even qualified to request registration, leave alone attend the seminar. I left it to the organizers whether my request would be accepted. As it turned out, my request was accepted. Still, I had half a mind to skip the session, particularly since it began on Sunday morning, at 9:30 a.m.
However, better sense prevailed. At around 8:15, I left home to visit the seminar. One of the pleasures in Bengaluru on a Sunday morning is to take the car out for a drive early. As my earlier blogs (please search for "motorcycle" in the search box) indicate, I am a reluctant car driver and prefer the motorcycle. On Sunday, there was a slight drizzle in the morning and traffic was less. It was a pleasure to head along the Airport Road in 5th gear smoothly ! There were few signals at the time. After a long time, I enjoyed a drive in my car ! I ate sandwich and cake while waiting for the light to turn green.
I reached CMR Institute of Technology at 9:35. The registration process was until 10 a.m. I got myself registered and called my ex-manager, who I also consider as a friend. He and another friend came a few minutes later. Until they come, I surveyed the college, which looks new. The campus and buildings look impressive. The auditorium is classy and can seat around 900 people, in my opinion.
The first speech was by Mr. Parrikar. I had read articles in the print media about how approachable he is and of his simplicity. Among Indian Chief Ministers Tripura's CM Mr. Manik Sarkar heads the list in terms of integrity and least assets. Mr. Parrikar has considerably more assets, but in terms of simplicity, he probably ranks next to Mr. Sarkar. There was an article by Shobhaa De in her column which illustrates Mr. Parrikar's characteristics available at http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/politically-incorrect/entry/breaking-the-cm-mould for reference. Even yesterday morning there were only the traffic police and one uniformed policeman in the auditorium and no X-ray scanners. I was surprised that I was able to enter with my bag, which contained a bottle of drinking water and the box containing the sandwiches.
Mr. Parrikar's speech began with him stating that he did not place much value on the IIT degree, since his father's friends had confused it with ITI just when he began to feel proud that he was an IIT-ian ! He explained the difference between education and literacy and stated that only literacy had improved in India, but not education. According to him, two important ideas that would result in a better India are education and character. His speech was an engaging mixture of personal anecdotes and deep insight.
For example, he informed that he had used his IIT scholarship to purchase copies of "Nature" from the Fort footpath in Mumbai . Over a period of two years, he understood the world around him better. He contrasted that with his son's example who talked about the same concepts. The difference ? His son picked up the concepts from the National Geographic TV channel in a matter of months. Today's children could probably learn about the same concepts using Google and Internet. Mr. Parrikar's insight at this point was that though technology has improved the "information flow", the capacity of the human brain to assimilate those ideas may not have increased in the same manner (I choose those words with caution : I am aware that the brain can form millions of connections among its neurons, but assimilation of ideas may still require more time). Hence, the information explosion is probably limited by our capacity to assimilate information. This was a point that struck me. I am unsure if it is scientifically proven, but it sounds reasonable.
With the growth of media, there are multiple channels of information. However, one also needs an ability to sift through information so that the proverbial wheat can be separated from the proverbial chaff ! Often the journalists on TV may be less qualified and hence may not present the unbiased facts, which is a "must" in true journalism. In such a case, it is education that provides the viewer or consumer of information the ability to read between the lines.
Mr. Parrikar spoke about how there was a watermelon eating contest organized by a farmer who grew famed watermelons in his native village. The farmer gave his biggest and juiciest watermelons to the children with one condition: he wanted the children to put the seeds into a basket. The children happily obliged. They got the watermelons - and the farmer got the seeds from his prize watermelons with minimal effort ! When Mr. Parrikar came back after completing his post-graduation after 7 years, he found that the famed watermelon from his village had disappeared from the market. It appeared that the farmer's knowledge had not been followed by his successors. Education is also about retaining and applying such knowledge so that the nation can progress as a whole. He updated that his government began providing students with laptops in 2002 itself long before the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) concept was developed by Negroponte. http://laptop.org/en/vision/mission/ has the details of this groundbreaking project.
The second analogy provided by Mr. Parrikar was about adding a bucket of fresh water to the sewers. There would be no effect on the (lack of) cleanliness of the sewer. Conversely, if one bucket of sewage water is added to the river, its effect would be diluted. Hence, while electing candidates, Mr. Parrikar suggested that one should vote for the cleaner party rather than the individual. The disappointing part of the speech was that there were no pointers to explain how to identify the right party in today's scenario ! I suppose one would have to choose the lesser of the evils among the political parties ! In this context, the kind of candidates that the Aam Aadmi Party has a chance to leverage urban India's frustration with established political parties. It will be interesting to see how they perform.
The second speech was by Ms. Madhu Kishwar. She was originally scheduled to speak on "A Women's Perspective". Instead, she spoke about the subjugation of tribal people, vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers by a combination of obsolete laws and a tyrannical and corrupt system comprising the municipality in cities and police force. If Mr. Parrikar's speech was all sunshine and light, Ms. Kishwar brought out the dark side of India. She began with the powerful statement that poverty is an unnatural state : just like water flows downwards, it is natural that poor people will try to be wealthier. However, India continues to have poor people even in our cities. She attributed this to our laws and our corrupt system, which work to keep people poor.
Ms. Kishwar stated that the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was created by the British to prevent movement of nomadic tribes from one region to another, who could spread information about rebellions, etc. Hence the word "Criminal" was added in the law by them. The same act has continued even today. Now, normally, I ignore street performers mentally classifying them as beggars. It was only yesterday that I realized that they may well be probably people for whom their performance is their only means of livelihood ! Ms. Kishwar spoke of the Nats, which word is derived from "Natya" or dance. The acrobatic feats of Nats are due to their innate talent. Today, they are forced to perform on the roads in the cities with no defined source of income and being treated as beggars. Equating what was once an art form to beggary is a tragic mistake. In my view, such communities need the support of art instructors and (probably !) shows like "India's Got Talent" to bring out their worth. Instead, what they now experience is living off beggary and paying daily bribes to police. This is unfortunate.
The same is true for street vendors also. Obtaining a license and then space which they can claim as their own is next to impossible for street vendors. Ms. Kishwar pointed out the advantage of street vendors. If there were no hand carts, she would have to drive down a few kilometers, spending petrol and contributing to pollution and then find a parking space and waste time reaching the vegetable shop. Instead, with vegetable vendors who come in hand carts one can buy vegetable quite literally at the door step. The article http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/reclaiming-the-city-for-street-vendors/article4058121.ece contains information on problems faced by street vendors. Again, I had not considered this aspect much. While riding I have frequently cursed slow moving vegetable carts, but I never realized how they form an important part of daily routine for a lot of people - including our own family !
Similarly, Ms. Kishwar also brought out the challenges faced by cycle rickshaw pullers. I used to think that this was an inhuman practice, but it is a means of livelihood for small time farmers who use it during the lean period in farming. However, Ms.Kishwar pointed out that out of every Rs. 20 earned, Rs. 10 goes as a bribe. The laws regarding cycle rickshaws are illogical : the web page http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/rickshaw/ describes the lack of logic well. A cycle rickshaw puller also needs to be its owner and each owner can own only one rickshaw ! Ms. Kishwar pointed out that airlines owners can add to their fleet of planes which is celebrated in our media, but a cycle rickshaw puller cannot buy another one !
The solution that she offered for the poverty experienced by tribes, vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers was to increase wealth creation. If the laws are rationalized and the marginalized poor in the cities get to save more, their poverty will automatically be addressed.
The final speaker was Dr. Balasubramaniam. The grey haired man brought passion and deep conviction to his speech. I was captivated by his words. He began with a question that placed the largely "techie" audience in its place (I include myself among this group !). He asked whether we knew what percentage of Indian population had access to clean drinking water. I wished I could hide myself at this point. I pride myself on my knowledge about India, but this was one question which I could not answer. There were a variety of answers. Apparently, the UN standard is 140 liters of water, but India has modified to 40 liters ! According to Wikipedia, the value is 88% if this standard is used, as seen in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_India. Dr. Balasubramaniam's next question was on the access to sanitation. The same web site has the answer. I only recalled reading that more people in India have mobile phone than they have access to a toiler and I thought the answer was 20%. On this count also, I would have been wrong had I volunteered to answer !
Dr. Balasubramanian then lamented that after 66 years of independence, it was unfortunate that even basic expectations on hygiene lie unmet in India. Using this as a context, he brought in the work started by Swami Vivekananda explicitly. The other two speakers had also discussed concepts linked to Swami Vivekananda's ideals but neither of them had even spoken of Swami Vivekananda. It was left to Dr. Balasubramaniam to elaborate on Swami Vivekananda's work. Dr. Balasubramaniam highlighted that Swami Vivekananda believed in the 3 Ps: Purity of thoughts, words and deeds ; Patience and Perseverance. He also believed in using Heart, Head and Hands to bring about change.
Dr. Balasubramaniam castigated the "techies" for living in mental ivory towers. The budget contains details of "foregone revenue", which is the tax and duties that the corporate sector ought to have paid, but which is waived. This amount was a mammoth Rs. 57,000 crores as indicated in the web page http://www.cybex.in/india-budget/pdf/annex12.pdf. Dr. Balasubramaniam pointed out that India is not even asking why such a huge amount has to be waived. Of course, there is also the other side of the story, as available in http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-27/news/31868440_1_tax-exemptions-corporate-tax-tax-revenue, but when I consider the amount waived, the support extended to the poor and weaker sections seems trivial in comparison.
Dr. Balasubramaniam then prescribed how change can be brought about. First, according to Swami Vivekananda, the individual has to take care of himself/ herself. Then using the analogy of expanding concentric circles, s/ he can change/ improve the family, the neighbors/ neighborhood, the district, the state, the nation and finally even the world. The concept sounded rather simple when he put it and the words lit a spark in me. Even one individual has the capacity to make a difference. Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech was inspirational, energizing and extremely positive. I have read a few of Swami Vivekananda's speeches. One of his messages is to root out fear and be strong. Thus, Swami Vivekananda also emphasizes the individual, as stated by Dr. Balasubramaniam. Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech is worth repeating, particularly to the youngsters in colleges. I hope I also learn to apply his ideas.
To me, Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech was relevant and inspirational and the best among the three. Ms. Kishwar's speech comes next, since she has brought out the difficulties of the poor in cities. Mr. Parrikar spoke with deep insight about the meaning of education and though I rank it third, it is by no means any less interesting or stimulating.
On the evening of 26-Aug-13, I saw a young boy on a cycle waiting to cross lanes amid moderate traffic. I let him cross lanes, thinking about Dr. Balasubramaniam that I should use my head, heart and hands. I have made a small beginning. Hopefully, I can carry on !
NOTE: This blog was updated on 04-Sep-13. It was originally published on 27-Aug-13. I added a couple of details more about Dr. R. Balasubramaniam in the first paragraph. I had mis-spelt "this" as "thos", which I corrected. I added the word "which", which was missing in the last sentence of the paragraph that introduces Ms. Madhu Kishwar. I also changed the font to "Verdana".
On Sunday, 25-Aug-13, I attended a seminar organized to commemorate Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary this year. The website http://vivek150.org/ has information about the celebrations. The theme of the seminar was "Intellectual Meet for Vision and Thought Leaders". The speakers were Manohar Parrikar, the Chief Minister of Goa; Madhu Kishwar, the Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), based in Delhi and founder editor of "Manushi" (more information is available at http://www.manushi.in/about.php) and finally Dr. Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, who has devoted his life to service in the Heggadadevanakote (H. D. Kote) taluk of Mysore district in Karnataka. He started the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement at the age of 19, as explained in his blog http://rbalu.wordpress.com/about/. More information on him and the organization he started called GRAAM is available at the website http://www.graam.org.in/.
NOTE: My views here do not endorse any political party and only reflect my opinion on the speeches I heard and their effect on me. Secondly, like in my earlier blogs, I have deliberately avoided using names as much as possible.
To be honest, when I saw the theme, I was hesitant whether I ought to go, since one had to register for the seminar and the request had to be accepted. The only thing intellectual about me is that I write long blogs (like this one !), which only my friends and relatives read ! Also, there is little in common between Swami Vivekananda and me. My main act of social service is in writing a couple of cheques to charitable organizations. Compared to my friends, my contribution is little. Among my friends, one has organized scholarships for deserving students in his home town ; another professional acquaintance participates actively in educating students in Bangalore. These are people who truly follow Swami Vivekananda's ideals. I wondered if I even qualified to request registration, leave alone attend the seminar. I left it to the organizers whether my request would be accepted. As it turned out, my request was accepted. Still, I had half a mind to skip the session, particularly since it began on Sunday morning, at 9:30 a.m.
However, better sense prevailed. At around 8:15, I left home to visit the seminar. One of the pleasures in Bengaluru on a Sunday morning is to take the car out for a drive early. As my earlier blogs (please search for "motorcycle" in the search box) indicate, I am a reluctant car driver and prefer the motorcycle. On Sunday, there was a slight drizzle in the morning and traffic was less. It was a pleasure to head along the Airport Road in 5th gear smoothly ! There were few signals at the time. After a long time, I enjoyed a drive in my car ! I ate sandwich and cake while waiting for the light to turn green.
I reached CMR Institute of Technology at 9:35. The registration process was until 10 a.m. I got myself registered and called my ex-manager, who I also consider as a friend. He and another friend came a few minutes later. Until they come, I surveyed the college, which looks new. The campus and buildings look impressive. The auditorium is classy and can seat around 900 people, in my opinion.
The first speech was by Mr. Parrikar. I had read articles in the print media about how approachable he is and of his simplicity. Among Indian Chief Ministers Tripura's CM Mr. Manik Sarkar heads the list in terms of integrity and least assets. Mr. Parrikar has considerably more assets, but in terms of simplicity, he probably ranks next to Mr. Sarkar. There was an article by Shobhaa De in her column which illustrates Mr. Parrikar's characteristics available at http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/politically-incorrect/entry/breaking-the-cm-mould for reference. Even yesterday morning there were only the traffic police and one uniformed policeman in the auditorium and no X-ray scanners. I was surprised that I was able to enter with my bag, which contained a bottle of drinking water and the box containing the sandwiches.
Mr. Parrikar's speech began with him stating that he did not place much value on the IIT degree, since his father's friends had confused it with ITI just when he began to feel proud that he was an IIT-ian ! He explained the difference between education and literacy and stated that only literacy had improved in India, but not education. According to him, two important ideas that would result in a better India are education and character. His speech was an engaging mixture of personal anecdotes and deep insight.
For example, he informed that he had used his IIT scholarship to purchase copies of "Nature" from the Fort footpath in Mumbai . Over a period of two years, he understood the world around him better. He contrasted that with his son's example who talked about the same concepts. The difference ? His son picked up the concepts from the National Geographic TV channel in a matter of months. Today's children could probably learn about the same concepts using Google and Internet. Mr. Parrikar's insight at this point was that though technology has improved the "information flow", the capacity of the human brain to assimilate those ideas may not have increased in the same manner (I choose those words with caution : I am aware that the brain can form millions of connections among its neurons, but assimilation of ideas may still require more time). Hence, the information explosion is probably limited by our capacity to assimilate information. This was a point that struck me. I am unsure if it is scientifically proven, but it sounds reasonable.
With the growth of media, there are multiple channels of information. However, one also needs an ability to sift through information so that the proverbial wheat can be separated from the proverbial chaff ! Often the journalists on TV may be less qualified and hence may not present the unbiased facts, which is a "must" in true journalism. In such a case, it is education that provides the viewer or consumer of information the ability to read between the lines.
Mr. Parrikar spoke about how there was a watermelon eating contest organized by a farmer who grew famed watermelons in his native village. The farmer gave his biggest and juiciest watermelons to the children with one condition: he wanted the children to put the seeds into a basket. The children happily obliged. They got the watermelons - and the farmer got the seeds from his prize watermelons with minimal effort ! When Mr. Parrikar came back after completing his post-graduation after 7 years, he found that the famed watermelon from his village had disappeared from the market. It appeared that the farmer's knowledge had not been followed by his successors. Education is also about retaining and applying such knowledge so that the nation can progress as a whole. He updated that his government began providing students with laptops in 2002 itself long before the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) concept was developed by Negroponte. http://laptop.org/en/vision/mission/ has the details of this groundbreaking project.
The second analogy provided by Mr. Parrikar was about adding a bucket of fresh water to the sewers. There would be no effect on the (lack of) cleanliness of the sewer. Conversely, if one bucket of sewage water is added to the river, its effect would be diluted. Hence, while electing candidates, Mr. Parrikar suggested that one should vote for the cleaner party rather than the individual. The disappointing part of the speech was that there were no pointers to explain how to identify the right party in today's scenario ! I suppose one would have to choose the lesser of the evils among the political parties ! In this context, the kind of candidates that the Aam Aadmi Party has a chance to leverage urban India's frustration with established political parties. It will be interesting to see how they perform.
The second speech was by Ms. Madhu Kishwar. She was originally scheduled to speak on "A Women's Perspective". Instead, she spoke about the subjugation of tribal people, vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers by a combination of obsolete laws and a tyrannical and corrupt system comprising the municipality in cities and police force. If Mr. Parrikar's speech was all sunshine and light, Ms. Kishwar brought out the dark side of India. She began with the powerful statement that poverty is an unnatural state : just like water flows downwards, it is natural that poor people will try to be wealthier. However, India continues to have poor people even in our cities. She attributed this to our laws and our corrupt system, which work to keep people poor.
Ms. Kishwar stated that the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was created by the British to prevent movement of nomadic tribes from one region to another, who could spread information about rebellions, etc. Hence the word "Criminal" was added in the law by them. The same act has continued even today. Now, normally, I ignore street performers mentally classifying them as beggars. It was only yesterday that I realized that they may well be probably people for whom their performance is their only means of livelihood ! Ms. Kishwar spoke of the Nats, which word is derived from "Natya" or dance. The acrobatic feats of Nats are due to their innate talent. Today, they are forced to perform on the roads in the cities with no defined source of income and being treated as beggars. Equating what was once an art form to beggary is a tragic mistake. In my view, such communities need the support of art instructors and (probably !) shows like "India's Got Talent" to bring out their worth. Instead, what they now experience is living off beggary and paying daily bribes to police. This is unfortunate.
The same is true for street vendors also. Obtaining a license and then space which they can claim as their own is next to impossible for street vendors. Ms. Kishwar pointed out the advantage of street vendors. If there were no hand carts, she would have to drive down a few kilometers, spending petrol and contributing to pollution and then find a parking space and waste time reaching the vegetable shop. Instead, with vegetable vendors who come in hand carts one can buy vegetable quite literally at the door step. The article http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/reclaiming-the-city-for-street-vendors/article4058121.ece contains information on problems faced by street vendors. Again, I had not considered this aspect much. While riding I have frequently cursed slow moving vegetable carts, but I never realized how they form an important part of daily routine for a lot of people - including our own family !
Similarly, Ms. Kishwar also brought out the challenges faced by cycle rickshaw pullers. I used to think that this was an inhuman practice, but it is a means of livelihood for small time farmers who use it during the lean period in farming. However, Ms.Kishwar pointed out that out of every Rs. 20 earned, Rs. 10 goes as a bribe. The laws regarding cycle rickshaws are illogical : the web page http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/rickshaw/ describes the lack of logic well. A cycle rickshaw puller also needs to be its owner and each owner can own only one rickshaw ! Ms. Kishwar pointed out that airlines owners can add to their fleet of planes which is celebrated in our media, but a cycle rickshaw puller cannot buy another one !
The solution that she offered for the poverty experienced by tribes, vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers was to increase wealth creation. If the laws are rationalized and the marginalized poor in the cities get to save more, their poverty will automatically be addressed.
The final speaker was Dr. Balasubramaniam. The grey haired man brought passion and deep conviction to his speech. I was captivated by his words. He began with a question that placed the largely "techie" audience in its place (I include myself among this group !). He asked whether we knew what percentage of Indian population had access to clean drinking water. I wished I could hide myself at this point. I pride myself on my knowledge about India, but this was one question which I could not answer. There were a variety of answers. Apparently, the UN standard is 140 liters of water, but India has modified to 40 liters ! According to Wikipedia, the value is 88% if this standard is used, as seen in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_India. Dr. Balasubramaniam's next question was on the access to sanitation. The same web site has the answer. I only recalled reading that more people in India have mobile phone than they have access to a toiler and I thought the answer was 20%. On this count also, I would have been wrong had I volunteered to answer !
Dr. Balasubramanian then lamented that after 66 years of independence, it was unfortunate that even basic expectations on hygiene lie unmet in India. Using this as a context, he brought in the work started by Swami Vivekananda explicitly. The other two speakers had also discussed concepts linked to Swami Vivekananda's ideals but neither of them had even spoken of Swami Vivekananda. It was left to Dr. Balasubramaniam to elaborate on Swami Vivekananda's work. Dr. Balasubramaniam highlighted that Swami Vivekananda believed in the 3 Ps: Purity of thoughts, words and deeds ; Patience and Perseverance. He also believed in using Heart, Head and Hands to bring about change.
Dr. Balasubramaniam castigated the "techies" for living in mental ivory towers. The budget contains details of "foregone revenue", which is the tax and duties that the corporate sector ought to have paid, but which is waived. This amount was a mammoth Rs. 57,000 crores as indicated in the web page http://www.cybex.in/india-budget/pdf/annex12.pdf. Dr. Balasubramaniam pointed out that India is not even asking why such a huge amount has to be waived. Of course, there is also the other side of the story, as available in http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-27/news/31868440_1_tax-exemptions-corporate-tax-tax-revenue, but when I consider the amount waived, the support extended to the poor and weaker sections seems trivial in comparison.
Dr. Balasubramaniam then prescribed how change can be brought about. First, according to Swami Vivekananda, the individual has to take care of himself/ herself. Then using the analogy of expanding concentric circles, s/ he can change/ improve the family, the neighbors/ neighborhood, the district, the state, the nation and finally even the world. The concept sounded rather simple when he put it and the words lit a spark in me. Even one individual has the capacity to make a difference. Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech was inspirational, energizing and extremely positive. I have read a few of Swami Vivekananda's speeches. One of his messages is to root out fear and be strong. Thus, Swami Vivekananda also emphasizes the individual, as stated by Dr. Balasubramaniam. Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech is worth repeating, particularly to the youngsters in colleges. I hope I also learn to apply his ideas.
To me, Dr. Balasubramaniam's speech was relevant and inspirational and the best among the three. Ms. Kishwar's speech comes next, since she has brought out the difficulties of the poor in cities. Mr. Parrikar spoke with deep insight about the meaning of education and though I rank it third, it is by no means any less interesting or stimulating.
On the evening of 26-Aug-13, I saw a young boy on a cycle waiting to cross lanes amid moderate traffic. I let him cross lanes, thinking about Dr. Balasubramaniam that I should use my head, heart and hands. I have made a small beginning. Hopefully, I can carry on !
Very well recollected. I missed the event and eagerly waiting to see the recorded version.
ReplyDeleteThank you .... I am glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kiran, you have communicated much with this short summary, guess i missed the session
ReplyDeleteHi Bindu .... I am happy you liked it .... I find that I have missed out few points ! You should have come to the session to enjoy it live.
DeleteKiran ji, the event was successful because people like you attended and had such brilliant takeaways. It was a pleasure reading your account as it not only gives details of the event but also key understandings of the speakers talk. For me the most important part of your post was the concluding para where you narrated an incident indicating that you made a beginning and want to 'carry on'! That was the real goal of organizing this event. Kudos to you Sir :-)
ReplyDeletePrashanth, I thank you for the praise ! It feels good to read it ! Also, please call me Kiran. I checked your profile and find that you read a lot. I like to read as well. We may have more in common and interestingly, Alistair Maclean is a favourite too ! It is good to know about you. Thanks again.
DeleteSpecial Thanks to Kiran. Very well grasped, collated and blogged by adding a sense of responsibility among us.
ReplyDeleteThough I don't prefer rating individual speakers, My take aways stimulated with Path for transformation to claim myself added to literate thoughts by CM. He has clearly indicated his usecase life experience and indicate how we could/should read between lines.
Madhu Kishwar speech was a revelation for me and woke me up in my senses. I wish to read her illustrations a bit more to find the right approach to help in overcome such hardships for them.
End of,the,day my principle of Evil acts not being questioned by us is also considered as Adharma.
I cant forget the economy impact brought in by street vendors and rickshaw story.
Dr's made us feel humbled by really questioning our closed door bashing attitude and influenced us to call on streets by giving extended arms.
My analogy is, Seeds were sown by CM for path towards transforming; protect and evil out them to grow is by Madhu ji; Get it reach to the needy is by Dr.
I wish, I Think, I am sure, My journey began for mother India.
Vande Matharam
Dear Gem, You are welcome. I thank you for sharing your views on the three speeches as well. I like your analogy of the speeches being like a plant that nourishes. I wish you all the best on your journey forward. In 2003, I wrote a blog on the journey, available at http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/2003/05/star-trek-voyager-climax.html. Do take a look at it when you have the time.
Delete