NEO-PATRIOTISM

O brothers and sisters of my motherland

It's time to listen to our inner voice

Identify our duties and obligations

Respond to the call of the nation

O brothers and sisters of my motherland

Gone are the days of freedom struggle

When people laid down their lives

To free our mother from the shackles of the British

An objective, internalized in the hearts and minds

Of millions of Indians, drove them to extreme levels

Gone are the days of wars

When our unity and integrity was put to test

We roared like lions, put every threat to rest

Our enemies got a glimpse of our chivalry and valour

They never dared to repeat their fallacies

As their fate met with imminent failure

Now when India is a Republic for 67 years

In an era of alliance and alignment

When a war is highly unlikely

What will drive us now?

Today the society is filled with blasphemy

Corruption is rampant, disparity widens every day

The youth is disenchanted and confused;

They are victims of extremism and fundamentalism

Leaders want poverty to sustain

Or else they will lose issues to come to power

Our mother is crying

She is free but not free

She is asking us to come to her rescue

So shall we!!

It's time to rise, above all communal and religious lines

Work for the change that we want to see

Fight for the rights of people

For the upliftment of poor and downtrodden

Our blood should boil against corruption

Our valour should be displayed to help the poor

We should roar like lions on every field 

And bring laurels for the country

And that should drive us!!!!!

WHAT WE MUST READ: BOOK AS A METAPHOR

One should be very clear of what one studies and what one reads. Studying can sound like medicine while reading sounds like chocolate. I have always imagined paradise to be a library and vice versa. Coming from a family, which espoused education, I inculcated the reading habit precociously. I have always been an avid reader and my home library flaunts a diverse portfolio of books. I have read books of different genres which flagellate from fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc. to academic books. With evolution of mind, my inclinations evolved too. The Marvel comic books were replaced by Jeffery Archer, J K Rowling, Dan Brown, etc.  Subsequently, the fictional stuff was replaced by the non-fictional ones of Ramachandra Guha, Paulo Coelho and the biographies.

Now I’ m at the cusp of embarking the corporate world. As the effervescent clichéd statement goes, there are things that you want to do and there are things that you have to do. Similarly my insatiable thirst for books has been strewn in the maze. I distinctly remember the initial phase of my MBA course. There were so many things happening around that we all got transformed into zombies. The deadlines, the assignments, the committee stuff, etc. not only kept our hands full but spit venom. It was a kind of derision to the comfortable, laid back stay at home, which precluded the MBA course. I was caught off guarded. I lost my peace of mind. I was a ‘fish out of water’ due to the paucity of ‘me’ time and my inability to manage my schedules.  I craved for emancipation (Yes, I’m using that term).

MBA requires you to do a lot of reading. Case studies, HBR articles, text books, research papers, and books of management-business continuum. I must admit that some of the cases are really intriguing while books like JACK WELSH: STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT and CONNECT THE DOTS by Rashmi Bansal have figured in my favourite list. Some of my friends enjoy reading marketing and business strategy books too. I’m not that sure whether it is their love for these books or they have ‘conditioned’ their preferences, but they don’t seem to be inconvenienced. Throughout these two years, we have been advised to read Forbes magazine, replace Times of India by Business Standard, entertainment news by business news,  Amish Tripathy by Philip Kotler, etc. As future managers, we need to be aware of ‘certain things’ which inostensibly become imperative.

The analogy that I’m trying to draw is the juxtaposition between work and play. Cricketers, musicians, etc. don’t work; they get to do what they love throughout their career and still get paid for it. Similarly reading as a tool can be used in many ways. People read vociferously about finance, marketing, strategy and become outliers in their respective professions (there are so many other factors too and reading alone doesn’t guarantee success). Or you may use it as an alibi to escape from the hustle bustle and find solace within. Believe me, good books have such mystical power of healing. So read that ‘you love to’ or that ‘you have to’; the common link being ‘read’. The more you read, the more confident you are. This New Year, prepare a list of books that you want to pursue. Challenge yourself by coming out of your comfort zone (Choose a book that confronts your taste). Read about politics, both national and international; read about the socio-economic issues that cripple our nation; read about religion; read about any regional cuisine.  “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who doesn’t read lives only once.”