Where the mind is without fear!

I’ve not written anything for over an year. Not that I didn’t feel like. But somehow, the mundane job & routine life were the only things I could focus on and who likes to hear/read about similar things in any other person’s life and that too of someone living in a city like Mumbai where discussing about rent and mode of daily travel are the favourite topics.

Moreover, India didn’t win much except the world cup & some domestic tours so couldn’t focus on that topic either.

Lokpal bill has already been spoken about a lot (and I actually took some time to figure out whose demands are genuine), so could not write about that either.

Movies, I cannot write much except the irritating (to others) first day diplomatic reviews I post on FB.

Not that I was too busy - managing work and married life. In fact, my current organization has been so kind, I feel more close to being a housewife than a working professional. In fact, I was about to pen down an article on ‘101 ways to look busy when you’ve no work’. But then dropped the idea since everyone in my organization has mastered that art already. I am still learning the nuances from them - for free of course.

I am a firm believer; one’s progress in an organization depends on an individual’s shit taking ability. I am a little poor in that, even thought of taking up some individualistic professions like being a professor sometime back but then patience (read PhD) is a virtue not many have.

However, it ain’t that bad either. The high points in my short banking career so far has been the chance to meet so many individuals who’ve started something of their own years back and are currently running organizations worth crores of rupees. So someday, I meet my COEP alumni 1974 batch who heads an infrastructure company of 1500 cr revenue today. And a person who has managed to achieve this remarkable feat had prodigious social intentions as well. He built schools, hospitals, etc. for his employees, brought technology to amateurs, who otherwise would have been doing some menial odd jobs with meagrely salaries and leading pitiful lives. And there are ‘n’ no of examples from the older generation who’ve taken such a commendable plunge. One of my personal favourites is Narendra Murkumbi of Renuka Sugars (though I’ve not met him yet).

I wish there were no placements today and I (and many others like me) were forced to become entrepreneurs. Somehow the comfort of a monthly paycheque is too comfortable to let go. Someday I wish, though not at the cost of financial discomfort, but I do start something of my own. Torn between the desire to improve the world and enjoy the world, hope to choose the former. As one of my wise professor says ‘If you’ve the intention, opportunity will come, some day but there should be an intention to begin with’.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.