Book Launch: A Maverick Heart: Between Love and
Life
Author: Ravindra Shukla
Chief Guest: Mr. Raj Nair
Venue: Press Club, Mumbai
Date and Time: 18 Feb, 12:30 p.m.
What
inspired/motivated me to write this book:
When I was in school/college, focus was more on study and
career. Stress was given to apply logic and understand and solve problems.
Approach was more of academic in nature.
Once I got settled in career and life, curiosity moved beyond
struggle of basic needs. Habit I developed to study science, keen observation,
started playing role. I got active in social and public life and started
reacting to events and issues surrounding me.
We might be professional as engineers, doctor, businessmen
or socialist but we have to play role of husband, father, mother, uncle,
guardian depending upon need. Same role get extended as we move beyond family
and get actively involved in society.
We go thru various experiences in our life, develop our own
view points – hence a strong urge to share our experience and views with others.
Reference to Cornell
Visit -
I had almost decided to start my MBA from New York but Cornel
visit changed my plan. In 2002, I saw screening of film
“Seven Samurai” along with screening of “Godfather” at the Cornel University,
NY. I had read the book “God father” and seen movie also. Screening of “Seven
Samurai” next to God Father caught my attention. Since then I became fan of
Kurosawa movies. I started following all classic movies of directors like Akira
Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Quentin Tarantino.
I had been in love with
literature and had been reading GB Shaw, Shakespeare, Robert Frost and William
Wordsworth. Books which have influenced
me are Papillon, Fountainhead and God Father.
I decided to be a
movie writer and director.
The pain and struggle I had seen
in corporate world for some people really put me off. I have covered these
aspects of corporate life and craze for money and success leading to robotic
life. I did not want to be another silk worm of corporate world.
I also follow various issues in
India and wonder about alternate. This led to my views on involvement of youth
in critical issues and channelizing their energy thru effective unified and
integrated platform covering students from various academic institutions. This
platform is quite autonomous and independent.
The process has already started
to manifest in middle-east and India.
I have also drawn inspiration
from some of the followings -
- Benevolence shown by Warren
Buffet when he donated 36 Billions to Milinda-Gate Foundation.
- Perelman (Russian Mathematics) refusal
to field medal award
- Success story of Asha
Foundation
- Arvind Kejriwal’s RTI movement
- Success stories of Indian
billionaire’s in Silicon Valley
Talk about Book: 15
minutes
-
Journey of my own life, sharing experience and
learning from same
Synopsis – When
people of similar frequencies come together, output is not a simple sum of
individual work, but exponential. In science we term this phenomenon as
resonance. Output at this stage is beyond any logical limit. Three young kids,
with different family backgrounds and outlook meet during their graduation days
at IIT-Bombay campus and become close friends. Although, individually they are
in sync, but the same is not true for their interaction with the world. How
will their relation withstand the conflict of family and society pressure? How
do their characters shape out, as they traverse from an educational environment
through the corporate world to the realm of the social-political world?
Inspired by the real events across the globe from the last decade, Ravindra
Shukla brings you the characters based story – struggle and triumphs of young
generation and their relevance in the current socio-eco-political era.
Key characters from
the book – Rahul
Excerpts: Approach any event/person – without any
prejudice
“Look at this site - it is beautiful and deep. When we come
here, we get ourselves lost in its beauty and vastness. Years of sorrow and
pain lies in the depth of this lake. You do not know what was here 40-50 years
back. Probably, a ditch full of stagnant water and mud breeding mosquitoes. Now
here we have beautiful lake surrounded by lush green bushes and beautiful
flowers. The place is beautiful today, so we come and enjoy its company, its
presence. We do not think about its past or we do not to know what will happen
here years later. We enjoy the beauty of its present.”
Practical Vs
Impractical -
“You know if we had always thought from a so-called
practical angle – we would’ve never had anything new in this world. We would’ve
hidden under the security of practicality and taken no risk, we would have
never discovered heart transplantation as a new possibility, we would’ve never
thought curing cancer patients a possibility, and we would’ve never discovered
a new galaxy in the universe. Taking the cover of practicality is more or less
like hiding under the cover of security for fear of failure.”
Role of visualization
in solving problems -
“Simplify? Let me try. In school days, we are taught that if
there are four animals in a room and you add two more, the total will be six.
That is logic. But behind this logic, there are underlying assumptions. Now, if
somebody tells you, there are four rats in the room and if you add two more
cats in the room, how many animals in total exist in the room now? The answer
will depend upon assumption. If you just use your mathematical brain, you will
say six animals. If you use your human brain, you will say two animals. Why two
animals? Because the two cats will eat the four rats in no time.”
Providing an
alternate
Do not talk just about the issues – but give an alternate.
That’s what I have tried to achieve in this book. Share my solution (an
alternate) perspective to current issues in India in last 1/3 part.
Significance of Faith
“Nothing exists in life as it is. The idea is to believe and
make it possible through your passion. If she did not exist, I would have
dreamed of her, imagined of her – in the same way I described. She would be in
my mind, my heart and my senses and it is you, who’s taught me that your heart
never lies. I feel her. I see her image. I hear her encouraging words. How can
I doubt my own feelings? She exists – because I believe in her, because I
create an image of her through my imagination and push her to that limit. What
matters is who can bring this passion out of me, who can trigger these
feelings. She has the potential of a heavenly angel and my senses, my beliefs,
and my feelings turn her into reality.”
Richita character –
Quality time –
“Jindagi bhar gadhe ki tarah slog marane se aur kuchh din
rich Arab Shaikh ki tarah paisa
bahane se quality of life change nahi ho jaati. We only
remember one week of good time, but never go back to what we scarified for that
one week?”
Making Millions and
looking for retirement
“What about young age? You will be miserable all through
your 15 years to reach that goal of $10 million. After 50 years, even if you
pay a million to get back a week of your time at 35, you will never get that.
Your beer will taste very different when you are at 50 from how it tasted at
30,”
Neerav Character -
“You want to make millions, look at this...” Neerav suddenly
grabbed their attention and pointed to the TV. “You cannot earn $10 million.
Nobody earns millions. You can rob, you can steal, or you can make $10 million
in an IPO, but never earn so much. So just forget all this saving and consulting
bullshit. Just look at this.”
Abhay and Mahesh turned their attention to the documentary.
“A retirement package for a CEO in billions? And these
sportsmen signing a $10 million
contract for the next 5 years? At least these sportsmen have
some skills to show for that kind of money, but these CEOs get paid billions
for not working. If they perform poorly, you need to kick them out, but sacking
someone at such a high level is not easy, so they are instead garlanded with
billions.” Neerav was a little frustrated.
Robbery, Business vs
Tycoons –
“Do not get bogged down in right or wrong and quantitative
evaluation. Look at what pertains to today. How do you define who is the
robber, who is the businessman and who is the tycoon? Consider these examples.
In the first case, a robber robs one person for a $1000, so the total of $1000
increases in value in a very crude way. In the second case, a business man
employs 1000 workers and extracts $100 from each worker and makes $100K. In the
third case, a business tycoon reaches millions of people and steals a dollar
from each and makes millions, he is the tycoon.” She paused for a moment.
“If you rob too much from one person, it becomes murder. If
you steal little by little, it looks like business. Just find a way to refine
it. The Internet has made it possible to connect to the whole world via one
platform. Steal a penny from each person, call it service charge and you will
be a millionaire. The volume makes a difference.”
Quotations from the
book
“People should try to understand the circumstances before
changing. If one keeps on adapting, their contribution will be limited. They
can only imitate but never create.”
Ignoring somebody’s mistakes
in life from a powerful position makes you a saint, but the same act (whose
intention does not matter), if carried out from a weak position, will make you
a coward or helpless.
Do not follow crowd but follow yourself
“Richie – all this security
and prospects are different for different people. Somebody is happy playing
music and with a less pay, somebody is secure in the corporate world with a
high pay with headache. We have individual tastes, tastes are not universal.”
Resonance happens when your
mind and heart come into synch.
Joy of sharing
She could afford anything, she could give anything, but she
could not share a moment of her life with anybody. She was a beautiful and a
glamorous diamond with an stronomical price tag, but to a crude reality — she
was still a stone, a living stone. Nothing else but a stone in an aesthetic
sense.
Conclusion
I come from technology world – Powerful computer, powerful
algorithm and challenging issues to resolve with huge amount of data at our
finger tips. But the key decision has to be made by a person. That is
intelligence part. Nobody can replace the person’s role.
Computers can not
dream, they can not visualize – That is your part and that’s how you create,
innovate and make difference.
Miracle happens in
this world –
-
Example of Ramanujan – No formal education but his
theory baffles scientists for centuries
-
Beethoven – Best music composition came when he
was deaf
-
John Milton – Best poem when he was blind
-
Einstein
- Part time clerk in county give new direction to Universe
-
Stephan Hawking -
-
Michaelanglo – Most of the painting came thru
his dream
-
Discovery of Benzene structure in dream
-
James Watt, Archimedes and Galileo example
Miracle happens – Do
dreams – and finally be detached from the results
Warren Buffet donated 36 billions to Milinda-Gate foundation
Bill Gate – one of hard core capitalist of the world – now
working on social projects – Education in USA, Health in Asia, Africa
Sense of detachment - Harivansh Rai Bacchan poem – “Assman ka tara tha, mana behad pyara tha,
toot gaya so toot gaya”