Isn't this cool?
So came friday and I am most happy on fridays for reasons well justified, I get my salary for the last week, I send the time sheet for the week and apart from these, I know I am not going to have this 6:30 to 6:30 life for the next two days.
Now, you all can read the part of an article about an Indian guy.
"When I was 16 I got a scholarship to an American college when it was fashionable to go to England, especially to Oxbridge. Like the diligent son of an engineer, I began to study engineering. Inspired by Crick and Watson, who had recently discovered the DNA molecule’s shape, I switched to chemistry. During the summer I came back and saw for the first time India’s grinding poverty. (One has to go away sometimes to notice these things.) Hoping for answers, I switched to economics in my second year. A few months later I was enticed by the humanities–by courses in Greek tragedy, Islamic history, Russian novel, and Sanskrit love poetry. I wanted to study everything, but I couldn’t of course. So, I did the next best thing. I switched to a joint major called History & Literature.
By now my parents in India had begun to despair. My mother didn’t know quite what to tell the neighbours. Adding to her discomfort, I discovered two new temptations at the end of my second year. I was attracted by philosophy, but also by the visual beauty of Bauhaus buildings. So much so that I seriously considered becoming an architect. In the end, two moral philosophers, John Rawls and Isaiah Berlin, prevailed. I wrote my thesis on Aristotle and graduated with a degree in philosophy.
Apart from being a thoroughly confused young man, what this story tells is how a liberal education is a search. One shouldn’t feel that one has the answers. It is enough to know the questions. My unusual college allowed me the freedom to search for what I wanted to be. My parents too were patient and didn’t pressure me to do “something useful”. Our system in India, alas, doesn’t allow for such experimenting. You are called a duffer if you are doing the Arts here–it means you didn’t get into engineering.
My confusion didn’t quite end there. I still didn’t know what I wanted–so, I took a year off and a job of salesman."
How do you think about this guy. Isn't this cool to get education like this? But, sad part is that this is not the way a normal Indian guy gets education.
Any idea about this guy!!May be he is enjoying with the money of his cool parents...Good guess, though not correct as He is featured in three case studies at Harvard Business school. He is on a number of boards, including Ranbaxy and Citibank, where he is chairman of its Indian advisory board. He has served on a number of government boards, including the Foreign Investment Promotion Council. He is an operating advisor and investor in ChrysCapital, a venture capital fund for India’s knowledge industries.
Enough guessing!!!He is Gurcharan Das. He was CEO, Procter & Gamble India from 1985 to 1992. Between 1989-1992, he was Vice President, Procter & Gamble Far East. In 1992, he was promoted to Vice President & Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide, responsible for strategic planning. Long way from selling vicks vaporub to becoming VP and MD.
He retired early at an age of 50 and went back to India (May be the first one to cancel his green card) to become full time writer and He excelled in that field too. He is the author of "India Unbound" (Its worth reading this book) and regular columnist of sunday times (in All That Matters).
Now, you all can read the part of an article about an Indian guy.
"When I was 16 I got a scholarship to an American college when it was fashionable to go to England, especially to Oxbridge. Like the diligent son of an engineer, I began to study engineering. Inspired by Crick and Watson, who had recently discovered the DNA molecule’s shape, I switched to chemistry. During the summer I came back and saw for the first time India’s grinding poverty. (One has to go away sometimes to notice these things.) Hoping for answers, I switched to economics in my second year. A few months later I was enticed by the humanities–by courses in Greek tragedy, Islamic history, Russian novel, and Sanskrit love poetry. I wanted to study everything, but I couldn’t of course. So, I did the next best thing. I switched to a joint major called History & Literature.
By now my parents in India had begun to despair. My mother didn’t know quite what to tell the neighbours. Adding to her discomfort, I discovered two new temptations at the end of my second year. I was attracted by philosophy, but also by the visual beauty of Bauhaus buildings. So much so that I seriously considered becoming an architect. In the end, two moral philosophers, John Rawls and Isaiah Berlin, prevailed. I wrote my thesis on Aristotle and graduated with a degree in philosophy.
Apart from being a thoroughly confused young man, what this story tells is how a liberal education is a search. One shouldn’t feel that one has the answers. It is enough to know the questions. My unusual college allowed me the freedom to search for what I wanted to be. My parents too were patient and didn’t pressure me to do “something useful”. Our system in India, alas, doesn’t allow for such experimenting. You are called a duffer if you are doing the Arts here–it means you didn’t get into engineering.
My confusion didn’t quite end there. I still didn’t know what I wanted–so, I took a year off and a job of salesman."
How do you think about this guy. Isn't this cool to get education like this? But, sad part is that this is not the way a normal Indian guy gets education.
Any idea about this guy!!May be he is enjoying with the money of his cool parents...Good guess, though not correct as He is featured in three case studies at Harvard Business school. He is on a number of boards, including Ranbaxy and Citibank, where he is chairman of its Indian advisory board. He has served on a number of government boards, including the Foreign Investment Promotion Council. He is an operating advisor and investor in ChrysCapital, a venture capital fund for India’s knowledge industries.
Enough guessing!!!He is Gurcharan Das. He was CEO, Procter & Gamble India from 1985 to 1992. Between 1989-1992, he was Vice President, Procter & Gamble Far East. In 1992, he was promoted to Vice President & Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide, responsible for strategic planning. Long way from selling vicks vaporub to becoming VP and MD.
He retired early at an age of 50 and went back to India (May be the first one to cancel his green card) to become full time writer and He excelled in that field too. He is the author of "India Unbound" (Its worth reading this book) and regular columnist of sunday times (in All That Matters).
posted by Prabhat Kumar at
4:30 PM
2 Comments:
Yeh, I know that friday feeling is great :-). Good Story!
Good story to read but I personally take these stories with a pinch of salt. It has become fashionable these days for intellectuals and succesful guys to talk about ther earlier days either too lightly or too seriously. Those who talk too lightly probably suffer from the illusion that they owe ther success more to ther >140 IQ intelligence than the diligence. Contrast this with those who dont have to advertise ther high intelligence-Noble prize winners physicist...i have never read one of them talking so casually..about ther early days..and regd the comment getting answers is not importatnt..i beg to differ..point is most of us know what is wrong with the world? bottomline is to change it.
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