The Invisible Ink

Sindhutai Sapkal- Mother of 1000+ Orphans

2011-05-07T10:59:00.006+05:30

Today she is the recipient of around 60 awards for social work including the Savitribai Phule award from the Maharashtra government, the Satpal Mittal Award and the Parivartan Award given by the Maharashtra-based non-governmental organization, Parivartan. And yet she continues to beg for others. Belonging to a family of cattle herders, poverty coupled with social convention prevented Sindhutai from having access to education. She would try to manage the herd and also attend school with great difficulty. But marriage at 10 put an end to the fourth standard student's education. The groom, Shrihari Sapkal, alias Harbaji, was over 30 years old.

Sindhutai created a sensation in Navargaon in 1972 when she demanded that the forest department pay the village women for the cow dung they collected. The department used to auction the dung to landlords and pocket the cash. "We won the fight," says Sindhutai. But she lost her family. She claims that an annoyed landlord, Damdaji Asatkar, spread the rumor that the child she was carrying was his. "My husband simply abandoned me," says Sindhutai. She was beaten up and dumped in a cow shed, where her daughter, Mamata, was born. "This was in 1973. I cut the umbilical cord with a sharp-edged stone lying nearby," she says.

Equipped with nothing but a determination to feed her child, Sindhutai decided to beg. "I begged for almost three years during which time I traveled to Delhi, Chandigarh and almost all over Maharashtra. I also started singing to get more money and having a considerably good voice, I would end up with more money which I would share with my fellow beggars. I would eat and sleep on the roads," says she. And then she started wandering from one town to another. "Those were the days of soul-searching. I began feeling I must do something for those suffering like me," she adds.

The idea was just taking root when she found herself in Chikhaldara in Maharashtra's Amravati district. A section of the Melghat jungles on the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh had been earmarked for a tiger project and she soon found herself fighting for the rights of the tribals. With food and shelter given by others, Sindhutai then started looking after orphaned and abandoned adivasi (tribal) children as a source of livelihood. It didn't take long for this to become the mission of her life.

Here goes some links for the same.
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=6497
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwOS8xMC8yMiNBcjAxMTAw

You Tube videos of Sindhutai Sapkal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGqYeNc1Mtw

Nagpur
07 May 2011

chandoo.org

2010-12-20T00:14:00.003+05:30

What was hobby years ago has turned into money spinner for 29 year old Vizag based Purna Chandra Rao Duggirala today. He has done his MBA from IIM Indore. He started blogging about the his B school experiences and registered the domain "chandoo.org" in 2004.

Then he started blogging about the technology and in March 2008, lifehacker.com reprinted one of his articles, bringing more traffic on his blog. This is a time when he monetized his blog. While he was working with TCS after his MBA, his job entailed extensive work on MS excel. Over a period of time his proficiency in excel improved a lot and he started offering advice on how to master spreadsheets on his blogs. He went a step ahead to release an Excel-related e-book in February 2009 and priced it $5.The product was received very well and he soon doubled its price. He still sells around 20 copies of this book every month. In September 2009, he launched a set of project management templates catering to analysts and project managers and priced it at $30. The product was runaway success and in 2010, he launched his best selling product, an online training program for Excel, "Excel School" and priced it at $97 per student. In a year from September 2009, he has earned over $100,000 from his online business. He is now focusing on improving his blog and boosting his revenue stream. Now he is full time entrepreneur.

http://chandoo.org/wp/about/
http://startupdesi.com/100000-startup-revenue-in-12months/

Source: The Economic Times Wealth (13 Dec 2010) and Chandoo.org

No idea is small idea. What matters is where do you want to take it and how do you want to take it. If you understand these two things, you can build a big empire through that small idea. This is what Chandoo has taught us, isn't it?

TATA : 26th November 2008 terror attack on Taj Mumbai

2010-02-04T20:37:00.002+05:30

Minuted by Dileep Ranjekar (CEO of Ajim Premji Foundation) October 10, 2009

Meeting with H N Srinivas – Senior Executive Vice President, Taj Group of Hotels

Last evening, I had a dinner meeting with HNS in Goa (I was there for a National Institute of Personnel Management conference – as a speaker).

He narrated the 26^th November 2008 terror attack on Taj Mumbai and there were some important points.

A. Terrorist entry

1. They entered from the Leopold Colaba hotel entrance and also from the northern entrance – spraying indiscriminate bullets on the Taj security personnel and guests in general.

2. Though Taj had a reasonable security – they were surely not equipped to deal with terrorists who were spraying 6 bullets per trigger.

3. The strategy of the terrorists was to throw chunks of RDX in an open area that will explode and burn – creating chaos so that the guests and staff run helter skelter so that the terrorists could kill them. The idea was to create maximum casualties.

4. There were several critical gatherings and functions happening in the hotel on that day – a Bohra wedding, global meet of Unilever CEOs and Board members and 2 other corporate meetings were being held in the hotel – besides the usual crowd.

5. The firing and chaos began at about 8.30 p.m. and the staff including employees on casual and contract basis displayed exemplary presence of mind, courage and sacrifice to protect the guests who were in various halls and conference rooms.

B. Stories of Staff Heroics

1. A young lady guest relation executive with the HLL gathering stopped any of the members going out and volunteered 3 times to go out and get stuff such as ice cubes for whiskey of the guests when the situation outside the hall was very explosives and she could have been easily the target of the bullets

2. Thomas George a captain escorted 54 guests from a backdoor staircase and when he was going down last he was shot by the terrorists

3. There were 500 emails from various guests narrating heroics of the staff and thanking them for saving their lives

4. In a subsequent function, Ratan Tata broke down in full public view and sobbed saying – “the company belongs to these people”. The wife of Thomas George who laid his life saving others said, she and the kids were proud of the man and that she did not know that for 25 years she lived with a man who was so courageous and brave

5. The episode happened on 26^th November, a significant part of the hotel was burnt down and destroyed – the hotel was re-opened on 21^st December and all the employees of the hotel were paraded in front of the guests

6. It was clearly a saga of extra-ordinary heroics by ordinary people for their organisation and in a way for their country. The sense of duty and service was unprecedented

7. The young lady who protected and looked after the HLL guests was a management trainee and we often speak of juniority and seniority in the organisation. She had no instructions from any supervisor to do what she did

a. She took just 3 minutes to rescue the entire team through the kitchen

b. Cars were organised outside the hotel as per seniority of the members

c. In the peak of the crisis, she stepped out and got the right wine glass for the guest

8. People who exhibited courage included janitors, waiters, directors, artisans and captains – all level of people

C. The Tata Gesture

1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed

2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed

3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the “Pav-Bhaji” vendor and the pan shop owners

4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent by money order

5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help

6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people’s mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided

7. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility

8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required

9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner – either through injury or getting killed – were affected.

10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks

11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents – as to what they wanted him to do.

12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.

13. What is unique is that even the other people, the railway employees, the police staff, the pedestrians who had nothing to do with Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.

14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her

15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts

16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 children of the victims of the terror

17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organisation. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible

18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs in addition to the following benefits:

a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents

b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents – anywhere in the world

c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life

d. All loans and advances were waived off – irrespective of the amount

e. Counselor for life for each person

D. Epilogue

1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?

2. The organisation is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that – everyone laughs

3. It has to do with the DNA of the organisation, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organisation has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority

4. The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.

5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.

6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan – he said – do you think we are doing enough?

7. The whole approach was that the organisation would spend several hundred crore in re-building the property – why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?

Mumbai 04 -Feb-2010

Azim Premji at IIT Delhi's convocation ceremony.

2010-01-10T08:44:00.000+05:30

Inspiring excerpts from the address by Azim Premji , founder, Wipro , at IIT Delhi's convocation ceremony.

The funny thing about life is that you realise the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black, to salt and pepper and finally salt without the pepper, I have begun to realise the enthusiasm and excitement of youth. At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have learnt along the way. As you embark on your careers, I would like to share them with you. I am hoping that you will find them as useful as I have.

The world you are entering is in many ways very different now from what it was when I began my career. It was the late sixties and India still depended on other countries for something as basic as food. We aroused sympathy, not admiration whenever we went overseas. Recently, someone told me, that when visitors came to India then, they came to see what they could do for India. Now, they come to see what India can do for them. As a hopeful Indian, I look at our country as one which is rich in ethnic and cultural diversity and one that has an effective, secular democracy which will help us build an enduring society.

Lesson 1: Take charge
This was the first thought that came to me, when over four decades ago, I stepped into Wipro factory at Amalner. I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially, leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself. When it comes to choosing your careers, you have to take charge of your own destiny.

Lesson 2: Earn your happiness
The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than five found. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.

Lesson 3: Nothing succeeds like failure
The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure. And if you do encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. The important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the lesson.

Lesson 4: Nothing fails like success
The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. There is a thin line of difference between confidence and arrogance. Confident people are always open to learn. A recent survey of executives in Europe showed that the single most important quality needed for leadership success was the willingness to learn from any situation. Arrogance on the other hand stops learning. It comes with a feeling that one knows all that needs to be known and has done all that needs to be done.

Lesson 5: There has to be a better way
Partly as a corollary to what I have just said, we must remember that no matter how well we do something there has to be a better way! Excellence is not a destination but a journey. Creativity and innovation sometimes need inspiration from other disciplines. It is probably not a chance that Einstein's interest in music was as much as his interest in Physics. Bertrand Russell was as much a mathematician as a philosopher. Excellence and creativity go hand in hand.

Lesson 6: Respond, not react
There is a world of difference between the two and in terms of success and failure. The difference is that the mind comes in between responding and reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do.

Lesson 7: Remain physically active
It is easy to take health for granted when you are young. I have found that exercise not only improves the quality of time but also reduces the time you need for sleep. The truth is that stress will only increase in a global world. You must have your own mechanism to deal with it.

Lesson 8: Never compromise on your core values
Mahatma Gandhiji often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze. One must define what you stand for. This is not difficult. But values lie, not in the words used to describe them, as much as in the simple acts. And that is the hard part. Like someone said, "I could not hear what you said because what you did was coming out far too loud".

Lesson 9: Play to win
Playing to win brings out the best in us and in our teams. It brings out the desire to stretch, to achieve that which seems beyond our grasp. However, it is not about winning at any cost. It is not about winning every time. It is not about winning at the expense of others. It is about innovating all the time. It is a continuous endeavour to do better than last time.

Lesson 10: Give back to society
All of us have a collective social responsibility towards doing our bit to address them. Of all the challenges, the key to me is education. We have a paradoxical situation, where on the one hand we have jobs chasing scarce talent and on the other, rampant unemployment and poverty. The only way to bridge these two ends of the pole is by providing quality education that is accessible by all.

Investopedia - Stocks I can bet on

2010-01-06T19:27:00.004+05:30

My prediction for the 17 stocks is given below.
I have jotted down my thoughts and my expectations from these stocks.

If you have any other better stock in your watch list, kindly share its name.
Cheers!!!

Mumbai
06-Jan-2010

4 E’s of Leadership by Jack Welch

2009-11-08T15:02:00.005+05:30

About Jack Welch:

Ø In his 20 years at the helm of GE, he increased the value of the company more than 30 times over

Ø During his tenure at the helm, GE turned out more Fortune 500 CEOs than any other company in history

Ø He sold off more than 100 businesses and fired more than 100,000 employees

Ø Welch fired 1,18,000 people, including 37,000 people from businesses that were divested.

Ø Under Welch, the company lost less than 1 percent of it’s A’s every year.

Ø By the time Welch retired, more than 30,000 GE managers had received the stock options. He made millionaires out of hundreds of the managers he considered the company’s very best.

Ø When Welch took over, GE had revenues of about $25 billion. When he stepped down, GE was a $ 130 billion company. The organic growth under Welch averaged under 10% per year. It was a torrid pace of acquisitions in the Welch era that helped fuel the GE growth engine. GE made an astounding 1,200 + acquisitions which accounted for about 40% of GE’s growth.

4 E leaders should have following characteristics

1. Energy: People who move 95 Miles/Hr in a 55 Miles an hour world. They embrace the change. Emotional energy – the kind of energy that a leader projects to help build the spirit or morale of an organization. It is an energy that reaches across people and binds together individual contribution into a purposeful whole. Emotional energy is the passion that gets the job done.

2. Energizes: They know how to spark others to perform. They are visionary. They know how to drive people towards a vision. They are selfless in giving credit when things go right and taking blame when things go wrong. They don’t engage in turf wars, operate in silos, or tolerate backbiting behavior. They instill confidence into the soul of organization. The new ideas are the lifeblood of the organization. Energizers aren’t necessarily the source of ideas; more likely, they encourage others to voice to voice their ideas. Further they ensure that these ideas are surfaced, celebrated and acted upon.

3. Edge: They are competitive. They know how to make the really difficult decision.

Welch urged managers to go for the “quantum leap” rather than play it safe. Encourage your direct reports to do the same, and make sure that you don’t punish them for failure.

Leaders with edge know how to say yes or no and “avoid the maybes”

4. Executes: They are consistent performers. They know how to convert energy and edge into action and results. Further, people who execute effectively understand that activity and productivity are not the same thing.

Bossidy and Charan write that many failed corporate strategies failed mainly as a result of poor execution. An organization will execute consistently only if the right culture, practices, rewards, and so on are deeply ingrained in the fabric of the company, and if the top management remains involved (execution can not be delegated). The authors also assert that managers who expend valuable company resources on other programs while ignoring execution are “building the houses with no foundations.”

Jeff Immelt got an edge over other competitors for CEO’s position for this quality.

Jack Welch’s categorization of leaders:

Type A - They live the values and make the numbers.

They articulate the vision of the company throughout the organization, while they take care of the company’s business. These are the leaders whom Welch and his team worked hardest to retain.

Type B - They live the values but do not always make the numbers.

Welch felt that these individuals should be given a chance to succeed either in their current job or in another assignment.

Type C – They do not live the values but they make the numbers.

Welch concluded that the managers (even highly productive ones) who did not live the organization’s values should be terminated. In the long run, Welch argued, an organization can succeed only if the entire team is operating out of same playbook.

It is not worth trying to convert type B or type C leaders.

Under Welch, GE kept 99% of it’s “A” players and also did a thorough postmortem every time it lost one.

Jack Welch said -

1. His one of the famous statements is “the smartest people in the world hire the smartest people in the world,” but the truth is that he looked for far more than smarts.

2. “A primary task in taking company from good to great is to create a culture wherein people have a tremendous opportunity to be heard and ultimately, for the truth to be heard.”

3. “You have no right to be a leader if you don’t have it in your soul to build others. Nothing is worse than a whirling dervish who bores everyone. You need fertilizer and water.”

4. “This boundaryless learning culture killed any view that assumed the GE way, or even the best way….And the operative compulsion is to find out who has the better idea, learn it and put it into the action-fast.”

5. “If you and I and the business leadership of this country can have the self confidence to let people go – to create an environment where each man and woman who works in our companies can see a clear connection between what he or she does every day, all day, and winning and losing in the real world – we can become productive beyond our wildest dreams.”

6. “If you want to get the benefit of everything employees have, you have got to free them, make everybody a participant. Everybody has to know everything, so they can make the right decisions by themselves.”

7. Ask yourself Drucker’s question: “If you were not already in the business or market, would you enter it today, knowing what you know?”

8. “If you put a little more runway in front of someone and encourage them to take off – at high speed, in new direction – good things happen. You stretch that person’s vision.”

9. “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.”

10. Think of the last time your organization experienced a serious defeat or setback. Face reality by identifying the possible causes: Was it because manager dropped the ball? Was it the result of a poorly conceived organizational structure that paralyzed decision making? Was it because everyone was too polite or dysfunctional to articulate the problem before it was too late? Whatever it was, purge the company of this and other productivity killing cancers.

Being practical:

Welch expected that 2 out of 3 who were in race to become successor can leave the organization and hence asked all of them to submit the successor plan for the business they were heading so that business should not get impacted with their move.

Others said -

“Leadership development is about helping people grow, and if I can get people as individuals growing, then I have got a company that grows.” – James McNerney, who was competing with Jeff Immelt for the position of CEO in GE and then became Chairman of board & CEO of 3M.

“I learned from the experience. Sometimes you have to fail to win.” – Robert Nardelli, who was competing with Jeff Immelt for the position of CEO in GE and then became Chairman of board & CEO of Home Depot.

“Being a leader often means making decisions that others call foolish or wrong. It takes edge to stick to your plan when critics hammer you everyday.” - Nardelli

“I get more satisfaction from seeing things get done than I do about philosophizing or building sand castles. Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dignity of a business leader. That’s wrong. It’s a leader’s most important job.” – Larry Bossidy, former CEO and Chairman of the board, Honeywell

It is worth reading this book as Welch has justified the each and every point. It has not only the GE Authentic Leadership Model consisted of 12 traits that best describe the Welch leader but also a questionnaire to judge yourself. A questionnaire to assess your “energy” quotient & other questionnaires are also enclosed in a book. First half of the book contains Welch’s leadership model. Whereas the second half describes how the leaders who used to report directly to Welch turned around the other organizations when they could not become CEO of GE.
You will also find a chapter on Vivek Paul who was CEO of Wipro. Vivek used to report to Jeff Immelt in GE. When Vivek Paul took over as CEO of Wipro in 1999, it was US $150 Million. However, he set an ambitious target to become US $ 4 Billon company by 2004. Though it ended up becoming US $1.3 Billion company by 2004, the company grew by CAGR of 54% despite dot com bubble burst in 2001 and got recognition as one of the leading IT vendors from India.This book is full of learning.

The Real Hero : William Kamkwamba

2009-10-02T18:03:00.010+05:30

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind............

It is a real story of a 14 year old kid who was dropped out of school because he had no money to pay the fee and who then managed to set up first windmill in a village. He is just 22 years old now.

The below link will take you to his homepage.
http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Here is You-tube video for the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arD374MFk4w&feature=player_embedded

Here is the abstract of book "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind" by co-author Bryan Mealer.
http://www.bryanmealer.com/

A picture of a windmill built from scrap is given below.

Book Review: The Great Indian Middle Class by Pavan Varma

2009-10-02T13:17:00.001+05:30

It is post independence history. It talks about the politics, permit raj, red tapism, bureaucracy, favoritism and nepotism etc which every Indian knew. Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shstry, Indira Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi all were from middle class and had grown to a level where they became a role model for many people. It talks about how middle class started growing. How the banks got established to fund the young entrepreneurs. However, the book doesn’t have any valuable insights for future. Hence it is not interesting. Mahatma Gandhiji’s message is good and it is summarized below.

Mahatma Gandhi’s advice on Independence day in West Bengal: “Beware of power, power corrupts….Don’t let yourself be entrapped by its pomp and pageantry. Remember, you are in office to serve the poor in India’s villages.” And just few days later, he wrote the following lines for an unknown visitor:

“I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.”

Book Excerpt: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

2009-09-01T23:06:00.005+05:30

Siddhartha was a handsome Brahmin's son living in a village. He grew up with Govinda who then became his close friend. They learnt the art of contemplation and meditation and started taking part in debates with learned men. Though everyone was happy with magnificent Siddhartha, he himself was not happy. Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him which further added to his thirst for knowledge. Hence he decided to leave house and join Samanas (monks).

Siddhartha learned a great deal from Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self and traveled through the path of self-denial. Govinda, Siddhartha's shadow, also traveled along the same path and made the same endeavors. One day Siddhartha asked Govinda, "Do you think we are any further? Have we reached our goal?" Govinda replied, "We have learned and we are still learning. You have learned each exercise quickly. Someday you will be a holy man, Siddhartha." Siddhartha said, "It does not appear so to me. What I have so far learned from the Samanas, I could have learned more quickly and easily in every inn in a prostitute's quarter, amongst the carriers and dice players." He further added, "I only find a short respite in my exercises and meditation, and am as remote from wisdom, from salvation, as a child in womb." Siddhartha accepted that his thirst for knowledge had not been quenched.

Govinda and Siddhartha decided to listen the Buddha preach in a nearby village. Buddha's talk about salvation impressed Govinda and he decided to join him. Siddhartha went to see him off where he got an opportunity to have an interaction with Buddha. Buddha said, "The goal of teachings is salvation from suffering." Siddhartha asked Buddha, "You have done so by your own seeking, in your own way, though thought, through meditation, though knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learnt nothing through teachings, and so I think that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody you can communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of enlightenment. The teachings of enlightened Buddha embrace much, they teach much - how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One experienced - he alone among hundreds of thousands. That is what I thought and realized when I heard your teachings. That is why I am going on my way - not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone - or die."

As he slowly went on his way, his head was full of this thought. He reflected deeply, until his feeling completely overwhelmed him and he reached a point where he recognized where he recognized causes, it seemed to him, is to think, and through thought alone feelings become knowledge and are not lost, but become real and begin to mature.

He left Samanas and came to town. As the years passed by he had become rich. People started liking him; they came to him if they wanted money or advice. He had no close friends except Kamala who is a courtesan.. Property, possessions, pleasure and riches had finally trapped him. He started gambling for money. He started becoming impatient with the losses. He was no longer kindhearted to beggars; he no longer had the desire to give gifts to poor. He noticed that the bright and clear inward voice, that had once awakened in him and had always guided him in his finest hours, had become silent. Finally he said good bye to all these things. Kamala found that he was with the child as a result of her last meeting with Siddhartha.

Siddhartha left the town. He was seating beside a river where he met Govinda once again. Then Siddhartha did introspection and decided to stay beside river. He started living with Vasudeva, who is a ferryman. He met with Kamala who died in his arms leaving behind his son along with him. Siddhartha loved his son. He wanted to pass on all his learning to him. However, son hated Siddhartha and wanted to indulge in Samsara.

Vasudeva said Siddhartha, "Who protected Siddhartha, the Samana, from Samsara, from sin, greed and folly? Could his father's piety, his teacher's exhortations, his own knowledge, his own seeking, protect him? Which father, which teacher, could prevent him from living his own life, from soiling himself with life, from loading himself with sin, from swallowing the bitter drink himself, from finding his own path? Do you think that anybody is spared this path? Perhaps your little son, because you would like to see him spared sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But if were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest." Finally son alone went to town leaving behind Siddhartha in sorrow. Siddhartha realized that his father had also suffered the same pain that he was now suffering for his son. He also acknowledged the repetition of events, the fateful circle of life.

The story ends with a lot of emphasis on being a good listener. In this book Vasudeva is projected as a good listener. Siddhartha said Govinda, "Vasudeva is a simple man; he was not a thinker, but he realized the essentials as well as Buddha. He was holy man, a saint." He further added, "Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom."

The book talks about the spiritual journey of a boy who questions himself about the right path one should follow in life. The voyage from asceticism to materialistic world and then to spiritualism had been captured very well with the meaningful conversation between Siddhartha and Govinda / Buddha / Vasudeva / Kamala. It has lot of touchy scenes. And hence it is worth reading this book.

Date :01-Sept-2009
Place: Mumbai