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Winning is a Personal Choice
Winning is about dedication. It is about concentration. It is about focus. It is about making tough choices willingly. It is about stepping forward and saying, ‘Choose me not because I am cheap but because I can give you the best value.’ Winning is not an accident. Winning is not a mystery. You will win…
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The Living Forest
When you walk through a forest in silence, the forest washes over you and bathes you in its energy. You breathe the pure supercharged oxygenated air. You can feel the force of the trees under which you are walking. And you can hear the movement and calls of the animals and birds that the forest…
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Riding Elephants
The importance of habitat conservation in the protection of avian and animal species can hardly be overemphasized. This is why when logging companies talk about reforestation, by planting millions of trees of one species in the place of the multi-species forest they demolished, it is such a farce. Especially the animals, birds, insects, amphibians, and…
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A factory, Karpusamy, and a Masjid
My learning in this incident of the bulldozer was the fact that to build credibility it is important to be able to lead from the front. You do not have to do people’s jobs for them. It is not even desirable to do that. But you do need to demonstrate that you know what they…
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Suresh Menon, my brother, my friend
Suresh and I almost never called each other unless we had something to discuss, but when we did talk to each other, even if that was after several years, it was always as if we had spoken the previous evening.
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Afzal – Indeed he was
If there is one thing that can be said about Afzal as his primary quality, it was his willingness to go out of his way to help others. As he used to say himself, “As long as it is not illegal or immoral, I will help anyone without fail.” There are, I don’t know how…
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Memories of Anamallais
It is difficult to describe the beauty of the place where we lived; a place that changes the scene from season to season. In the summer, when it is hot and dry, the waters of the Parambikulam Reservoir recede towards the dam and the submerged land becomes visible. It is a surrealistic scene of a…
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1985
These years and incidents were tough on the one hand but were enormous opportunities for me to learn about myself, develop resilience, patience, and perseverance. They were proof that if you take the pain, then the result is worthy of it. I had taken the pain to insist that I would not let my injury…
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Manners make the man & woman
As was the custom of the plantations when anyone got married and returned with his wife, there was a round of parties to meet the couple. So also, in our case and since I was the Secretary of the Anamallai Club, I had more than my fair share of friends and so we had a…
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If it can’t make you cry, it can’t make you work
Fear of failure has many respectable names: Consolidation of gains, Stability, Creating Permanence and so on. What is forgotten is that life is about change and positive change is growth. That growth is not looking in with a satisfied glow at what exists, but always to seek what might be. And that all growth is…