My Enquiry with TED India

TED.com has become a revolution. It was however hardly known (outside the USA)before it had discovered the Internet and it was not amongst the first to discover the Internet either. So while TED has been seen as the place to be for "ideas worth spreading" there has always been more to it. There is more method than madness inside. There is a pattern and things are predictable if you give it a thought.

TED has been raising expectations with its delivery and the way they have been marketing itself in the past few years. It claims to be the best and the most innovative stuff comes here. TED decided to launch TED outside the USA as recession hit and it was evident that money is now somewhere away from the US.

I managed to attend the TED India launch talk at IIMA about a month ago and i was pleasantly surprised to know that TED is playing it safe and conservative and copying the formula from US to make TED India a success. Laxmi was there and as she answered queries she accepted that TED is very conservative and have had few things not working out in the US and they were all out to replicate the US model in India.

It is here that all the cross cultural theorists need to sit up and take notice.. they have a challenge.. TED comes to India to do a Conference or "share" Ideas worth spreading and says it will replicate the way thins happen in India. I wonder if

1. India is structured like US ...
2. India has the same type of infrastructure as the US..
3. Do conversations happen in the same way in India as in the US
4. Do we share ideas in the same way in India as in the US
5. Is TED India really for Indians or does it want to bring the outside world to India cause there ain't much money elsewhere.
6. Is TED really about innovation if it cant innovate given the well known and not so well known differences across US and India.. not just the continents are different even the contents are different here.
7. Given the new ways we look at the world can TED succeed in India by using the same formula it has been using for 25 years in the US ?

As i had not the benefit of the answers and cause i increasingly feel TED is not about innovation as much as it is about oratory .. i decided to drop the cause of applying for the TED fellowships.

But now i am interested in knowing how TED bridges the divide that cross culturalists so much talk about.. or given its experience do we question if a divide exists at all considering the way India is changing very fast... very fast...

Life is Unfair

I work with all types of structures and institutional arrangements and like to say i work on marginalisation issues as well. This experience today beat all of it. I met a 65 year old person today . Nanubhai asked me my well being and when i asked him his well being he bent down to touch my feet. He is 65 has seen more than double of the life that i have seen in 32 years of my life and has successfully navigated through the changes of time and value systems and i am yet to start doing that.
I came as a student to IIMA campus and was first impressed by Nanubhai, a simple sweeper for my dormitory. he would report to duty at 0730 because he came by bus from 15 kms away. his duty started from 0800 but he would start working before that as he did not want to waste time. he was sharp on dot everyday and before 0900 am my room was spanking clean. i never had to tell him and he noticed when he had to clean and wipe the door, when to remove the cobwebs and when to do a more detailed cleaning. His commitment to his job was unmatched and his dedication to his profession was ultimate and to me he is still an ideal of how it is to work with commitment and devotion. i believe he was one of the best teachers for me at IIM and yet he had to bend down to touch my feet. and he taught me humility. and i discovered LIFE IS NOT FAIR.

The Mystic Quality of Life- Things we can never find an answer

I met an unusual soul last year. On campus it was a usual night to the other mess for dinner ...usually alone apart from two interns Sidharth and Anirudh form IIIT Allahabad who made my summer worth the mess by transforming their lives. Only this night it rained. i was waiting for the rain to get a little less as i wanted to get wet ( i love the rain falling on me) and also didn't want to spoil my already too old mobile which was counting its last few months.

i was joined in my long walk from one corner of the campus to another corner by an unlikely partner - a young beautiful girl who got talking to me. What struck me was her confident manner of talking and her smooth way of being comfortable while talking beyond introductions to expressing joys from her inner self. She was going to receive her first ever stipend the next day and was excited about her first earning :) , we parted ways as we reached our dorms (hostels) after a seven to eight minute walk and talk . i had jokingly asked her for a treat.

We kept bumping into each other on campus and she insisted on treating me as it was her first stipend and all her friends were in delhi. Strangely enough i found her taking me out to chocolate room for a treat where we went to and fro walking. Ramita (that was her name) detailed about her career interests and how she would like to return to IIMA for an internship in the next season as well. She talked of many ambitions and dreams of her academic and career pursuits and i was impressed by her confident self and clear thinking. What struck me was her down to earth attitude , willingness to grow and learn by working hard and ability to focus on the right issues.

we had decided that i will treat her in delhi for a return treat during my next travel as it was very very awkward for me to be treated this way. But that was never to be.

Why would someone open up about their dreams and ambitions to a stranger like me in practically our first ever meeting and talk ?

Why would someone seek to learn from the experiences of my life wihtout even knowing me remotely ?

Why would someone share a happiness with me this way ?

i have answers to none of these in connection with ramita. However i guess there are some pursuits we can never complete and some answers we can never have. i can only thank God for the brief moments where i can share someones happiness and be part of it. i can only thank God for considering me worthy of sharing a special joy like the first earning of a young indian. i can only thank GOD for makign me meet astonishing simple but confident young kids who can shape India's and the global future so differntly with the right training. Ramita could have been one such individual .

Yesterday i discovered on facebook something that was totalyl unexpected. We exchanged hardly one or two off line mesages in september and then i came across this http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=30951019715&ref=mf

This came as a rude shock and brought back the unanswered questions to me. How can death walk in so silently and steal away the unaswers to such ordinary questions and make them so mystic ?

I can only be amazed and dazed by the mystic happenings in life and the unique way it unfolds.. i still wonder what message is stored for me?

Dr Kurien - An inspiring Leader

An old man of 87 years of YOUNG age lies in a hospital bed in India’s commercial capital. He is in one of India’s best hospitals because he deserves India’s best. His age is young for he never stopped working relentlessly like young people with grand ideals. His age is young because his ideas are fresh and radical. His vision is young because it is far reaching and strong, the journey to his goal seems just begun. Out of 87 years he has worked for the same employers for 61 years. Most people retire at the age of 58 in India. The old “young’ man is none other then Dr. Verghese Kurien, an inspiration to the thousands of young leaders who have spawned the rural commercial landscape of India. What Dr. Vikram Sarabhai has been to the Indian Industry and Management education, Dr. Verghese Kurien means the same and much more to the rural India, rural management education and the development ‘Industry’ of India.

He defeated the British with a business model rooted in the illiterate people of rural India (perhaps the best Gandhian I have known thatways), then he beat the casteists and religious fanatics to bring people under one banner. He then beat the barriers of management and institutional theory and Culture (especially work culture). He continued to beat the management pundits and consultants of the business world and this was his leadership- of inspiring each one of them to deliver quality and scale up a commercial activity in rural India that balances the deep sensitivity of an NGO and the astute strategy and efficiency of a shrewd business enterprise – the dairy industry and the GCMMF.

I write this piece as we search for O-ve blood for Dr Kurien in what I hope is not the last of his battles. A few days ago I was stunned to hear that he was giving up. “Giving up” is something I or anyone have never associated with him. It was a shock and a rude one at it.

Dr. Kurien taught me many things. When he welcomed me along with 63 other students as the 20th batch of IRMA (Institute of Rural Management Anand) he told us “Go where you are most needed and not where you are most rewarded.” I have tried to stick to that talisman since that day ten years ago.

His creation AMUL taught me that India does not need replication but amplification of a successful idea. We need to innovate to amplify while we need to imitate to replicate. AMUL is big and successful because it innovates and does not imitate.

He once told and official in front of my batchmates “how unbecoming of you to still carry this when the matter is closed” and it still reminds me of justice, fairness, equality and magnanimity of a warm heart that is not insulated from human feelings by success.

Even in these three small incidents he teaches me clarity of purpose, depth of insight and humanity in approach and that to me is a recipe of leadership from the cult of Dr. Ku and it shall live on till my work can sustain.

http://fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=25563&sectionid=1