Friends, Yesterday I had an opportunity to be at IIT Kanpur for its 50th Alumni Convention where I had also been asked to make a brief presentation about life after IIT. For me it was a wonderful opportunity and certainly one which made me feel so elated. It was being there that I came to meet Mr Prem Das Rai from Sikkim, the first person who as a graduate from both the IIT and IIM (IIM/A) became a Member of Parliament. He belongs to Sikkim Democratic Front. It was a real pleasure listening to him and even at my age when we become so much skeptic to lectures and talks, I felt like eating each of his words when he narrated his story from being a small boy from the Kingdom of Sikkim who was chosen by the then King of Sikkim in 1960 for a scholarship to one of the prestigious schools (the name I have forgotten) to the day he went to IIT/K and from there to IIM/A and then back to Sikkim to serve with the Government of Sikkim on the insistence of Sri B B Lall, ex-ICS and the then Governor of Sikkim. His urge to serve his place and to succeed in life also came forth in equal measures. His decision to become an entrepreneur and to succeed as one, to be followed by entry in public life and final success in the parliamentary election were things that gave every listener some real sense of joy. The thing he insisted the most was that there was a great need for educated and intelligent persons to come into public life. As per him, in the absence of such deserving people this space in public life was being usurped by unwanted and unwarranted sorts. I also listened to Sri Shantanu Srivastava, who worked for years as the Second and First Secretary in the Vietnamese embassy after which he left his job to become an entrepreneur. What was truly amazing and creditable in his life-story was the fact that at the time he had left the service (sometime in 1989) he only had $ 852 with him to look after himself and his wife in a foreign land. According to him, the only thing that he had in his favour was his intense urge and fire to succeed, which he finally did. He is now the recipient of the highest Civilian award of Vietnam and is named along with Nehru and Indira Gandhi among the list of 500 global friends of Vietnam. A rare honour indeed. From $ 852 to this status is no mean journey. The only thing I could think of saying (my achievements being nothing except the various skirmishes and fisticuffs I have had in my journey) was that I have been really fortunate to have been a part of this Institution. Also the fact that the inherent "Khuraafat" (urge to do something) of the IITians is making it possible for them to succeed in so many different fields, ranging from fashion designing to film-making to book writing to politics to what-not. I also said that these IIT guys are so "Khurafaati" and have this "kitaanu" (germs) of trying different things that if today someone wants to go to Himalayas for a peaceful prayer, he/she might find an IITian sitting there beforehand, indulged in mediation. In fact there I also came to meet another alumnus Mr Ajay Mohan Jain, who has just recently come with a novel "Nothing can be as crazy" which is now in its third edition within a few months of publication, another form of Khurafaat. Yes, such an urge and insistence is credit-worthy and really makes every institution and its individuals succeed. Isn't it?
Amitabh Thakur IPS IIM Lucknow # 94155-34526
