@allianceair
I was unable to travel due to high fever, severe myalgia and acute hypertension. My doctor strictly advised against travel. I submitted the medical documents and requested a refund on medical grounds. Kindly review and process it urgently. PNR: 4TKQ66
I first met Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla at an annual event of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Mr Uttam Prakash Agarwal, whom I knew well, was then the President of ICAI and had invited me to the occasion.
Many years have passed, but Mr Birla’s speech that day has remained with me.
The Chartered Accountancy examination is among India’s toughest professional examinations ~ an institution where merit, discipline and perseverance ultimately decide the outcome.
Kumar Mangalam Birla is also one of the rare inheritors of a great business legacy who earned the distinction of becoming a Chartered Accountant.
His success may appear extraordinary today, but nothing extraordinary is built overnight.
He recently shared the ancient Sanskrit wisdom that has guided his philosophy:
शनैः पन्थाः शनैः कन्था शनैः पर्वतमस्तकम् ।
शनैर्विद्या शनैर्वित्तं पञ्चैतानि शनैः शनैः ॥
A long journey is completed one step at a time.
A quilt is woven one stitch at a time.
A mountain is climbed one careful step at a time.
Knowledge is acquired slowly.
Wealth, too, is built gradually.
We live in an age that celebrates speed. But education, character, institutions, businesses and enduring wealth are never created through shortcuts.
Great things take time.
And the greatest things are built—शनैः शनैः—slowly, steadily and patiently.
I suspect our upbringing shapes how we see these things.
After I got into IIT, my Appa, who never had the opportunity to attend university himself, started explaining why he did not want me to become like the bosses he had worked for: people who, in his view, were highly educated but had little appreciation for Indian culture and ethos, and were far too enamoured of the West.
He was not only highly intelligent and wise, but also a voracious reader. Over the years, he taught me a great deal about the Indian ethos, and I came to understand his perspective deeply.
So, despite studying in the US and spending roughly half my life since 2001 in the US and half in India, I owe my instinct not to equate Western education or Western ways with superiority to my Appa.
That, to me, is the distinction between being educated in the West and having a colonial mindset.