Uhh Yes!

I was extremely fortunate on Saturday to attend a panel discussion organised by the Brookings Institution: a leading policy think tank based out of the US. The discussion happened to be on health care in India and related interventions to make decent quality health care available to larger sections of India's populace. In addition to the fact that I was representing my organisation there, I was pretty excited because one of the panellists was Nachiket Mor. Mr. Mor happens to lead ICICI Foundation prior to his role as a board member of ICICI Bank, India's 2nd largest financial entity. His clarity of thought, articulation and vision were, simply put awe inspiring. It's brushes with folks like him that really drive me on.

But that was just the half of it. Being a guest at the event, I was being introduced by our host from Brookings to various people in the room until she told me "Oh I also want Strobe to meet with you" and before I knew it I was shaking Strobe Talbott's hand and telling him about my organisation. It was a little overwhelming to meet with someone who's shaped policy the way he probably has done and I managed to gasp out somewhere in our 2 minute conversation that it was indeed a great honour to have met him. Mr. Talbott now heads the Brookings Institution and they were here on a visit to meet with Industry and Government. Their subsequent stop (after Bangalore) was to meet with Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Hmm :-) As far as building aspirations go, such interactions are very special and being in a small discussion group with folks like Mr. Mor and Mr. Talbott pretty much is the icing on any cake. What was embarrasingly disappointing to see was when Mr. Talbott was being interviewed by NDTV, instead of ascertaining his reasons for being in India and the work Brookings is doing here, among the half dozen other childish questions he was asked "Are General Musharraf's days numbered?" to which he answered a very sarcastic "uhh...yes!"

Lekker

Hmmm :-) and more to come

Glimpse of Heaven

Another magical event came to be on Saturday night. The Santoor combined in divine fashion with the Tabla to create magic like we don't experience but for a few brief instances in our lives. Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Ustad Zakir Hussain played together. An incredible 3 hour performance which left one weak and exhausted...the only word I guess to describe the experience is celestial. As an Indian, I can only say I must have been very, very good in previous births to have seen something like this, that after seeing Remember Shakti last year.

Celestial.

Built to last

In our current elitist, educated circles, talk often revolves around or touches upon occurrences, practices, characteristics and popular culture in the United States. In our insulated, supposedly cosmopolitan lifestyles, we lap up American television shows, movies, music, magazines, fashion, food and more recently it's politics too. All exclusively the pastime of the classes. When I returned to India almost to the day today 3 years ago, there was a distinct change in consumption patterns with regards to America and all things American.

Consumption of many things American among the classes had increased several fold, thanks to India opening up more of its markets, globalisation etcetera but also because the classes seemed to lap up so many things American. However, I also noticed a curious dichotomy at work. People around me were consuming all things American but were also deriding many aspects of the culture and the values that created those things that were being consumed. I commonly found myself in the midst of discussions where American culture was seen as shallow, American tastes viewed as crass, American people talked about as lacking a world view and being misinformed about pretty much all aspects of life outside their little town tucked away in the Midwest.

I found that opinion of the country was and is being shaped purely in light of popular media reporting (and like most media reporting sensationalist) and by some aspects of its foreign policy. I was recently also privy to an ugly argument between a friend and another acquaintance on the merits / demerits of living in America where one had an obviously anti America stance but this was to me merely an illustrative example of the popular sentiment that existed among my demographic. Many of the values that America was built on and till today upholds were being lost in what I feel is a silent frenzy whipped up by Anti American sentiment prevailing in many countries.

While America is not without her share of faults, misdemeanors and skeletons, we must not allow these to blind us to her overwhelmingly positive traits. Thinking about this same issue recently, I realized that to me, America is the single most enduring institution ever created in the history of humankind. An institution is born on a certain set of ideals commonly decided and then goes on to thrive if those ideals are strong enough and are based on positive values.

In 1776, a document was created which among other things proclaimed, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

These words resonate till today as the basis for this institution we know as America. I personally know of scores of friends who went to the States and were successful not because they belonged to a particular caste or race or colour, not because they spoke a particular language or subscribed to a certain political or religious view; they succeeded because they subscribed to a certain set of values which included hard work, freedom and acceptance of an egalitarian society. And there are millions more like them. We who berate so many things American would do well to take a step back and examine why it is that this institution continues to thrive and why its citizens continue to be the torch bearers leading us down tunnels as yet unexplored.

A close friend & American sent me a speech recently: Ronald Reagan's address after 8 years as America's President. Describing how he saw America, he said, "In my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still."

We could all do well by adopting some of this remarkable experiment's ideals and values. A Republican President said those words above and once again, despite popular perception it might just be that possibly, another Republican will give this institution its best chance to shrug off the slack, jettison unneeded baggage and start afresh in taking its place as that "shining city on a hill". But that's a story for another day.

Destination 2009

37 Weeks should do it me thinks.