My School

There is nothing like nostalgia. I always love going back into memories and revisit all the nice times I had at my school. I studied in St.Xaviers school, popularly known as the Boys Convent. For 10 years....... from Class I to X (except for a brief stint at Vignana Vihara in VIII). We got a concrete building when I was in Class II and we all moved from a tiny asbestos shed that we shared with an ITI, to a sprawling double storied building. When I saw the building for the first time I had the same feeling that Shahjahan had when he saw his magnificient Taj. But he could see it only from the rat hole in the corner of Red Fort. I think I am far better...

We had two head mistresses. First, Sister Gracy and then Sister Mercy. I remember only Sister Mercy because she gave me a character in a drama that we played on our school stage for the anniversary. The play is about a greedy man who adulterates ghee, gets caught and had to pick a punishment of his choice - to drink adulterated ghee or to be whipped 100 times or to pay a fine. He drinks half the ghee and then takes 50 lashes and then pays the fine. In that play, I am the one who whips him 50 times. I felt really bad for lashing someone and cursed Sister Mercy for giving me that dirty role. I would rather loved the character that collects the fine. This is one of the two plays that I ever acted in. The other was a skit that we played when I was in high school and played in Guwahati at a conference of United schools organization under the aegis of one of our social teachers, Mr Chowdhary (fondly but secretly called as Boost). Barring these two, I was never into theatre.


I always had a great admiration for my teachers. One Teacher whom I like the most is Sagar, our telugu teacher - a lean man who became round after marriage. I remember him coming to school stressfully pedaling his old cycle and being greeted gleefully by his past, present and future students. His class was the most interesting one for anyone. He explained social issues by beautifully interspersing them in our language lessons. I would say that my social thinking is largely shaped by him. Another teacher I liked was Dominick, our Hindi teacher. I liked him because he used to tell XXX jokes which were so exciting to my freshly developing testosterone. Today, I attribute my good knowledge of eroticism and bad hindi to Dominick.

I was my class leader from Class III to Class VII. And briefly in Class IX as well. A class leader always has certain privileges (except the fact that he has to stand when the rest are sitting). My major responsibility is to note down names of guys who speak in the small intervals between one class and the other. Another responsibility is to tell stories in such intervals so that the first reponsibility can be handled with ease. It feels so great when you can talk and nobody else can. I used to create stories which were painfully loooooooong for me and for the listeners. But none of us was left with an option. When I was in Class X, we started the Learners Club along with two other friends Avinash and PB. We invited the District Collector for the inaugural. We also published a small magazine called Learners' Magazine. But it didn’t last for long. There was no Succession Planning and once we left for college, the club became a memoir. I understood how difficult it is for any social organization to sustain for long. Reaching Mount Everest may be easy but living there is a challenge.

Power Quotes of Shri RT

"Being a guru is the best form of being a leader."

"Areas in which appraisals cannot be done develop into pockets of inefficiency."

"People cant accept ideas due to the influences of the past"

"One can become an entrepreneur if he is not scared of big names in business"

"An entrepreneur has a stomach to absorb boom and bust. He knows that everything that comes is a part of the game"

"There is nothing wrong in misselling if you are honest about giving your customer a fair opportunity which he wont opt otherwise"

"A professional has the guts to do everything with perfection. An entrpreneur has the guts to try imperfection"

“Successful businesses can be built only on the destruction of silo mentality”

“Executive training is imparting a businessman’s approach and not an accountant’s approach”

“The cost of dishonesty is the loss of integrity”

“The top management should be sensitised to macro-economics. Cocoon managements are
doomed to fail”

“Brainstorming is a discussion with analysis sans judgement”

“The lesser time we spend on reading numbers, the better. We are not in the business of collecting data and statistics”

“Numbers are a way that keeps the top management engaged”

“Salaries and commissions should not make a difference to the economics of healthy business”

“We should understand the spirit behind the rules and not just the rules”

“Good businesses never want volatility in profit figures. They must develop mechanisms to smoothen them”

“Selling can’t be made by argument”

“MBAs are recruited to sell what is produced but not to suggest what should be produced”

“All MBAs are half baked. MBAs from Harvard and Stanford have an icing and topping but are still half baked underneath”

“Conclusion is a place where people are tired of thinking”

“People develop fatigue if you offer too much flexibility as they perceive Decision Making as a painful exercise”

“There is nothing in this world that works without an inducement. That inducement can be as simple as money”

“To become successful in business, we must dialogue with our customers on a regular basis”

“The fundamental business rule about any technology is not how powerful it is, but how it can add value to your business”

“Every employee runs a business and he is the CEO of that business. His boss is just a shareholder in the business and it is the responsibility of the employee to see that the share value of his boss grows”

“A knowledgeable man may not be able to handle people and if he manages, things may go wrong”“Leadership is a solution to stagnation”

“Teachers, parents and managers suffer from constancy. They can’t see change. Even if they see, they pretend as if they did not”

“One can’t become a Narayana Murthy or a Roger Federer just because he wanted to become one. There are 1000 things that should contribute to make an individual into a legend. Determination is just one of them”

“Aggression without direction is disaster. Direction without aggression is meaningless”

“Efficiency need not be profitability. You can be very efficient but still your business may make losses”

“Newcomers have an inherent tendency to over-react to everything”

“Lack of maturity on one side of the table should be dealt with more maturity on the other side”

“CEOs are recruited for their strengths and not for their lack of weaknesses”

“A good leader is an expert in only one area: managing people”

“You need not understand the piston dynamics of a car to drive a car likewise you need not be specialist to run a business”

“Half baked MBAs , after so many years of education and reading books, wear nice suits, join companies and take orders from other half baked fellows for the rest of their lives”

“Entrepreneurs cant afford to be sentimental”

“To turn bad news into good news is an entrepreneur’s prerogative”

“Questioning and disobedience are foundations of liberty. Only the liberal can make choices and become entrepreneurs”

“To become an entrepreneur, you must loose dogmas and become rational”

“Entrepreneurs are like a sponge. They absorb and grow”

“One need not be an original thinker, but should at least be an original listener”