Wit Wisdom and Whoop

Sharing some thoughts on an issue that’s been going on in my head but first giving a background to give perspective to the issue. Mr. Nittur Srinivas Rao was the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, first chief of the Central Vigilance Commission of India and lived to be 101 – active and alert. You can read more about him at these links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nittoor_Srinivasa_Rau https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/At-99-Nittur-still-breathes-fire-and-optimism/articleshow/19394353.cms https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/right-in-the-middle/unforgettable-memories-of-nittoor-775774.html Sometime in 2003 a school teacher gave an assignment to our daughters class to write about a person who was involved in the freedom movement of India. This made any target candidate at least 70+ yrs old and we were wondering who to find. An uncle said – “Go meet Nittur Srinivasa Rao, tell him your grandfathers name and he will surely talk to you. And by the way, he...

Working on the same project which in today’s terms would be worth many Millions, and that too in a government organisation, we finally managed to see the finishing line ahead of us. Yogesh Bhat referred to earlier worked in the head office. One of the Directors Mr. Behla, a boisterous, energetic Sardarji on a visit to the site asked us – “How long to finish the project?”. We said something like 4 months or so provided we had everything we need in terms of material, men, equipment etc. He just looked at us and said – “Beg, Borrow or Buy, get the project done” and fixed a date and was ready to depart leaving us staring since this involved spending lots of money, taking many decisions and we were too junior to even comprehend that. We mumbled something about how his office needed to help us get what we wanted. He just looked at us and said, “You are the Director” and left. Back again to Yogesh Bhat the crisis manager we were in sheer panic and highly agitated and recounted this conversati...

This is a series of blogs on Amazing bosses I have had the privilege of working with and all blogs are linked for serial reading. In practical terms my first formal job and as I was going through the “fun” of training I was summoned and told that I had been posted to be the “Site In-charge” of a prestigious project which was the first of its kind in India and I was taking over in absentia from the previous manager who had disappeared. At that age who thinks much. I reported and had a colleague Dinesh equally a green horn like me. The location was a crucible of new technology, products, processes for the dairy industry and the latest project was the first aseptic packaging plant in India. Soon I was aware of the challenges of this particular posting – I essentially reported to 2 plant heads, 2 Directors and the CEO of the organisation itself. Remember this was the crucible of new stuff and everybody had their finger in the pie. The level of responsibility, scope of work was far beyond o...

In 1947 as India attained freedom she inherited a robust railway transportation, irrigation and   education system amongst many others and on which India could have built an empire that could have been the envy of the world given that India was largely untouched by the world war and its attendant destruction and death. India also had a rich heritage that went back several centuries and a foundation of knowledge – even if by physical presence – that could have been leveraged by her as can be seen in this tweet. https://twitter.com/tskrishnan/status/1287571588414443520?s=20 India got in Nehru a PM who for all his faults was in office for 17 years literally unchallenged. He did promote a scientific temperament, called the Bhakra Nangal dam as one of the temples of modern India and definitely wanted such Indian “temples” to be built to integrate technology, modern thought, progress, development which would result in India leap frogging to the top given the human capital and marke...