WISH TO DEDICATE SOMETHING MORE

Sometime ago, I was invited to be part of 2nd convocation (held on 11-11-2019) of Professor Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiya) State University, Allahabbad and was requested to share some memories of Rajju Bhaiya, the fourth Sar-Sanghchalak of RSS to inspire the students. 

I have spent my childhood with him have many memories. It was a very pleasant experience. Here is what I spoke. In order to be more relevant to the student, it was in Hindi.   

From the Left, 1-Master of ceremony, 2-Smt Sangeeta Srivastava, Vice-Chancellor of the University, 3-Myself, 4-Hon'ble Smt Anandiben Patel, Chancellor of the University

Hon'ble Smt. Anandiben Patel, ladies and gentlemen,
Namastey, and a very good morning to all of you.

'खुदी को कर बुलन्द इतना, कि हर तक़दीर से पहले,
खुदा बंदे से खुद पूछे, बता तेरी रज़ा क्या है?' 

This couplet is by Sir Muhammad Iqbal (November 9, 1877 – April 21, 1938) also known as Allama (अलामा) (Learned) Iqbal, one of the greatest poets of the Urdu and Persian languages. He also wrote the famous song 

'सारे जहां से अच्छा, हिन्दोस्तां हमारा ।
हम बुलबुलें हैं इसकी, यह गुलिसतां हमारा'. 

Today, when you are turning into a new leaf—from educational field to real life—his couplet is relevant. It exhorts you to uplift your personality to such an extent  that Gods themselves ask, what destiny you wish. How do we do that?

You have been told that studies, academics, grades are important but in real life these are secondary. The primary factor is the attitude. It is rightly said,

'Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude.'

One should have right attitude. But before I explain it with some real life stories, let me tell you that I have spoken at many Universities, Law colleges, Engineering colleges, and Management Institutes but it has never given me the happiness that is given to me by your Vice Chancellor by inviting me to speak at this university. Whatever I am today, the credit goes to two persons in my life: my mother and Rajju Bhaiya, on whose name this university is established. 

BE CURIOUS, BE OBSERVANT AND DEVELOP SCIENTIFIC TEMPER

Rajju Bhaiya  was a professor of physics in the Allahabad University. We called him Bare Chacha ji as there was another uncle who was called Rajju Chacha.  My father, VKS Chaudhary was a lawyer and shifted from Banda to Allahabad in 1950. So close were our families that we initially lived with Rajju Bhaiya in his rented premises at Park Road, then together purchased land in civil lines, Allahabad. He  constructed his house first and we shifted to that house and lived there till 1956, when my father constructed his own house, adjacent to his. 

Rajju Bhaiya would often be out of Allahabad but whenever he was in Allahabad, he would come over to our house in the morning to read newspapers. He never purchased them, he saved the money to donate it to RSS. He would again come in the evenings to spend time with us. He would inspire us with his wisdom and inculcate in us the values of self-respect, importance of being observant and being curious as well as to develop scientific temper. This went on till 1967, when he left the University as well as Allahabad and  dedicated his life completely to social work.

Tokyo Olympics were being held in 1964. He was reading the newspaper and said, ‘Have you noticed the timing of 100 meters and 4×100 meter relay race?’ ‘I had,  but I read it again.  The timing for the 100 meters was about 10 seconds and the 4×100 meter relay was about 38 seconds. How was it possible? How could 4 people take less than 10 seconds each, to run 100 metres when the fastest man took 10 second. I thought it must have been a printing mistake. I checked the other newspapers. But they had also printed the same thing. He left me to wonder.  

The catch is that more time is taken at the start of the race till the maximum speed is attained i.e. in the first 15 metres. In the relay race, normally baton is exchanged,  when the person has run 15 metres and has attained his speed. This is how the time is saved. 

He had scientific temperament. His students remember him for his clear concept and understanding of the subject. He did not believe in supernatural. He wasn't swayed by astrology or superstitions.  This remained true throughout his life.

One day, in mid 1990's (21st September, 1995), there was a rumour that the statues of ‘Ganeshji’ were drinking milk. On that date, Rajju Bhaiya was in Allahabad and was staying with us. Many, including the University teachers and press reporters, came to meet him and asked him if this was God’s way of expressing himself. He said, ‘I don’t think that God can be so cruel as to drink milk in a country, where millions of children go to sleep without getting a drop of it.’ Then explained to them that is was because of surface tension. 

The lesson is, to be observant, be curious and develop scientific temper.

FIND YOUR LOVE

About sixty years ago, on 24th February, 1955, an unwed college student mother gave birth to a baby boy in the US. She put him up for adoption; her only condition was that the adoptive parents should be college graduates. 

Initially, a lawyer and his wife wanted to adopt the child but decided to adopt a girl. But the boy was ultimately adopted. The biological mother later found out that the adoptive mother had never graduated from college and the adoptive father had not even passed high school. She refused to sign the adoption papers but relented a few months later, when the adoptive parents promised that the boy would be sent to college. 

The adoptive parents were not rich but they gave their life savings to send the boy to Reed College. It was not an Ivy league but as expensive as them. 

The boy could not complete the degree; he thought he was wasting his parents' money and he dropped out after six months. He didn't have any money; he started going to Ram Krishan temple: prasad was his food.

In the temple, the boy learnt broken Hindi and came to India in search the truth and to meet Kairolie Baba. He could not meet him as he was already dead. His experience of India was not good. He realised that Thomas Edison did a lot more to improve the world than Karl Marx and Kairolie Baba put together. He went back to US and started his own company. 

When the company was doing well, the boy got thrown out from the same. But he was called back to pull up the company, when it was on the downhill. (See End-note-1) 

Later, it was learnt that the boy had cancer of the pancreas and had only six months to live. He got himself operated and went on to live for about seven years before he died on 5th October, 2011. 

By the time of the boy died, his company—the Apple Incorporated—was on top of the world; Mac laptops, iPods, iPhones, iPads are not only the World standard but are trend setters as well: his name was Steve Jobs (24.02.1955 – 05.10.2011). 

How could Steve Jobs overcome the difficulties, achieve so much. He explained it in the commencement speech that he gave in 2005 in Stanford University. This was the  nearest that he could reach a college convocation. He said: 

'The only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love ... the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.
…
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.'  (See End-note-2)

Like Steve Jobs, find your passion. The best thing in life is, to make your hobby your passion―your profession. 

It is great if you can do what you love but if you are not that lucky then start loving whatever you do. As it is even better because that is God's will. 

Let me sum up:

• Be observant, be curious and have scientific temper. 
• Have fun, find what you enjoy doing and make it your profession and in case you are unable to do it then love whatever is your profession.

I started my talk with Rajju Bhaiya, let me also end with it. Tape recorders were a novelty in our childhood. We had purchased one and were recording our favourite songs/ poems. Rajju Bhaiya happened to drop by. We requested him to say some thing. He recited, a poem: the one closest to his heart; the one which had governed his life; the one he has lived by; the one he would like all of us to follow. Here it is. This is how it goes: -  

तन समर्पित - Body dedicated,
मन समर्पित - Soul dedicated
और यह जीवन समर्पित - And this life dedicated
चाहता हूं देश की मिट्टी - To you, O nation! I wish
तुझे कुछ और भी दूं - To dedicate something more 

With these words I wish all of you success in life. I hope that you will go on, to make not only your parents, your alma mater proud but will help in building India so that we may again say 

'जहां डाल, डाल पर,
सोने की चिड़ियां करती हैं बसेरा,
वो भारत देश है मेरा।'

जय भारती, जय हिन्द

End-note-1: After Jobs was thrown out, he started two companies. This is how he went back to Apple computers,

'During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar ... Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.'

End-note-2: In the words of Steve Jobs after dropping out he took classes in Calligraphy (art of fine handwriting) that changed the computer world. This is what he said,

'Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.'