SELF MADE MAN!REALLY?

A dialogue from one of Ajith’sTamil movie - “Billa 2”, goes like this. Ajith says, “En vazhkaiyila, ovarunaalum, ovarumnodiyum, naanasedhukinathu, which literally translates to, “I have sculpted every moment of my life, all by myself”. This dialogue gets huge applause and whistles from his fans at the movie hall. As I walked out of the theatre, I could over hear his fans endorsing this dialogue, by saying, ” Yes, it is true. Ajith is a self-made man”. I felt glad that this was a good messagethe actor has conveyed to his fans, to think in the lines of taking 100% responsibility for their life.

As a member of CII, I have had the opportunity to attend some of the ‘Star Trek’ sessions, wherein  successful businessmen are invited to come and share their success story. This event is generally a crowd puller, because people are excited about the opportunity to meet a VIP face to face and ask questionsthat would guide them in their growth process. What I have invariably noticed, during their speeches is that most of them have come from a very poor background or from a remote village where there was no infrastructure,  such as schools, hospitals, connecting roads, electricity, drinking water etc.Most of them did not have a strong financial backing or educational backing, but it was their mere grit and determination, that has triggered them to achieve such great heights.Quite often,they end the speech with a silent proclamation, “I am a self-made man”. Then, there goes a thunderous applause to appreciate them and cheer them up. When we hear that someone is a self-made man, it creates within us a sense of awe and places them on a high pedestal and makes us to look up at them as role models.

I sincerely bow down with great respect to such people who have toiled all the way up from scratch. The rags to riches story, never fails to inspire me or for that matter anyone, who is aspiring at achieving great heights in life.

In parallel, one more thought runs in my mind. It may sound critical, but it is a genuine question that lingers in my mind. Is it possible for someone to be self-made? By proclaiming, that we are a self-made person, are we not discounting the contribution of so many people, who have directly or indirectly, actively or passively helped us to achieve what we have achieved in our life?

Right from our parents, who introduced us to this world.They may have not given us good education, but without them we would not have be existing in this world today. Especially in a country like India, where infanticide is so high, if we have survived, it is because they cared to make sure we were fended enough to live.

What about our siblings?  It is in the nest called family did we learn to care and share. In some cases by sibling support or in some cases by sibling rivalry, we would have been motivated to grow.

How about the contribution of teachers? When I say teachers, I am not talking just about our school or college teachers, but all those who came into our life to teach us a lesson. More often, I have realized that the greatest of our teacher, come to us in the form of an enemy. They teach us lessons, we will never forget.

How about our true friends, who stood by us during the time of distress? Even if they did not give money to help, they would have at least given some good leads, genuine advice or moral boosting words.

If not anyone else, how about God or the Supreme Power? If not for His divine blessings or invisible interventions, how would we have been, what we have become.

May be we could say, that we had a difficult past, before reaching this level, but to say that, I am a self-made man, does not sound justified to me. 

To sum it up, we personally have a greater admiration for people who have the humility to accept that they have been successful, by the contribution of so many people in their lives, rather than taking all the credits to themselves. I am sure that when someone gives credit for their success, to their parents, their family, their teachers, their co-workers, their employees, or whosoever who genuinely deserves it;  they will not be looked down as insignificant, but looked up with a higher regard of significance.

Happy Reading,

D. SenthilKannan

Article Dated June 2013

Is God Playing Fair

One of my friends recently posted a question on Facebook, “Have you ever experienced the state of 'Whyness'? This question was quite intriguing. I am sure all of us, at some point of time, would have experienced this feeling of “Whyness”. Why is this happening to me? Why is God giving me so many problems? Why is it that it is always me who has to go through this suffering, while all others around

me are living so happily? Many such questions tend to crop up in our mind. Most often this question of 'Whyness' arises under 2 circumstances

1. When bad things happen to good people

2. When good things happen to bad people

But we fail to ask the same question under the

following two circumstances.

1. When good things happen to good people

2. When bad things happen to bad people

It is because in this case we feel it is normal and fair. This is what we have been taught and believed in. The whole theory of Karma revolves around this

concept, that if you do good to others, good will happen to you and if you do bad to others, bad will happen to you. To give it an extra allowance, it also

includes a clause “sooner or later”.

On the contradictory, in the first two circumstances, we feel that it is not fair. How can someone who committed a mistake, escape from the punishment

of God. If it is so, where is divine justice? Why is God

not fair?

If you closely observe our feeling or reaction, to these different situations we may notice something similar to this: When good things happen to good people or when bad thing happen to bad people, we feel it is normal and justified. We feel the person deserves exactly what he has got. There is no debate on that. However, when good things happen to bad people or when bad things happen to good people,

our instant reaction is anger, frustration and disappointment. Because what is happening is not in alignment with the Karma theory, which we so strongly believe in. It is something we cannot digest. We know he is a criminal, but overnight he has become a socially recognized political figure. We know that he is a thief, but all of a sudden he has attained the stature of a business tycoon.

In the first two circumstances, we feel that God is fair, but in the next two circumstances God is unfair. And the irony is more often, we come across the last two circumstances. It is not that such incidents happen more, but we generally tend not to notice what is normal and fair. Just like, how. It is always the black dot in the white board is visible to our eyes, similarly only those circumstances that we feel unfair are visible to our eyes.

First and foremost we need to accept that, Good things and Bad things happen to all without the prejudice of seeing whether the person is good or bad. For example, a road accident might happen where the person who got killed in the accident, was

infact driving on the right track with a sane mind, but the person who hit and ran, was drunk and intoxicated. There are instances when people have lost their life, in their struggle to save someone else. The victims of a natural disaster such as a Tsunami or Earthquake, are mostly innocent people. The person who gets killed in a communal clash, could perhaps been the person who was trying to stop the fight. The captives of a flight hijack or a terrorist operation is often the common man, who has no vested interest.

These kinds of situations, undoubtedly lead us to doubt the divine existence. It is then natural for us to ask questions like, “What for should I be good? In

what way being good, has helped me or my family?. The only answer is, let us be good for our own sake i.e to please our own conscientious. By you being a good

person the world is left with one bad person less. The logic is as simple as that. It may make sense to some, but not to many.

Whenever you encounter this question of 'Whyness' just settle with this thought, “Life unfolds itself in mysterious ways and it will always remain beyond

human reasoning and comprehension”.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated May 2013

Are We Happy in a Hostile World?

A few months back, when I had been to Kodaikanal for a JCI training event, I went out for a morning walk around the lake, with a group of Jaycee friends. As we were walking, I saw a newly married couple, who were clicking photos of each other. The lady was posing for some snaps while the man was clicking and vice versa. I felt that they would like to have a photo together. So, I went and asked them, do you want me to take a photo of you both together. They both readily blushed and gave me the camera, and posed for an intimate photo. They felt very glad and thanked me. I too felt happy that I had made someone smile. These little acts of kindness, not only brings joy to the receiver, but to the giver too.

As I continued to walk, I started contemplating within myself, why was it difficult for them to ask for help. Perhaps, any passerby would have willingly done this small favour, if they had just asked, “Can you please take a photo of us?”. Why was that they waited for someone to volunteer. This is when I realized that we have started to become more and more hostile, towards the people around us. Is it because of fear or is it because of ego? The reasons can be many, but looking at closely I feel, by and large we have stopped trusting people. We have become so suspicious of the people around us, that even if someone smiles at us, we are thinking what could be the person's motive. Well, I recognize the amount of theft and crime happening in the society, by trusting the wrong people. The amount of negative headlines and pathetic stories of people being cheated, which we read almost daily in the newspaper has put people in a state of frenzy and a mode of alert.

When you are in a railway station, you could have heard announcements or seen notice boards with the message, “Don't take food from strangers”. So, when we travel on a train, if even someone offers us some of their homemade snacks, out of love, we tend to reject it. Well, we have seen in newspapers incidents,

where food/ sweets with sedative substance, had been offered and the person has later been robbed or even kidnapped.

When we are in an airport or in a railway station, we often hear warning announcements such as; do not pick up any unattended luggage. Yes, we are aware that there have been instances, when such luggages have proved to be disguised time bombs. But there are also more possibilities that it is a luggage, which some passenger has lost and is desperately searching for.

While travelling on the roads, especially through the villages it has been a practice, that when we

were not sure of the route, we stop, pull down our shutter and ask someone standing there, as to how to go to a particular place. The person happily tells us the route and feels a sense of fulfillment that he has guided someone. But today, we depend on the GPS in our smart phone, to find the route rather than asking people.

With long stretches of highways in place and with traffic speeding at 140+, even if we witness a

roadside accident, we continue our journey, without caring to help, because we are afraid of the

police formalities and other consequences. However, our timely help could have saved a life.

I certainly feel that, in the name of being safe we have become selfish. We are losing out on the

human touch. We have lost connection with the people around us. We do not know who lives in our next door. All our relationships have become superficial in nature as we find it difficult to trust anyone. In our endeavor not to be cheated by wrong people, we end up losing the opportunities of getting connected to a great number of good people.

While there are many reasons for us to be cautious about our personal safety, it also does not feel

meaningful to live such a hostile life, where we are not able to trust our fellow human beings. Amidst so much of hostility, let us care to smile and converse with strangers with good intentions and at the same time exercise prudent caution, so that no one takes us for a ride.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Apr'13

My Dad, My Hero.

Through this article, I would like to introduce to you to one great person, who introduced me to this world. Yes, it is my dad, Mr.V.V.D.Dhayanandam, who I fondly call ‘Ayya’. My dad, aged 80 passed away on 20th Feb 2013.

As I sit back to munch the 44 years of my fond memories, I have shared with him, my eyes wells with tears of joy. Each moment I have spent with him, is something I will forever cherish. Interesting incidents, interactions and some conversations that happened between me and my dad, right from my childhood days keep flashing now and then in my mental screen.  The earliest memory I have of my dad,  are the days he used to get me ready to school, right from dressing me up, polishing my shoes, combing my hair and sending me off to school every morning with a  big smile. Being a last kid of the family, I enjoyed a very special status of being his pet child. He made me feel special in his own ways. He admired me, for what I was and for whatever I did. He appreciated me even for my small accomplishments and laughed at my silliest jokes. I don’t remember having heard a NO from him, for anything I asked for. It was either given to me immediately or little later, but never rejected.  But, this did not make me a spoilt child, as one would assume. The more he said YES to me, the more conscious I became as to what I should ask and what I should not. The inner fear that I should never hear a NO from him, made me tread with caution as to what I should ask.

Just like he never said a NO for what I asked for, I too made it a point not to say NO to his wishes. His wishes were my commands. I always looked into his eyes for approval, before I made any decision. 

As a kid, I aspired to do so many things. He saw the spark in me and kept the flame burning, by adding fuel of positive, encouraging words.  It would not be an exaggeration if I say, he believed in my abilities, more than I believed in myself. He put me in a boarding school, right from my sixth standard, so that I learnt to become independent. He did not give me a direction, as to what I should study. The choice was always mine. His simple advice was study whatever you want and I will support you. I wanted to do my MBA in a foreign University and I knew it is going to cost him a lot of money, but when he came to know of my desire, he said, if you would like to pursue the study go for it and no matter how difficult, I will support you. After I completed my studies, he helped me to set up my own business. In the initial few years, I ran into a number of business losses, but he never questioned me or stopped trusting me. He just kept telling me, that it is all part of learning and that if I keep trying sooner or later, I will be successful. These words made me endure the difficult times.

My dad was not much of a social oriented person or a business oriented person, but he was very much a family oriented person. To him his family meant his world and his world meant his family. He truly loved and cared for each and every member of his family. He lived his life, catering to the needs of everyone in the family. He found his life purpose and sense of joy in doing so. He put his family first and everything else as next. My dad was an advocate of a joint family system and he is someone who practiced what he preached. He can be looked upon as a perfect role model, for anyone who is interested in leading a joint family successfully.

Of all his wonderful qualities, the one which I have admired most is his “Patience”. He was an extremely patient man. Throughout his life, he trusted people and remained patient with them. And most often his patience was aptly rewarded. 

He had a unique way of showing his protest when things did not go the way he wanted or did not like what I was doing. He used to keep silent and his silent used to hurt me a lot. I have always wished he scolded me, rather than keeping silent. Now that he has gone into everlasting silence, I feel the pain even more.

The type of relationship me and my dad have shared, is something extremely rare and unique. It is an experience that can never be expressed. Here is to my dad, my parting words, “Dad, I love you and I miss you. May your soul rest in peace.”

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Mar'13