Articles tagged with friendship
That morning, I was sitting on the steps leading up to the front door, lost in my grief that I would never see Aunty Mohini ever again, when someone came up behind me and said, ‘Yawar, I think I know what Mohini meant to you. Will you allow me to take her place?’ I looked up to see Ronnie. I deeply appreciated that she understood my grief and so I smiled. That friendship grew and lasted for nearly 50 years.
Constantly update your knowledge and experience. Admit a mistake if you make it and show how you learned from it. Don’t make excuses or try to shift the blame to someone else. Honesty always pays. Honesty is critical to building credibility which is the lifeblood of consulting. Without credibility you are nothing and will never succeed. “Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” Gucci family slogan
It is difficult to describe the beauty of the place where we lived; a place that changes the scene from season to season. In the summer, when it is hot and dry, the waters of the Parambikulam Reservoir recede towards the dam and the submerged land becomes visible. It is a surrealistic scene of a Salvador Daly painting. Gaunt, dry, tree trunks dead for years, look like they have been blasted with dynamite. Crumbling walls of what had once been villages. Homes where people lived and from where they moved, leaving the homes to be covered by the rising waters of the dam. Earth that is black with silt and initially looks dead. Then as the ground dries out a little and the sun touches it, old seeds germinate, grass starts to grow and covers the land. Where did the seeds come from? What happens to them when the water inevitably rises and covers them??
These years and incidents were tough on the one hand but were enormous opportunities for me to learn about myself, develop resilience, patience, and perseverance. They were proof that if you take the pain, then the result is worthy of it. I had taken the pain to insist that I would not let my injury come in the way of work and worked hard to establish productivity and quality standards that I look back on with great satisfaction. I stood for what I believed in and did my best. I was fully supported by people like Bertie, Jaikant, Norman, Taher and others and I am most grateful to them for their friendship more than anything else. Truly in the plantations, our relationships were far beyond good colleagueship. We were friends in a sense deeper and more meaningful than I can describe. I am most grateful.
The biggest learning for me in this entire incident was the difference between theory and practice. I knew from all my reading and talking to experts that even if you get to the stage where you are facing an elephant which snorts in warning, all you need to do is to start moving back slowly. Not run. Not make any noise. Just move back slowly. Continue to face the animal but keep moving away and increase the ‘trigger distance,’ which can precipitate the charge. Now, does this work in practice? Who knows? What I did and what you will also probably do if you are ever in such a situation, is to turn around and run like hell. Knowing fully well that a person has as much chance of outrunning a charging elephant as they have of outrunning an express train. And that unlike an express train, this one is not bound by the railway track. But then there is a force that protects that is more powerful than the elephant, which will pick you up by the scruff of your neck and put you high above harm’s way. So, theory is good. But practical life sometimes plays tricks with theory.
Friends are not forever, but for as long as you live. And that is long enough, so choose wisely But first take the trouble to decide who is a good friend. 1. A good friend is someone who tells you what you need to hear, not only what you want to hear. […]