Annual Day Speech at Sir MS Gosavi Institute of Business Studies

ANNUAL DAY SPEECH – 26.02.2012

SIR DR. MS GOSAVI COLLEGE OF COMMERCE & SIR MS GOSAVI INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS S

STUDIES, NASHIK

At the outset, let me begin with submitting my tribute to Respected Sir Dr. Gosavi ji, who is Guru of all Gurus,

देवानां च ऋषीणाम च गुरुं कांचन सन्नीभम!

बुद्धीभूतम त्रिलोकेशं तं नमामि डॉ. गोसावी गुरुम !!

I also salute Prof. Devarajah, who has just addressed you and has provoked your thoughts beautifully.

With my respects to Prof. Dr. KR Shimpi, who has said so many good things about me and with my respects to all the other dignitaries on dais, I am very much pleased to establish a dialogue with you all my students.

I am grateful to Sir Dr. MS Gosavi College of Commerce & to Sir Dr. MS Gosavi Institute of Business Studies Nashik, to have invited me today to this Annual day & Prize Giving ceremony. It is always a pleasure to be able to address young minds.

Today is annual day, there have been many achievements by you in various competitions’ and in academics and I congratulate to all these achievers.

We are in the world of competition and each one of us has to survive in this world by enabling us with various different qualities. Each one of us is bestowed by the almighty with various qualities and it is for us to acknowledge them and nourish them.

How do you develop yourself? What is the most powerful enabler? What makes us distinguished?

No doubt that the most powerful enabler is our Mind. Mind trains your brain and brain guided by our mind puts you into action or inaction and that decides your destiny.

Who is in this world can understand mind? Who has ever won over the mind?....... Almost nobody.

One of our great Gurus who has addressed the mind and has tried to teach

our minds through his "मनाचे श्लोक". He is off course none other than our guru संत रामदास स्वामी !

His one of the foremost address was: “केल्याने होत आहे रे ! आधी केलेची पाहिजे !!”.

One can achieve everything he wishes, but that must match with sincere efforts. Dear friends, you will not achieve anything with wishful thinking. One must put in effort with all his earnest and then things will happen. On this annual day, I would like to share a secret with you. The difference between achievers and non- achievers is the application of mind on the activity at your hand. You don’t need to have extra-ordinary intelligence to be successful. We all have that bare minimum “IQ” – Intelligent Quotient”. The fact that you are in this College, certifies that you are qualified for success. What happens is that we differ in application and that makes the difference. म्हणूनच रामदास स्वामी नी म्हणून ठेवले आहे कि “केल्याने होत आहे रे ! आधी केलेची पाहिजे !!”. With some deviations, Sant Ramdas Swami said:

मनाची शते ऐकता दोष जाती ! मतीमंद ते साधना योग्य होती !

चढे ज्ञान वैराग्य सामर्थ्य आंगी ! म्हणे दास विश्वासतां यश भोगी !!

Ramdas Swami said: मनाची शते ऐक. Our mind is full of deficiencies and diversions. Mind is never still and you need to train it remain focused. Mind is susceptible to all types of attractions. One should be able to observe his own mind as a third party. When you are able to listen to all those variations in your mind without your involvement and evaluate them not as your mind but as if it is somebody else’s mind, then Sant Ramdas Swami assures you that all your faults will disappear i.e. मनाची शते ऐकता दोष जाती!

Not only will you be able to remove your faults but when you are training your mind you become eligible for doing great things. May be in your past you have been labeled as “Slow Learner”. Sant Ramdas Swami has said that when you listen to your mind, observe it and thereby automatically remove your deficiencies; मतीमंद ते साधना योग्य होती!. Here, we can take साधना as skills obtained through purposeful practice. Thus Sant Ramdas Swami is telling us that a trained mind, which is under our control, is the great enabler.

Sant Ramdas Swami further said; चढे ज्ञान वैराग्य सामर्थ्य आंगी!.

This is beginning. This will lead you increased knowledge of any aspect. Your knowledge will have a rising trend and that brings in great abilities. That is one kind of power. We generally say that “Power Corrupts”! But Sant Ramdas Swami also tells us that as you have been listening to your mind, this increased Knowledge and the Power obtained through it, does not corrupt you but also brings in you a kind of non-attachment. Thus चढे ज्ञान वैराग्य सामर्थ्य आंगी!

Sant Ramdas Swami has further assured us by saying म्हणे दास विश्वासतां यश भोगी! You believe in yourself, practice things, remove your deficiencies and you will enjoy the success. This success is not a relative thing. It is not only coming first or second but a satisfaction that I know my abilities, I have worked on them and I have achieved. I am at peace with my achievements.

You are our tomorrow - our future. Bright faces that I see here today receiving prizes will be the active citizens of tomorrow. Tomorrow you may grow up to be Einsteins, Rabindra Naths, Gandhis, Abdul Kalams & Kishore Kumars. You must ensure that some of you do not turn out to be a burden on the society, strugglers in the race of life waiting for someone to give them a job.

To grow up as good citizens one needs values. It is in our hands…. in the hands of our schools, colleges, teachers and parents to instill those values in them which will help them to grow up as good human beings who will contribute to the society.

While there should be focus on excellence in academics, one should also not forget that education does not mean mathematics or physics alone. Education means intellectual, emotional, cultural and social development of a person. One cannot develop a uni-dimensional person who is good in crunching numbers but does not know how to be a good neighbor. It is not marks alone that make a man.

It is the responsibility of our schools, Colleges, teachers and also parents to ensure that you the youths in finishing stages of their teens will grow up to be responsible citizens, who will think about giving to the society, who love all people irrespective of caste, color or creed.

We from the past generation, envy you. It is because you have an excellent future unfolding before you. Those of you who are about to graduate are emerging into the dawn of an especially promising new age. An age in which an awakened India is defying the clock by showing the world that something almost inconceivably old, counted among this planet’s longest surviving civilizations, can return to centre stage as something entirely and astonishingly new.

Yours is the moment. Yours is the day to seize. And this new world opening before you is the oyster that will surrender your pearl. So it is little wonder that we envy you – while at the same time we look to you to bear the torch that we must one day yield.

You carry with you not only your own potential – the germinating seed of your contribution to India’s future – but also the burden of our expectations. More than that, you are the inheritors of a glorious tradition that is Gokhale Education Society.

Your education will not end with what you have learned here. “All the world’s a school, and all of us men and women merely students.”

Life always has something new to teach us, and those who will most succeed are those who are quickest to learn. I truly believe the one factor that has contributed most to India’s success has been our readiness to learn, to adapt and, if necessary, to start afresh.

In the past, our success owed much to our industrious workforce, but times and trends and economic forces have changed. In the future, we can no longer only depend on our traditional strengths but must find also new skills, new ways, and new recipes for success. You will be part of that exciting quest, and if I were to restrict myself to just two sentences in imparting my advice to you, those words are “Be Adaptable. And stay alert”.

Just remember that - whatever you do and wherever you go – the learning is never a closed book, neither will your future prove a straight road. So keep your eyes peeled, your hands on the wheel and watch out for the corners. It may at times seem a bumpy ride, but never let it throw you.

And draw strength and inspiration from the fact that India has not only survived – but has prospered beyond all expectations. Quite simply because we never lost our adaptability, our flexibility and our willingness to learn.

Let us not forget that the end of our classroom days brings both release and triumph, alloyed with renewed resolve and a swelling pride in the institute that has done so much to enrich our lives.

So I wish you well, and I wish you all illustrious careers that will help carry India to do greater things.

This is where you are on your own, and can finally live up to the call of Nation that is India.

And we will watch you. And so will the rest of India.

I would like to close my talk with an end note containing message from Sant Ramdas Swami. The message says

मना पापसंकल्प सोडूनी द्यावा ! मना सत्यसंकल्प जीवी धरावा !

मना कल्पना ते नको विषयांची ! विकारे घडे हो जनी सर्व ची ची !!

Hey my mind, please help me in dropping all sinful plans

Let me embrace the truth and all the truthful plans.

Let me not dwell on thoughts of worldly pleasures. Such thoughts will only discredit me in Society and in the minds of all people around me.

I wish you good luck in all your future endeavors’.

Ulhas D Wadivkar.

BE( Elect), MBA(Finance)

Retired Vice President – Graphite India Ltd.

& Visiting Faculty to MBA Institutes

Management Consultant