Against all odds..
An email by Mr Mahesh Murthy,CEO of PassionFund,and better known as the Net marketing guru,an alum of XII-1986 Picket shares his views on how a Picketian does well in life against all odds.
"Picket was never well-equipped.
In fact, everything we did and everything we’ve become as individuals is probably because we were never spoon-fed, and we needed to “jugaad” everything. To me, surviving and thriving off very little resources was what set us apart from HPS and other places.
This is not to say that we should deliberately starve the school if it really needs something. Quite the opposite – but just that the things I learnt best there were to excel given very little to go on. If we were to magically fund Picket and give every kid his / her own laptop, it wouldn’t be Picket any more.
Let’s face it, our teachers were never the best paid – and they still aren’t. Our labs were never the best-equipped - and they still aren’t. But somehow the darn place managed to still produce a lot of innovative, non-class-conscious, open-hearted people.
Everything about the school is in the heart and the hard work that we all had to put in. It’s in the fact that there is every strata and class of people there – not just the Richie-riches. That it’s been just as non-discriminatory between guys and girls- unlike many of the other schools I see today. It certainly brought us up free of class, money, religion and sex-discrimination. It taught us to work harder than those other guys who had more money, more facilities, more options at their disposal – but perhaps not the drive that we had – that they didn’t need to have.
What is it we need to do to make that heart, that feeling, that drive, that ethic of hard work stronger?
If I’ve offended a few dearly-held points of view, gustaakhi maaf.
But I’d really like your thoughts here.
Regards and my $0.02,
Mahesh"
posted by Picketian @ 8:40 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Finally, a school is not the infrastructure, it is not the building and it is not the quality of its grounds. It is the teachers and students who make it up. When I studied, the students were not too 'bright' as in percentage of marks. However, there were students in other batches who were inclined to participate in ec activities and in cricket and so on, whom I joined. So it obviously got better with the passage of time! We have at least two illustrious people among my contemporaries, Bhaskar and Kumar who have done very well in life. I now see many more such as Mahesh Murthy, Bhargavi, Vikram Muratee and several others who have attained a measure of success and fame. There is something more subtle than just the facilities and teachers which creates the right mix for success. As Malcolm Gladwell mentions in 'Blink', some things cannot be analysed or explained. We only need to be grateful for our own good fortune to have been a part of a really great school. Maybe if we do put in our two cents worth periodically as an Alumni association, we could create better facilities for future champs! My imagination would not go as far as Mahesh's in thinking of a laptop for every child but hey, things like better toilets, more books for the library, a few more comps, maybe some educational CD Roms and so on would help. If there are some obstacles, we are Picketians, right, we will make the right Juggad for getting round these!
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