DMS – Yogi's Blogosmos

On 7^th November by chance I landed up (10^th floor of the building) at the light house in Chennai. I started with the intention of taking my wife and daughter to visit the grand banyan tree inside the Theosophical society garden at Adyar, Chennai. We reached there at 4.30 PM only to be told that entry is closed at 4 PM. I wanted to visit a place that all three of us have not visited so far and decided to visit the light house. Chennai’s light house was reopened to public after 22 years on November 14, 2013. There is a light house museum at the ground floor, where I learned that this one is the fourth light house in Chennai and Chennai has had a light house since 1976. On display were a few photographs of Chennai Beach and Harbor from the by-gone eras. Also on display were vintage lighting equipment.

We reached the 10^th floor viewing bay through a lift (A pleasant surprise for me as I was thinking we will have to climb by staircase). It was quite windy at the viewing bay. People were very busy taking snaps and selfies rather viewing below. The view from the top was nice. Somehow everything below looked beautiful from the viewing bay (even areas that looked otherwise from the ground).

While we enjoyed the trip to the light house, as I recollect what I saw from the viewing bay, the light house almost served as a dividing line for two social strata. To the left of the light house were splendid government buildings, government colleges, the beach front that serves as a recreational area for the city and Chennai’s harbor. When one looks at this side, one gets the picture of vibrant, progressive and affluent city. The traffic through the beach road was moving both swiftly and in an orderly fashion. As you look towards the right side of the light house you get a completely different picture. On this side you see multi-storey buildings housing some of the poorest in Chennai and the buildings were badly in need of repair. There were boats of fishermen on the beachside. The traffic on the road adjoining the buildings on this side was moving rather chaotically.

As I think about this contrasting picture both residing within a radius of a few kilometers, I am reminded of the comment made by one my professors in our MBA class. He said “We can’t afford to have islets of prosperity in an ocean of poverty. Soon the ocean of poverty will start engulfing these islets of prosperity through social unrest.” I am sure my professor was not talking about socialism. He was referring social progress. True social progress for the masses is only possible through good education followed by employment. Unfortunately in the last few years, the short term mentality of the voting public and vote-bank politics by politicians has ensured that government money is spent in doling out freebies rather than being invested in education and employment generation.

I did my MBA from Department of Management Studies (DMS), IIT Delhi from 2002 to 2004. It’s been ten years since I graduated from B-School….One whole decade. When I try to remember what I had learned in B-School, a lot which was taught there but was not reinforced at my workplace (through work) have all long been forgotten. I was then trying to recollect what would be the number one quote or comment that I had heard at B-School. I didn’t have to think too long as I quickly recollected the quote given below made by one of our Assistant Professors during our Operations Management Class:

“Mind is like a Parachute. It works only when it is Open”

It is strange that I am recollecting this quote as my number one quote from my B-School days because this saying was ‘ridiculed/ made fun of’ a lot in our hostels in the days following the session in which our Assistant Professor made this comment. Strange life though, what gets ridiculed in one stage of our life gets praised in a subsequent stage. When I read this quote again and again it strikes me that these few words sound simple and generic at first but then it dawns on me that this quote is profound, almost magical. If the wisdom contained in these few words are understood and implemented by every single human being through every one of their actions then this world would be safer and better place.

As I was planning to write this blog, I searched in Google for the origin of this quote. This quote is attributed to Author Anthony J. D’Angelo and is taken from his book The College Blue Book: A Few Thoughts, Reflections & Reminders on How to Get the Most Out of College & Life published by Arkad Press in 1995. There is slight variation of this quote attributed to American musician Frank Zappa:

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”

Based on the timeline (Frank Zappa was born in 1940 and died in 1993 whereas Anthnoy J. D’Angelo was a graduate student in the early nineties and published the ‘The College Blue Book’ in 1995), I am assuming that Anthnoy J. D’Angelo was inspired by Frank Zappa’s ‘A mind is like a parachute’ quote and came up with his own modified version of the quote for his book. A collection of Frank Zappa’s quotes can be found at Good Reads. A collection of quotes by Anthnoy J. D’Angelo can be found here.

Note: The photo (by BANZ’ART) for this blog post is used under the creative commons license and was downloaded from Flickr.