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For more copies or correspondence on Stretch, messages should be addressed to: Kishor Shah (Director and Chief Financial Officer), Balrampur Chini Mills Limited 234/3A AJC Bose Road, FMC Fortuna, Second floor, Kolkata 700 020. Phone: 22874749, Fax: 22873083 E-mail: kishor.shah@bcml.in The embossed dots on the cover represent the word â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Stretchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in Braille

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These are challenging times. In this environment, ‘Stretch’ is not just a document that one would like to read and toss away but a companion that will inspire and strengthen. This eighth edition also has a ‘stretch’ objective for itself! Sincerely,

Vivek Saraogi, Managing Director, Balrampur Chini Mills Limited

Stretch is giving your life for a noble cause It would be appropriate to begin this document with a tribute to all those who fought and died for the larger cause of fighting terrorism in the face of daunting odds in the aftermath of the 26-11 attacks in Mumbai. The first name that comes to mind is that of constable Tukaram Omble. He chased the terrorist-controlled Skoda on a two-wheeler, overtook it and sprang on the terrorist as the car hit the divider. He gripped the barrel of Kasab’s AK47 rifle with both hands and held on, even as the terrorist kept pumping the bullets into his body. Had it not been for his remarkable grit or presence of mind or reliance or all of these put together, the terrorist would not have been arrested. Or take Vishwas Nagre Patil for instance. This Deputy Commissioner of Police and a handful of men were among the first to reach the Taj Mahal Hotel. Seeing that

terrorists had taken some guests hostage in the heritage building, his men and he started firing randomly to engross the terrorists – preventing them from entering the new building, while a number of guests escaped. Or V.D. Zende, announcer at the Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), who directed passengers to run out of the back exit or stay in the train for the next 20 to 25 minutes, when the terrorists began shooting indiscriminately. Or Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan whose last words were “Do not come up, I will handle them” to commandos, while chasing the terrorists. Or senior ticket checker RH Dubey who actually stood between terrorists and railway passengers as a shield without caring for his life.

Or steward Asiam Patel, who led the guests into the lobby and out of the hotel. He was rescued from the basement at 4.30 am on Thursday, seven hours after the attack began. Or Oberoi Trident maintenance section staff, Mr. Rajan, who took the bullets on himself and saved Dr. Prashant Mangeshikar and his wife. Or Karambir Kang, general manager of the Taj, who lost his family in the attack but refused to go home and continued supervising rescue and safety operations. Or Jayant Pendharkar, head of global marketing for Tata Consultancy, who walked into the lobby of the battle-raging Taj to save the lives of his two friends G Dennis O’ Brian and Clarence R Diffenderfer, suffering an anginal attack but fearlessly continuing his rescue initiative. Or Bob Nicholls, the security chief of the SA team, who rallied round a team of rescuers, armed the hostages with knives and meat cleavers and slowly led them down

the fire escape. Or Jullu Yadav, head constable of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), the only security personnel at the CST to return fire on terrorists. Or all the commandos of the National Security Guards who only said, “Don’t congratulate us. We were just doing our duty.” Or nanny Sandra, who rescued two-year-old Moshe by running up the floors of the battle-scarred Nariman House even as the shots were ringing out. Or the unnamed members of the two hotels who kept up the foodstuff, blankets, clothes, napkins, thermos flasks, noodles, plates and glasses, without showing a trace of panic when finding themselves in an environment that no training school had prepared them for. Or the Karkares, Kamtes and Salaskars, who pressed on against the enemy, when they could have let their team take the bullets.

– Sahir Ludhianvi from the film Hum Dono

“Jo mil gaya usi ko muqaddar samajh liya Jo kho gaya main usko bhulaata chala gaya! Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya...”

COMMEMORATING 30 YEARS OF THE ECONOMIC TIMES AWARDS

Over the last decade, a few people Changed the way India thinks For us, nothing couldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been more inspiring

STRETCH IS LEARNING FROM

‘When I first started on Wall Street,’ recalls Jim Rogers, ‘I went to visit a man. I was twenty-six and he was probably forty-two or fortythree… I remember he said to me: “You know, the best thing that can happen to you or any young person starting in this kind of business, or any kind of business, is that you go bankrupt.” And I said, “What! Bankrupt!” That was my greatest fear. That was the worst embarrassment. How could you tell a man to go bankrupt? How would I pay the rent? How would I eat? And I said, “I can’t conceive of what you’re saying; how could you possibly want somebody to go bankrupt?” And he replied, “Not only is it best to go bankrupt, but it would really be better if you go bankrupt twice!” A year or two later I actually did lose everything I had. It really was a very, very good thing to happen to me. Years later I understood that you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about making mistakes. One of the best things you learn is that you can make mistakes. When I lost everything, I did so because a few months earlier, I had taken everything I had and invested it in such a way that I would gain, provided the stock market collapsed (I shorted the market). And lo and behold, the stock market did collapse (a fact that nobody in his right mind would have banked on). I tripled my net worth when everyone else was losing their shirts. It was 1970 and the worst bear market America had seen for thirty-two years, and there I was tripling my money, and people were furious at me. I thought, this is so easy. On the very day that the stock market hit the bottom, I reversed my position (covered my shorts is what you call it), and I said, “Now wait for the market to go up for a while and then I will sell short again.” I waited about two months (the market did in fact go up dramatically) and said to myself, “Boy, this is really easy; now I’m going to short the market again and I’m really going to be rich.” So I shorted the market again and two months later I was wiped out. The market didn’t see it the way I did and I was wrong. I was totally wiped out, I lost it all.’ ‘First of all, I had learnt I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, and second, that the market could do strange things no matter what I thought. In stock market parlance, I didn’t know the market could discount the immediate future (or see far into the future) and even though things were terrible at the time, the stock market could still go up knowing things would get much better in the future. Of course I’d read that in books, but books are a lot different from the real world!’ Source: Tactics - The Art & Science of Success by Edward de Bono 7

William Eckhardt, mathematician and ace trading system designer, responds on how to beat the bear market. Q. What advice do you have for dealing with the emotional pitfalls inherent in trading? A. Some people are good at not expending emotional energy on situations over which they have no control (I am not one of them). An old trader once told me: “Don’t think about what the market’s going to do; you have absolutely no control over that. Think about what you’re going to do if it gets there.” Q. Any advice about handling those losing periods? A. It helps not to be preoccupied with your losses. If you’re worried, channel that energy into research. Over the years at C&D [the company at which Dennis and Eckhardt were partners], we made our best research breakthroughs when we were losing.

Source: The New Market Wizards, Conversations with America’s Top Traders, Jack D. Schwager

‘I’d

Rafer Johnson

much rather climb into the head of someone who has lost and see what made that person come back to be a victor, than to climb into the head of a winner.’

Leonidas (Spartan leader in Thermopylae) was allowed by law to take with him 300 men, and these he chose most carefully, not merely for their strength and courage, but selecting those who had sons, so that no family might be altogether destroyed… The 300 [he selected] celebrated their own funeral rites before they set out, lest they should be deprived of them by the enemy. [Even] every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved that they must come home from battle “with the shield or on it”— either carrying it

victoriously or borne upon it as a corpse. [Before the battle] a Persian on horseback rode up to reconnoitre the pass. He could not see over the wall, but in front of it and on the ramparts he saw the Spartans, some of them engaged in active sports, and others in combing their long hair. It was the custom of the Spartans to array their hair with especial care when they were about to enter upon any great peril. Xerxes would, however, not believe that so petty a force could intend to resist him, and waited four days, probably expecting his fleet to assist him; but as it did not appear, the

attack was made. The Greeks, stronger men and more heavily armed, were far better able to fight to advantage than the more numerous Persians with their short spears and wicker shields, and beat them off with great ease. It is said that Xerxes three times leapt off his throne in despair at the sight of his troops being driven backwards. Eventually, the Persians, estimated at over 2 million, prevailed over the scanty 300 but not before the latter had left a lesson for the world – that inferiority is perhaps never in the numbers.

Stretch is preparation for a mortal combat Source: The Mammoth Book of Heroes; compiled by Jon E. Lewis 12

Leonard Cheshire [who commanded RAF’s 76 Squadron] performed extraordinary feats of courage, studied the techniques of bombing with intense perception and intelligence, later pioneered the finest precision marking of the war as leader of 617 Squadron. At 76 Squadron there was a joke about Cheshire, that “the moment he walks into a bar, you can see him starting to work out how much explosive it would need to knock it down.” He was possibly not a natural flying genius to an aircraft like Micky Martin, but, by absolute dedication to his craft, he made himself a master. He flew almost every day. If he had been on leave and was due to operate that night, he went up for two hours in the morning to restore his sense of absolute intimacy with his aircraft. He believed that to survive over Germany it was necessary to develop an auto-pilot within himself, which could fly the aircraft quite instinctively, leaving all his concentration free for the target and the enemy. As far back as 1941 he wrote a paper on marking techniques...

Stretch is being wedded to one’s mission

Source: The Mammoth Book of Heroes; compiled by Jon E. Lewis 13

“No one could late cut like Vijay Merchant. Once he put on his kit for an advertisement 12 years after he had last played. I told him I would bowl outside the off from halfway down the pitch. He asked me to bowl normally, full tilt, with a new ball. First ball, he produced the perfect late cut. It was magic.” – Raj Singh Dungarpur (Wisden Asia Cricket)

Stretch is making it difficult for yourself

“Your total ability is the “YOUR TOTAL ABILITY IS THE

sum of whatever God-given ability SUM OF WHATEVER GOD-GIVEN ABILITY

you have plus whatever is in your YOU HAVE PLUS WHATEVER IS IN YOUR

brain that allows you to get better, BRAIN THAT ALLOWS YOU TO GET BETTER,

that allows you to perform when THAT ALLOWS YOU TO PERFORM WHEN

the pressure is at its greatest.” THE PRESSURE IS AT ITS GREATEST.” – David Gower (Wisden Asia Cricket)

Q. The 1978 Indian team was a strong side, yet Pakistan won comfortably in the end. What did you think of that side? A. Obviously, their main strength was spin. Once the spinners failed, the team couldn’t play that well. For the whole time they were here though — five or six weeks — I couldn’t sleep, day or night. My body used to sleep at night but my mind was always working on how to play them, and in particular the spinners. I wasn’t worried about them and I wasn’t really planning out any strategies on how to play them — that you can only do once they bowl a delivery to you — but I was just concentrating my mind on performing well.

Source: Zaheer Abbas tells Osman Samiuddin; Wisden Asia Cricket, March 2005 17

DO NOT PRAY FOR EASY LIVES. PRAY TO BE STRONGER MEN. JOHN F. KENNEDY

I LIKE THINKING BIG. IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE THINKING ANYTHING, YOU MIGHT AS WELL THINK BIG. DONALD TRUMP

HIGH ACHIEVEMENT ALWAYS TAKES PLACE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF HIGH EXPECTATION. CHARLES KETTERING, INVENTOR

ENTREPRENEURS ARE SIMPLY THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OBSTACLE AND OPPORTUNITY AND ARE ABLE TO TURN BOTH TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.

FOUR SHORT WORDS SUM UP WHAT HAS LIFTED MOST SUCCESSFUL INDIVIDUALS ABOVE THE CROWD : A LITTLE BIT MORE. THEY DID ALL THAT WAS EXPECTED OF THEM AND A LITTLE BIT MORE. A. LOU VICKERY

VICTOR KIAM

HOW MANY A MAN HAS THROWN UP HIS HANDS AT A TIME WHEN A LITTLE MORE EFFORT, A LITTLE MORE PATIENCE WOULD HAVE ACHIEVED SUCCESS? ELBERT HUBBARD

“We were at my sister-in-law (Mrs Krishna Raj Kapoor)’s maika. Her father was the then Inspector General of Police, Rewas state. Everyday at 6 am, police horses would be brought to the house for Rajendranath and myself to go riding. It is tough to ride a police horse, especially when you are a light 16. On one of our rides, an Alsatian dog began to chase us. I went down a steep gully which turned out to be a dead end. I went flying over the head of my horse and smashed onto the top of the barricade at the end. I must have passed out for a few minutes. Someone shooed the dog away. I regained my senses, stood up, recovered the reins, put my foot in the stirrups, mounted the horse and rode him back home. That’s my philosophy of life.” Source: Actor Shammi Kapoor in The Times of India, 30th October 2008

INDUSTRIALIST

TULSI TANTI’S MANTRAS Think big. Act fast.

Choosing which business to do is very easy… just choose the one that’s most difficult.

Never allow circumstances to dictate relationships.

Ideas alone are not enough. They need to be executed.

Never sacrifice growth for margin and margin for growth. It is important to achieve high growth with high margin.

Tulsi Tanti was in the textiles business that used wind energy to cut costs, until he realised that he could build competent wind power turbines himself. And that is how a textile maker grew into the fourth largest wind-turbine maker in the world! 22

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The blessed one is he, who, confronted with a crisis in his life is driven to call upon resources of the spirit, to use them to survive,

even triumph over life itself.â&#x20AC;? Irving Wallace

Source: The London Marathon, John Bryant, page 121

One of Kenya’s world-class runners once taunted an American athlete who complained of pain in the knee. “Pain?” he said contemptuously. “Pain is when you’re 12 years old and they take you out into the bush, cut off your foreskin and beat you for three days. That’s pain.”

Hazaaro meel lambe raaste tujh ko bulaate!

Yahaan dukhde sahne ke waaste tujh ko bulaate!

Hai kaun sa woh insaan yahaan par jisne dukh na jhelaa?

Chal akelaa, chal akelaa, chal akelaa!

Source: Lyricist Pradeep, singer Mukesh from the film Sambandh 26

Every Macedonian soldier was trained to withstand intense hardship. The infantry often took long marches — as much as forty miles — carrying full armour, arms, and additional weight equivalent to a month’s rations. They travelled over ridge crests and valleys of Macedonia’s verdant mountains and through marshy lands and shallow lakes, as a way of building up their endurance for extreme hardship and toil. When they arrived at their destination some eight hours later, having marched at a rapid pace of five miles an hour, they were required to prepare their own food and make arrangements for rest. After a three-hour rest, they often marched back to base in time for an early morning swim in the freezing waters of the River Helicon or the Thermaic Gulf, which flowed near the Macedonian capital city of Pella. As the Macedonian soldiers marched, they were reminded of the experiences of great Greek victories and the acts of famous generals. The lead staff sergeant

might yell to the contingent, “Who won Leuctra?” And the chorus would ring out, “E-pa-mi-nondas!” [Even Romans] marched into battle with… spades, picks, shovels, trowels, and axes with which to dig trenches every night before retiring to sleep; they marched in peacetime with it. But compared to the Macedonians’ forty, they could cover only twenty to twenty-five miles a day. Rome’s army could never achieve the speed of, say, Antigonus ‘the One Eyed’ — one of Philip and Alexander’s ablest generals. He once took a Macedonian force of 50,000 troops over 287 miles in seven days — covering 41 miles a day. Not surprisingly, he totally astounded and defeated his foe. Or Alexander himself, who took a force of 50,000 over Afghanistan’s snow-clad Hindu Kush in 17 days and surprised his enemy, who never thought such a feat could ever be achieved.

Source: Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy by Partha Bose 27

Stretch i s s pe ed r e de f i ned Sometimes the only way to knowledge is through the road of humiliation. Or so I recently discovered when briefly facing off against a 128-pound girl who fired shots that looked to me as if they should be declared illegal under the Arms Act. In other words, I played a couple of points against world number six just to get a fleeting taste of one thing: what does fast mean in professional sport? The ball was a hissing blur. It passed the net and like some guided missile dipped towards my ankles. It was upon me before my body had arranged itself for a response, or my mind had contemplated a reply. It was frighteningly fast. However, Chakvetadze explains she was hitting at only ‘60 per cent’ of her capacity. Then she added, grinning: “And I’m not even a big hitter.” Source: Adapted from an article by Rohit Brijnath in The Hindu, January 2008

Stretch is sandwiching your ‘Nos’ between two ‘Yeses’

“Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos,” says William Ury, director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University. As a professional negotiator, Ury has travelled to many conflict-ridden areas such as Chechnya, Israel, Nepal and Aceh, Indonesia. His work as a mediator has taught him that the main stumbling block to good agreements is often not an inability to get to Yes but a prior inability to get to No. "All too often, we cannot bring ourselves to say No when we want to and know we should," Ury writes on a blog. "Or we do say No, but say it in a way that blocks agreement and destroys relationships. We submit to inappropriate demands, injustice, even abuse –– or we engage in destructive fighting in which everyone loses." .. The way out of such an impasse involves saying No in a nice manner. The Bhagavad Gita calls it the 'non-burning No' (un-udvegakaram) which heals (hitam) and does not hurt. “By delivering a respectful, decisive No you can actually strengthen your relationship with the person at the receiving end,” says Ury. Another option, according to him, is to sandwich your No between two Yeses. This allows you to preserve your relationship, while asserting your stand. This is what Karna does when Kunti asks him to lay down his arms in Mahabharata. "Yes, I will spare your four sons," he says. "But No, either Arjuna lives or I; that way you still have five."

Source: Adapted from an article by Vithal C. Nadkarni, The Economic Times, 3rd October 2007

Stretch is Mandelaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

leadership 32

rules

In 1994, during the presidential-election campaign, Mandela got on a tiny propeller plane to fly down to the killing fields of Natal and give a speech to his Zulu supporters. When the plane was 20 minutes from landing, one of its engines failed. Those on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. The airport prepared for an emergency landing, and the pilot managed to land the plane safely. When Mandela and I got in the backseat of his bulletproof BMW that would take us to the rally, he turned to me and said, "Man, I was terrified up there!"

"Of course I was afraid!" he would tell me later. It would have been irrational, he suggested, not to be. "I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front." Mandela knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear. 33

Lead from the front â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but don't leave your base behind When Mandela initiated negotiations with the government in 1985, there were many who thought he had lost it. "We thought he was selling out," says Cyril Ramaphosa, then the powerful and fiery leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. "I went to see him to tell him, what are you doing? It was an unbelievable initiative. He took a massive risk." "He's a historical man," says Ramaphosa. "He was thinking way ahead of us. He has posterity in mind: How will they view what we've done?" Prison gave him the ability to take the long view. It had to; there was no other view possible. He was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable; it was just a question of how soon and how it would be achieved. "Things will be better in the long run," he sometimes said. He always played for the long run.

Lead from the back â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and let others believe they are in front Mandela loved to reminisce about his boyhood and his lazy afternoons herding cattle. "You know", he would say, "you can only lead them from behind." He would then raise his eyebrows to make sure I got the analogy. 34

As a boy, Mandela was greatly influenced by Jongintaba, the tribal king who raised him. When Jongintaba had meetings of his court, the men gathered in a circle, and only after all had spoken did the king begin to speak. The chief's job, Mandela said, was not to tell people what to do but to form a consensus. "Don't enter the debate too early," he used to sayâ&#x20AC;Ś. The trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led too. "It is wise", he said, "to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea."

Know your enemy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and learn about his favourite sport As far back as the 1960s, Mandela began studying Afrikaans, the language of the white South Africans who created apartheid. His comrades in the ANC teased him about it, but he wanted to understand the Afrikaner's worldview; he knew that one day he would be fighting them or negotiating with them, and either way, his destiny was tied to theirs. This was strategic in two senses: by speaking his opponents' language, he might understand their strengths and weaknesses and formulate tactics accordingly. But he would also be ingratiating himself with his enemy. Everyone from ordinary jailers to P.W. Botha was impressed by Mandela's willingness to speak Afrikaans and his knowledge of Afrikaner history. He even brushed up on his knowledge of rugby, the Afrikaners' beloved sport, so he would be able to compare notes on teams and players. 35

Mandela understood that blacks and Afrikaners had something fundamental in common: Afrikaners believed themselves to be Africans as deeply as blacks did. He knew, too, that Afrikaners had been the victims of prejudice themselves: the British government and the white English settlers looked down on them. Afrikaners suffered from a cultural inferiority complex almost as much as blacks did. Mandela was a lawyer, and in prison he helped the warders with their legal problems. They were far less educated and worldly than he, and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them. These were "the most ruthless and brutal of the apartheid regime's characters," says Allister Sparks, the great South African historian, and he "realized that even the worst and crudest could be negotiated with."

Keep your friends close â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and your rivals even closer Mandela is a man of invincible charm â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies. One person he became close to was Chris Hani, the fiery chief of staff of the ANC's military wing. There were some who thought Hani was conspiring against Mandela, but Mandela cozied up to him. "It wasn't just Hani," says Ramaphosa. "It was also the big industrialists, the mining families, the Opposition. He would pick up the phone and call them 36

on their birthdays. He would go to family funerals. He saw it as an opportunity." When Mandela emerged from prison, he famously included his jailers among his friends and put leaders who had kept him in prison in his first Cabinet. Yet I well knew that he despised some of these men. Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them: they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. After all, he used to say, "people act in their own interest." It was simply a fact of human nature, not a flaw or a defect. The flip side of being an optimist â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and he is one â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is trusting people too much. But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm.

Appearances matter â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and remember to smile When Mandela was a poor law student in Johannesburg wearing his one threadbare suit, he was taken to see Walter Sisulu. Sisulu was a real estate agent and a young leader of the ANC. Mandela saw a sophisticated and a successful black man whom he could emulate. Sisulu saw the future. Sisulu once told me that his great quest in the 1950s was to turn the ANC into a mass movement; and then one day, he recalled with a smile, "a mass leader walked into my office." Mandela was tall and handsome, an amateur boxer who carried himself with the regal air of a chief's son. And he had a smile that 37

was like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. George Bizos, his lawyer, remembers that he first met Mandela at an Indian tailor's shop in the 1950s and that Mandela was the first black South African he had ever seen being fitted for a suit. Now Mandela's uniform is a series of exuberant-print shirts that declare him the joyous grandfather of modern Africa. When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was an emblem of the struggle. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply his smiling face. "The smile", says Ramaphosa, "was the message."

Nothing is black or white When we began our series of interviews, I would often ask Mandela questions like this one: When you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realized you did not have the strength to overthrow the government or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing non38

violence? He would then give me a curious glance and say, "Why not both?" Life is never either/or. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn't correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears. Mandela is comfortable with contradiction. As a politician, he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced. Much of this, came from living as a black man under an apartheid system that offered a daily regimen of excruciating and debilitating moral choices: Do I defer to the white boss to get the job I want and avoid a punishment? Do I carry my pass? Every problem has many causes. While he was indisputably and clearly against apartheid, the causes of apartheid were complex. They were historical, sociological and psychological. Mandela's calculus was always, what is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?

Quitting is leading too In 1993, Mandela asked me if I knew of any countries where the minimum voting age was under 18. I did some research and presented him with a rather undistinguished list: Indonesia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Iran. He nodded and uttered his highest praise: "Very good, very good." Two weeks later, Mandela went on South African television and proposed that the voting age be lowered to 14. "He 39

tried to sell us the idea," recalls Ramaphosa, "but he was the only [supporter]. And he had to face the reality that it would not win the day. He accepted it with great humility. He doesn't sulk. That was also a lesson in leadership." Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. In many ways, Mandela's greatest legacy as the President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life — and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do. In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him — not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent. He would be the anti-Mugabe, the man who gave birth to his country and refused to hold it hostage. "His job was to set the course", says Ramaphosa, "not to steer the ship." He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do. Ultimately, the key to understanding Mandela is those 27 years in prison. The man who walked onto Robben Island in 1964 was emotional, headstrong and easily stung. The man who emerged was balanced and disciplined. He is not and never has been introspective. I often asked him how the man who emerged from prison differed from the wilful young man who had entered it. He hated this question. Finally, in exasperation one day, he said, "I came out mature." There is nothing so rare — or so valuable — as a mature man. Source: Adapted from the Time article by Richard Stengel 40

The voice of freedom never faltered, even though it stuttered. Winston Churchill was perhaps the most stirring, eloquent speaker of this century. He also stuttered. If you stutter, you should know about Churchill. Because his life is proof that, with the will to achieve, a speech impediment is no impediment. Learn about the many ways you can help yourself or your child. Because your finest hour lies ahead.

STUTTERING FOUNDATION

OF AMERICA

A Nonprofit Organization Since 1947 – Helping Thine Who Stutter

www.stutteringhelp.org

1-800-992-9392 3100 Walnut Grove Road, Suite 603 • P.O. Box 11749 • Memphis, TN 38111-0749

Stretch is becoming

an inspiration

for another Here is what every sports superstar needs: a boy with no hair, no eyelashes, no voice. A boy whose ankles bruise when he ties his shoes and whose feet turn black when his platelet count is dangerously low. It helps if the boy sometimes wears clothes that the superstar used to wear, so that every time the superstar looks at the boy, he almost sees himself. That is, when the boy is not in pyjamas, hooked to a dialysis machine or receiving chemotherapy through a tube in his chest. Ian Thorpe didn't know this was what he needed when he hesitated at the doorway of a room in the oncology ward at Sydney Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital. Barely 15, still a boy himself, he felt an overwhelming urge to step backward. Ian couldn't know that the step he finally took into the room, and towards the boy in the hospital bed, would 43

help make him — at perhaps the perfect time, before fame could distort things — one of the greatest swimmers on earth… Ian Thorpe and Michael Williams became friends in 1996, more than a year before Michael came down with a cancer and Ian came down with fame. Michael was 10, Ian 13, his talent just beginning to wash him into a grown-up world of international trips with teammates a half-dozen years older, of agents, corporate sponsors and reporters a few dozen years older still. Looking at them before one of Ian's swimming meets, you'd never know whose reputation was at stake. Michael was always the eyes-darting, jawgrinding, wristwatch-checking wreck. Even today, Ian has trouble comprehending what happened: one day Michael was the feisty cycling champion for his age group at a local sports club; the next day a doctor was telling him he had an insanely aggressive form of cancer called non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. That evening, he was being rushed to Sydney Children's Hospital with a 3.6kilo tumour ballooning in his stomach, kidneys failing, cancer 44

already eating at his spine and brain, death seemingly hours away. When Ian saw Michael from a doorway, he was sucking life with a valve in his neck for dialysis and a tube in his chest for chemotherapy. His mother, Sylvia, sat by her boy, sobbing. Ian entered the room slowly but remained near the wall. He'd brought Michael a poster on which he'd written "Live Your Dreams." As Sylvia placed it on the wall by her almost lifeless boy, Ian's lips remained clamped on a wave of shock. Before, it had all seemed so automatic: hard work, faster times, bigger medals and louder acclaim –– until now. As he stared down the barrel of the biggest event of his life, the World Championship in Perth, he felt his confidence leaking away. The week after that first hospital visit, Ian kept saying he should go back and see Michael — the poor kid had been so sick. But he didn't go. It didn't feel good to stay away, but a gruelling training schedule left little time for visits. Then one day, on a trip to downtown Sydney to visit one of his sponsors, Ian vanished. His agent called everyone he could think of.

Where had he gone? Michael Williams blinked. Through this fog walked an apparition, the 15-year-old who had Australian girls squealing: Ian Thorpe. It's not easy for a kid clouded by morphine and nauseated to by chemotherapy to beam — but he did. Magic happens, but not that fast. The ten lumbar punctures to deliver chemotherapy to Michael's spine, the searing mouth ulcers, the hair falling out in clumps, the inability to keep food down, the ravaging pain and the loneliness of losing most of his friends made Michael tell his mother he wished only to die… An exchange was occurring between the boy who had lost his hunger to live and the one who had lost his confidence. Ian found himself leaving Michael’s hospital room and entering other rooms in the ward, talking to children who were staring at death. He found himself in the pool, pushing his body to the limit, flushed with energy and will. "I came to realize what was wrong," he says. "My talent was a gift, and I'd started questioning it, expecting too much of it. I'd gotten greedy

instead of being grateful. What I saw because of Michael was how precious life is. When I was feeling pain in workouts, I'd start thinking, this is nothing. Michael's feeling much more.” And Michael? He found himself looking forward, fidgeting with anticipation. When finally it came, the evening that Ian stepped onto the starting blocks for the 400 in the World Championships, Michael was glued to the TV in his hospital room. "Hope he's gonna win," he kept repeating. The race started, and the boy who had wished only to die was pumping his fist and screaming, "Go, Ian! You can do it!" With 100 metres left, Ian was almost four body lengths behind Australian star Grant Hackett, so it shouldn't have been remotely possible for a boy of 15 to close with a gasping rush and win. The racers pushed to the finish, and Michael screamed, "Ian won the world championship!" This is what Ian has to say about Michael: "People often ask me what my inspiration is... it's not something I can write down. But I can show you."

Source: Adapted from Readers’ Digest, September 2000 45

46 Source: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

joyful things because you are radiating joy.

is my joy?” As you commit to your joy, you will attract an avalanche of

> Do what you love. If you don’t know what brings you joy, ask, “What

of creation.

thought, we will experience humanity’s true magnificence, in every area

> We are in the midst of a glorious era. As we let go of limiting

> The time to embrace your magnificence is now.

draw through you.

> The more you use the power within you, the more power you will

> The only thing you need to do is feel good now.

> You get to fill the blackboard of your life with whatever you want.

STRETCH IS DECODING THE SECRET

STRETCH IS BEATING ILLNESS WITH IMAGERY Imagery provides a direct link to the subconscious mind and can [be a great healer]. I once treated a retired army colonel with major heart problems. As he focused on his heart, he imagined two armies: the good guys in white uniforms (representing good health) and the bad guys in black uniforms (representing his disease). As he used the method, he imagined the good army vanquishing the bad army. On the other hand, I once treated a musician with leukemia who was an artistic sort. When he used this method, he envisioned wave after wave of pure clean water washing through his body, carrying away his disease. Now you are ready to begin. Turn off the mobile phone, sit back comfortably, close your eyes and begin to monitor

your breath going in and out. Next, begin counting backwards from ten to one. Count slowly, waiting about three seconds between numbers. Now, imagine a warm, relaxing feeling flowing in through the tips of your toes, slowly flowing all the way up your body (take about three minutes for this process). For the next 10 to 20 minutes, run your healing imagery through your mind again and again. To finish, count up from one to five, and on five, open your eyes. If you use this method together with conventional medical care, you can vastly improve your health outcomes. Depending on the severity of your health problems, use this method anywhere from once a week to every day, until your health improves.

Source: The Times of India, article by Dr. Rick Levy 47

STRETCH IS SWEATING OUT YOUR BOWLER Steadily Waugh drove Darren Gough crazy. “Steve Waugh is so hard to bowl at. You can bowl him maiden after maiden and think you’ve got him tied down, [but] then he smashes two fours. Some bowlers wear batsmen down. He’s a batsman who wears bowlers down. I remember thinking, ‘How the hell do I get this man out?’”

Source: Dazzler by Darren Gough

STRETCH IS FORESIGHT WITHOUT SIGHT The Polish Grandmaster Miguel Najdorf was stranded in Argentina at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the war ended, Najdorf had the idea of trying to communicate word of his survival to his family in Poland by staging the largest exhibition of blindfold chess ever attempted, 45 boards simultaneously. That’s 1,280 pieces to keep track of, and the event lasted so long that some of his exhausted opponents had to find substitutes mid-game. After nearly 24 hours of play, Najdorf scored 39 wins, four draws, and just two losses against his opponents, who, of course, each had full sight of the board. Source: Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess

STRETCH IS RAISING THE BAR While I was fielding at silly mid-off, Border gave me an indication of the high standards he set himself: he drove Willis past cover for two, but when he came back was muttering to himself, “Bad shot, bad shot. Too wide. Concentrate.”

Source: Phoenix from the Ashes by Mike Brearley

STRETCH IS LEVERAGING ANGER In 1979 in Sydney we had a disastrous first day. We had batted very badly, then fielded and bowled even worse. As we were hobbling off at the close, Mike Hendrick, one of the senior players, was distraught and said, seemingly to nobody in particular, “we all need a right bollocking.” “He’s dead right there”, said Brearley, and he led us file into the dressing room, quietly closed the door and tore into us, collectively and one-by-one. Such livid anger from this civilized man trebled its impact, and we went out and played tremendously tight the next day.

Source: The Autobiography, Gooch and Keating

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. “I will come next Tuesday,” I promised a little reluctantly on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house, I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children… After about 20 minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-

lettered sign with an arrow that read, ‘Daffodil Garden’. We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swathes of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron and butter yellow. Each different-coloured variety was planted in large groups, so that

viSion of Stretch is a

“Who did this?” I asked Carolyn. “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home”. Carolyn pointed to a well-kept house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. ‘Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking’, was the headline.

The first answer was a simple one. ‘50,000 bulbs’, it read. The second answer was, ‘One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain’. The third answer was, ‘Began in 1958’. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One step at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting...

Source: An email forward

it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

beauty 51

“

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

”

Immanuel Kant, Philosopher

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Yesterday is rarely too early but tomorrow is frequently too late.

â&#x20AC;?

Richard Clarke

Stretchisfighting foryourrights Stretchisfussing overminutiae A visitor once told Michelangelo, “I can’t see that you have made any progress since I was here the last time.” Michelangelo answered, “Oh, yes, I have made much progress. Look carefully and you will see that I have retouched this part, and that I have polished that part. See I have worked on this part, and have softened lines here.” “Yes”, said the visitor, “but those are all trifles.” “That may be”, replied Michelangelo, “but trifles make perfection and perfection is no trifle.” 54

On 1st October 1964, University of California student Jack Weinberg was arrested for distributing leaflets promoting civil rights on the Berkeley campus. Before a police car could take him away, 2,000 of Weinberg's fellow students surrounded the cruiser, sat down, and refused to move. The stand-off lasted for 32 hours and marked the beginning of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) which shaped the '60s generation. Sources: Globe and Mail, 1st October 2004; Contra Costa Times

Stretch beyondage Stretchisa deathlyeffort In 1809, Barclay won a wager that he could cover 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours on foot â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the catch being that he was allowed to run only one mile in any given hour. This meant exercising round the clock, with no more than snatches of sleep, for almost six weeks. No one knew if it was possible, and when Barclay eventually managed it, he lost an enormous amount of weight and came close to death.

Selu Mishra teaches 40-yearolds how to sew. Over 40 of her students, all women, have set up their own tailoring units after training under her. Selu now has 24 students between 15 and 40â&#x20AC;Ś "I want to do BSc, but will carry on training women in tailoring." Point to note: Selu of Mirzapur is only a little over four years old. Source: The Hindustan Times, October 2007

Source: The London Marathon by John Bryant

Stretch is running against all odds November 1989: Beardsley was using an auger on the back of a truck to lift corn into a crib. Somehow he became entangled in the auger and it began to tear him apart. He was laid up for five months. He recuperated enough to continue working on the farm and even to hobble through an occasional run. July 1992: Blind-sided by another driver. Beardsley spent 15 days in the hospital with an injured back and neck. January 1993: Hit by a truck, which put him back in hospital for two weeks. A month later, again in a fierce snowstorm, he rolled his Bronco "a bunch of times." Injured his back and neck. January 1994: Underwent his first back operation. Was operated in March to remove some of the hardware the surgeons had installed; third back operation in October. A year later, a knee surgery. September 1996: Arrested for addiction to pain pills triggered by over-consumption; spent nine days in a psychiatric unit. February 1997: Liberated of drugs. Moments of glory: Jogged the 2000 Napa Valley Marathon in 3:23:05. Trained in 2001 to break 3:00 at Grandma's to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough performance there. Source: Adapted from The London Marathon, John Bryant 56

Stretch is asking the right questions I was observing a meeting at a newly formed division of a Fortune 20 company. The division, with some 20,000 employees, was the product of a merger in 2001 of two companies in the same industry. It had a new leadership team, and this was only its second meeting. The central issue for the leadership team was how to create a new culture to improve unacceptable performance. Return on capital was less than 6 percent, and shareholder value was being destroyed. The new CEO of the division and the leadership team knew that cost savings through synergies would not be enough to make the division an outstanding performer. The team had hired a human behaviour boutique consulting firm that specialized in cultural diagnostics. The consultant had performed a standard cultural analysis based on surveys that asked employees 50 or 60 questions about the division’s values (integrity, honesty, and the like), whether decision making was autocratic or collegial, and how power was distributed… The discussion at the meeting was going nowhere until the division’s CEO took over and started by asking the right question, “If we want to change the culture, what should be our next question?” One member of the team asked in response, “How should the culture be changed?” A second member said, “Make it better.” Then someone asked, “From what to what?” and the light bulb went on. Source: Execution – the discipline of getting things done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, 2002 57

More stretch “You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.” Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

“It seems like you don’t want to bat long again. Where is the hunger, will and determination? They cannot get you out unless you get yourself out. You are not the same man, so get hungry.” Curtly Ambrose to Brian Lara, 1995

nly o s i e “Failurpportunity the oegin again tly.” to b intelligen more ord

Henry F

A day in the life of

David Blaine > Performed the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Dive of Deathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (44 feet) > Suspended himself for 60 hours; even signed autographs, took pictures and played card games while suspended > Spent 61 hours inside a block of ice > Lived under water for a week in an acrylic sphere > Stood atop a 90-foot pillar erected behind the New York Public Library for 35 hours > Survived 44 days inside a transparent box, suspended over the Thames River Source: Adapted from The Times of India, 26th September 2008

STRETCH IS HAVING

BLIND FAITH

[In the fifty years since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first saw the view from the top of Mt. Everest, thousands have tried to reach that lofty vantage point. Erik Weihenmeyer made it. Pushing through brutal cold, savage winds and crushing fatigue at 29,000 feet (8,840 metres), he reached the top of the world, but he never caught a glimpse of the famous view. He was the first blind person to stand on Everest's peak.] Erik: I've been climbing since I was 16 years old. That was my first love, rock and ice climbing, because I could feel my way up this pattern of the rock. There wasn't any ball that was flying through the air that was gonna hit me in the faceâ&#x20AC;Ś Q: One of your concerns was to climb it by yourself. You didn't want to be led up the mountain and just planted on the top? Erik: The thing that I've always tried to do on mountains is to be a real team member; not to be some token blind guy, but to carry as much weight as everyone else and set up tents

and build snow walls and cook meals. So I'm not just some helpless person that's getting dragged up there, I'm a real part of the team. Q: And you climb by listening to somebody in front of you? Erik: I do. When I'm on a big mountain that's one of the downfalls. I can't really routefind through the icefall, so I really am just following someone. They're ringing a bell in front of me, and I'm following and trying to stay in their footsteps. Sometimes when it gets really chaotic in the icefall, they'll take their ice axe or ski pole and tap the spots they want me to step in.

Source: National Geographic News, interviewed by Tom Foreman

“I’LL DO IT AGAIN IF I HAVE TO. ONLY A COWARD WILL LET HIS FRIENDS DIE.”

Bir Bahadur, porter, who with Navin, Suraj and Bhagat Bahadur resolved to dig the snow for hours, not with a shovel but with his bare hands, carving out a trail to Chattdu. The result: He helped save 14 lives of an 18-member Geological Survey of India team, caught in a treacherous snowfall in Shiyagur, Himachal Pradesh. The team risked losing their limbs to frostbite, but continued undaunted. Source: Adapted from Ashwini Kumarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s article in The Times of India, 27th September 2008

Avoid two aircrafts attacking the same opponent.

Tip for Squadrons: In principle, it is better to attack in groups of four or six.

When over the enemy's lines, never forget your own line of retreat.

If your opponent dives on you, do not try to get around his attack, but fly to meet it.

In any type of attack, it is essential to assail your opponent from behind.

You should always try to keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.

Only fire at close range, and then only when the opponent is properly in your sights.

Always continue with an attack you have begun.

Try to secure the upper hand before attacking. If possible, keep the sun behind you.

STRETCH IS A PLATFORM TO MOUNT YOUR GUNS Heard of Dicta Boelcke? This is a list of fundamental air combat manoeuvres formulated by the German ace Oswald Boelcke. Boelcke codified his skill into the following discipline:

Stretch as in getting beyond the cosmetic Masarrat Misbah was leaving work when a veiled woman asked for help. When she removed her veil, Misbah confronted reality –– the girl had no face. Her husband had thrown acid on her. Misbah could have repulsed; she was inspired instead. She placed a newspaper advertisement to see if others needed similar assistance. Forty-two responded. And ironically, several told her they wanted to be beauticians. So this is what

Misbah did: arranged for 10 women to train in a beauty course in Italy. With difficulty: for a number of the women, the acid attack weakened their vision or excessively burned their hands. The girls persisted. The result is a beauty salon in Lahore where the disfigured help others become beautiful. With a giant poster of a girl with half her face destroyed. “Help us bring back a smile to the face of these survivors,” it says.

Source: Adapted from an article by Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writer

s ck a u p a e Herling b to these b ile of th s sm ce vor fa rvi su 65

66 Source: Yahoo.com

On 3rd December 1976, an assassination attempt was made on Bob Marley, his wife and the managers of the Wailers to keep him from playing at the Smile Jamaica concert in Kingston. Despite receiving two gunshot wounds, Bob Marley performed two days later and then left for the UK. Why didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t he back off? "The people who are trying to make the world worse never take a day off, so why should I?â&#x20AC;?

E R T H C T

AS IN FIGHTING BACK

STRETCH IS DISCOVERING THE MUSIC BEHIND MATHS 1.

As a child he memorised multiplication tables till 49.

Solved complex mathematical problems –– including combinatorics (permutations and combinations) –– by just looking at them.

Considers mathematics as a means to stay mentally fit. "The human mind is very flexible. You can stretch it so much," he says.

At 58, he sat with son

Five things you probably did not know about NR Narayana Murthy

Rohan in a classroom at Cornell University to attend a session of automata theory. Very simply, automata theory is a mathematical study of machines and myriad information models that enable machines to function. For a while, Murthy kept pace, then was outrun by the students.

He is obsessed with ‘phynance,’ (physics plus finance), which even attracted rocket scientists into the mathematical theory of finance and investment.

Source: Adapted from an article by Kunal N. Talgeri, 6th September 2008, Outlook Business 67

STRETCH IS

Scene 1: 9:15 a.m., Thomas Germain, a ruddy-faced man in a yellow slicker, is pushing his oversize black wheeled suitcase down 12th Street in the direction of the Strand Bookstore on Broadway. A suitcase is stuffed with books; sometimes more boxes balanced on it, a mass of 68

swaying literature that he rolls all the way from Greenwich Village or SoHo or Stuyvesant Town.

“Perseverance,” Mr. Germain said one recent Monday. “Other people fail at this because they don’t persevere.”

Scene 2: 9:30 a.m., he’s sitting outside the Strand, waiting for the store to open, drinking a breakfast of Budweiser with his friend Brian Martin, who’s pushed and pulled his own collection of books to the same destination in a large, teetering grocery cart.

This requires rising at 3 a.m. to sift through recycling bins outside people’s homes or in front of buildings. (For the record, paperbacks are recyclable; the city requires the covers to be removed from hard covers before they can be recycled, a request that for booklovers is tantamount to asking 10-year-old girls to rip Barbie’s head off before discarding her in the trash.)

They are regulars at the Strand, bookscavenging semipros, who help the city’s best-known used bookstore keep its shelves stocked. They have no overhead, no employees, no boss and no home; all they have is experience, and a fitful sense of industry.

Tommy Books and Leprechaun are often the first people waiting on the Strand’s bookselling line, a queue also populated by the

New York University students, genteel booklovers moving to smaller apartments, frugal cleaner-outers, and a fair number of down-and-out fellow book scavengers, many of whom live on the street. Some of them sell their books on the street; others, the less entrepreneurial, or the more impatient, go for

the surefire cash at the Strand. Is there any other industry in which such high-quality goods regularly make their way to consumers via a trash bin? Stand in the bookselling line at the Strand and the store starts to feel less like a dusty bastion of erudition and more like a messy, mulchy place where old ideas struggle to find new life. [So]

feel guilty, if you must, for never finishing Tony Judt’s “Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945;” but don’t feel guilty for chucking it. It will most likely live to haunt someone else’s bedside table. It will find a new home. Tommy Books and Leprechaun would like a new home themselves, they said. Also, a van.

Source: The New York Times by Susan Dominus

PERSEVERANCE

Stretch as in keeping a positive attitude DILBERT

STRETCH IS MAKING

YOUR BODY BOW TO YOUR WISH

BEFORE The producers of The Machinist claim that Christian Bale dropped from about 180 pounds in weight down to about 120 pounds to make this film. They also claim that Bale actually wanted to drop down to 100 pounds, but that they would not let him go below 70

AFTER 120, out of fear that his health could be in too much danger if he did. His diet consisted of one can of tuna and an apple per day. His 63-pound weight loss is said to be a record for any actor for a movie role. Source: www.imdb.com 71

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden, Basketball Hall of Famer "If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability." - Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company 72

"Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad." - Denis Waitley, writer "Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man.â&#x20AC;? - Francis Spellman, clergyman "Fear melts when you take action towards a goal you really want." - Robert G. Allen, author 73

Stretch is rediscovering the legend of Zorro Old folks at an Australian seniorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home have found a new activity to sharpen their wits and steel their bodies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; fencing. The home's lifestyle coordinator Patricia Boyd never thought of something so radical. The residents were also hesitant, until D'Onofrio (a volunteer) spoke to them about the sport and how it would be almost impossible for them to get hurt. About 16 residents aged over 80, including 93-year-old Sister Delores Kirby, now take part in the Monday sessions. Source: Adapted from an article by Nick Squires, Daily Telegraph, 12th May 2008

Azim Premjiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 7 Commandments

Right time to invest in right opportunities Maximum opportunities abound in turbulent times Make assets go as far as they can by increasing their use Cut down discretionary expense Be absolutely customer-centric Squeeze out every ounce of productivity, combining skill and hard work Manage risks through swift, decisive action Source: Adapted from an article by Asha Rai, The Times of India, 21st October 2008

Raahi tu mat ruk jaanaa, Toofan se mat ghabaraanaa Kabhi to milegi teri manzil Kahin door gagan ki chhaon mein! Maanaa ki gahari hai dhaaraa Par hai kahin to kinaraa Too bhi milaa aashaa ke sur mein Man kaa ye ekataaraa. Kabhi to milegi teri manzil Kahin door gagan ki chhaon mein!

Sabkaa hai oopar waalaa Sabako usii ne sambhaalaa. Jab bhi ghira gham kaa andheraa Usne kiyaa ujiyaalaa! Kabhii to milegii terii manzil Kahin duur gagan kii chhaon mein! Raahii tuu mat ruk jaanaa, Toofan se mat ghabaraanaa. Kabhii to milegii terii manzil Kahiin duur gagan kii chhaon mein! - Lyrics Gulzar from the film Rahgir

Stretch is Tendulkarine fitness

Tendulkarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s schedule as a 12-year old.

7 am - 9 am: Batting in practice

9.30 am - 4.30 pm: Batting in match

5.30 pm - 7 pm: Batting in practice

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once I played 54 matches in a row!" he said. 78

Stretch is 100 and still batting. Try matching the stamina of the US centenarians.

Elsa Hoffman Runs her business of remodelling apartments and continues to have an active social life. “When people look at my driver’s license they say, ‘It can’t be’.” says Hoffman.

Rosie Ross Musician at 102, he still supports himself with his trumpet, playing for most Friday nights at the Pine Cone Inn, outside of Phoenix, Arizona, for the last 50 years. Source: Adapted from www.seniorsworldchronicle.com 79

Stretch is facing a storm

My grandfather, who was an engineer, liked to teach me the laws of physics while we were out having fun together: ‘After a lightning flash, count the seconds before the next peal of thunder and multiply by 340 metres, which is the speed of sound. That way, you’ll always know how far off the thunder is.’ A little complicated perhaps, but I’ve been doing that calculation since I was a child… As with any storm, it brings with it destruction, but it also waters the fields; and, with the rain, falls the wisdom of the heavens. As with any storm, it will pass. The more violent the storm, the more quickly it will pass. I have, thank God, learned to face storms. Source: Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho; Harper Collins Publishers

The secret to Zohra Segal’s (95) energetic, age-defying personality is a measured lifestyle. • Forty-five minutes every morning on the terrace, reciting – with expressions and from memory – exactly 32 pieces; poems, dialogues, speeches • Half hour walks, every morning and evening, on her floor "because when I used to walk in the colony, the neighbours would offer coffee"

Stretch is a measured lifestyle

• Some dance exercises • A Spartan, unvarying menu. Except, of course, "when I invite people ", she winks. Source: Adapted from an article in Business Standard 81

Stretch is taking odd perspectives Many times I'd redesign the same computer a second or third time, using newer and better components. I developed a private little game of trying to design these minicomputers with the minimum number of chips. I have no idea why this became the pastime of my life. I did it all alone in my room with my door shut. It was like a private hobby. Source: iWOZ by Steve Wozniak

Botvinnikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most lasting contributions to chess culture were in the area of preparationâ&#x20AC;ŚHis system involved researching the opening phase of the game, studying his opponentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s styles, and rigorous analysis of his own games, which were published so that they could be criticized by others. To give just one example of the extremes he would go to: when preparing for a tournament, Botvinnik would have distracting music playing in the background and even requested that one of his trainers, Viacheslav Ragozin, blow smoke in his face during their training sessions. Source: How life imitates chess by Garry Kasparov, page 81

He was joking on the starting blocks. He reacted last to the gun. He ran against the wind. He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tie his PUMAs. He jogged over the finish line. He broke the world record. Then he danced. And reminded us that Being the best should be fun. Usain Bolt. 3 gold medals, 3 world records.

Just think. Usain Bolt is too tall (6 ft 5 inches) to be a world-class sprinter. Mike Friedman is too heavy (170 lbs) to be an elite cyclist. Stefan Holm (5 ft 11 inches) is too short to be a champion high jumper. Erin Donohue --- she is 5 ft 7 inches and weighing 143 pounds --- is too short and stocky to be a star middle-distance runner. And yetâ&#x20AC;Śand yet.

Bolt lowered his world 100 m record, sailing past his shorter, more muscular competitors. This is the explanation of Bengt Saltin, a professor of human physiology at the University of Copenhagen: he suspected that Bolt might have had a hidden physiological advantage. The way his leg muscle inserts into the bone may have given him what Saltin called a longer lever arm, and that could give Bolt unexpected explosive strength.

Holm, the high jumper, said people snided he was too short for the sport. Holm said his shortness allowed him to run faster in his approach to the bar. He cleared the bar by arching his body so he bent over the bar more than his taller competitors. Friedman, the cyclist, is thinner than most â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a disadvantage. But on the other hand, he is more aerodynamic and since his body catches less air it slows him down less. For every disadvantage, an advantage!

Source: Adapted from the New York Times News Service 85

Stretch is In just a few seconds of a Grand Prix pit, a 20-odd pit crew switched all four tyres and sends the car on its way! – 10 secs: Car enters the pit lane. – 3 secs: Car approaches the garage; fuel flap automatically opens. 0 sec: Car is stationary at the precise spot indicated by the lollipop; driver sets it in neutral and keeps his foot on the brake. 1 sec: ‘Wheel gun’ crew use air guns to open the wheel nuts and lean back; at the same time, the front and rear jack men raise the car off the ground. The refuelling hose is connected in 1.5 seconds. 2 secs: As the fuel is going in, the ‘wheel off’ crew get started. All four wheels are off in 2.5 seconds and the four ‘wheel on’ crew start placing new wheels. Another crew member cleans the driver’s helmet visor.

pit-stop perfection 3 secs: New wheels are on in 3.5 seconds, and the ‘wheel gun’ crew lean forward to tighten the nuts. When they’ve finished, they raise a hand to signify that everything is okay. 4 secs: All four wheels changed, the car is dropped from its jacks. Everyone waits for the refuelling to be completed. 5.5 secs: Lollipop man signals to the driver to select first gear; refuelling continues. 6.5 secs: Fuel hose comes off and the refueller wipes spillage. Lollipop man signals for the driver to leave; driver should be able to shoot within 0.3 seconds of fuel hose coming off. 7 secs: Car bolts! Fuel flap closes automatically. Cars preheated to allow the driver to speed without danger. Source: Formula One for Dummies

Dominating mother. Insane sister and daughter. Wife and father dying early. Beloved uncle committing suicide. Peter Mark Roget knew how to get beyond. His solution: lists. This 19th century British scientist made lists of words, creating synonyms for all occasions that would make life easier for term paper writers, crossword puzzle lovers and anyone looking for the answer to the age-old question: “What’s another word for . . .”

When printed, Roget’s Thesaurus became a byword for alternative words right down to the present day.

This might not have happened if Roget had cribbed, ‘God has dealt me a tough hand…’

Source: Adapted from an article by Arthur Spiegelman, Reuters, 28th March 2008 89

Took five weeks to film; Charlton Heston [Ben Hur] spent four weeks learning how to drive a chariot

Employed 18 chariots, half used for practice

Employed 8,000 junior artistes on the largest film set ever built

Took over three months to complete

The chariot race in Ben-Hur, directed by Andrew Marton, is considered one of the most spectacular action sequences ever filmed â&#x20AC;&#x201C; well before computer-generated effects!

Source: www.wired.com

In his recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, Thomas Friedman tells the story of a Marine Corps general in Iraq who requested solar panels to power his bases. Asked why, he explained that he wanted to win his region by "out-greening al Qaeda." Instead of trucking in gas from Kuwait at $20 a gallon â&#x20AC;&#x201D; money that fuels oppressive petro-dictatorships â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in convoys that are vulnerable to roadside bombs, why not beat the insurgents by taking away their targets and their funding?

Count something… The laboratory researcher may count the number of tumour cells in a petri dish that have a particular gene defect. Likewise, the clinician might count the number of patients who develop a particular complication from treatment — or just how many are actually seen on time and how many are made to wait. It doesn’t really matter what you count. You don’t need a research grant. The only requirement is that what you count should be interesting to you. When I was a resident, I began counting how often surgical patients ended up with an instrument or sponge forgotten inside them.

It doesn’t happen often: about one in 15,000 operations, I discovered. But when it did, serious injury could result. One patient had a 13-inch retractor left in him that tore into his bowel and bladder. Another had a small sponge left in his brain that caused an abscess and a permanent seizure disorder. Then I counted how often such mistakes occurred because the nurses hadn’t counted all the sponges as they were supposed to, or because the doctors had ignored nurses’ warning that an item was missing. It turned out to be hardly ever. Eventually I got a little more sophisticated and compared patients who had objects left inside them with those who didn’t. I found that the mishaps predominantly occurred in patients undergoing emergency operations or procedures that revealed the unexpected — such as a cancer when the surgeon had anticipated only appendicitis. The numbers began to make sense. If nurses have to track 50 sponges and a couple of hundred instruments during an operation — already a tricky thing to do — it is understandably much harder under urgent circumstances or when unexpected changes require bringing in a lot more equipment. Our usual approach of punishing people for failures wasn’t going to eliminate the problem, I realized. Only a technological solution would — and I soon found myself working with some colleagues to come up with a device that could automate the tracking of sponges and instruments. If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting. Source: Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

IN 2005, FIRE DESTROYED A DEPARTMENTAL STORE IN CHENNAI’S ADYAR LOCALITY. THE OWNER’S RESPONSE: NO PANIC. INSTEAD, HE (RAMASWAMY SUBRAMANIAN) MADE STORE EMPLOYEES ASK CUSTOMERS THE ITEMS THEY WANTED AND HAD THE GOODS DELIVERED! THE STORE WENT ON TO BECOME THE RS 2,300-CRORE RETAIL CHAIN SUBHIKSHA, WHOSE MODEL HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN STUDIED EVEN BY THE BEHEMOTH WALMART! Source: Adapted from an article by Sharada Balasubramanian and Sriram Srinivasan, Outlook, 20th September 2008

In a town in the North of France, I (Mirra Alfassa, better known as the Mother, who later became Aurobindo Ghosh’s foremost disciple), once knew a boy who was frank by nature but impetuous and always liable to lose his temper. I said to him one day: “Which do you think is more difficult for a strong boy like you, to give blow for blow and to let fly your fist in the face of a friend who insults you or at that moment to keep your fist in your pocket?” “To keep it in my pocket,” he replied. “And which do you think is more worthy of a brave boy like you, to do the easier or the more difficult thing?” “The more difficult thing,” he said after a moment's hesitation. “Well then, try to do it the next time you get an opportunity.” Some time later, the young boy came to tell me, not without legitimate pride, that he had been able to do “the more difficult thing”.

He said: “One of my work-mates, who is known for his bad temper, struck me in a moment of anger. Since he knows that normally I am not the one to forgive and that I have a strong arm, he was preparing to defend himself, when I remembered what you had told me. It was harder for me than I thought, but I put my fist in my pocket. And as soon as I did that, I felt no more anger in me, I only felt sorry for my friend. So I held out my hand to him. That surprised him so much that he stood looking at me for a moment, open-mouthed, without speaking. Then he seized my hand, shook it vigorously and said with emotion: “Now you can do what you like with me, I am your friend ... forever.” Source: Complete Works of the Mother Vol II, Page - 171

Jeevan Se Na Haar

O Jeenewaale Jeevan Se Na Haar O Jeenewaale Jeevan Se Na Haar O Jeenewaale, Baat Meri Too Maan Arey Matwaale. Har Gum Ko Too Apnaa Kar, Dil Ka Dard Chupaa Kar, Badhta Chal Too Lehraakar, Duniya Ke Sukh Dukh Ko Bisraa Kar... Sukh Dukh Hei Jeevan Ke Do Pairaahe. Dhoop Kabhi To Kabhi Ghanere Saaye, Jo Suraj Andhiyaarey Me Kho Jaaye, Wohi Lautkar Naya Savera Laaye.., Too Badhta Chal Too Lehraakar, Duniya Ke Sukh Dukh Ko Bisraa Kar... Behti Nadiyaa Tujh Ko Yaad Dilaaye, Samay Jo Jaaye Kabhi Laut Na Aaye, Deep To Woh Jo Hawa Me Jalta Jaaye.., Khudko Jalaakar Jag Ko Raah Dikhaaye... Too Badhta Chal Too Lehraakar, Duniya Ke Sukh Dukh Ko Bisraa Kar...

Jeevan Se Na Haar O Jeenewaale, Baat Meri Too Maan Arey Matwaale.. Har Gum Ko Too Apnaa Kar, Dil Ka Dard Chupaa Kar, Badhta Chal too Lehraakar, Duniya Ke Sukh Dukh Ko Bisraa Kar... Jeevan Se Na Haar O Jeenewaale. Film: Door Ka Rahi; singer Kishore Kumar; lyricist, A. Irshaad

STRETCH IS GETTING A TASTE OF CHINESE HOSPITALITY

Drinking the first of our many cups of Chinese tea, in what must be one of Mumbai’s noisiest restaurants, my guest [S. Ramadorai, the dynamic CEO of TCS] recalls how, when TCS first started out in China with a fairly large team, the management was worried about whether the boys would settle down. The TCS head there happened to mention to the local authorities that it would be nice to have Indian food once in a while. “Within a month they had an Indian restaurant up and running. The speed at which they create conveniences is simply amazing,” says Ramadorai, his admiration for the Chinese evident. Source: Adapted from an article by Shobhana Subramanian; Business Standard, 25th March 2008 100

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; E. M. Forster

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“The optimist and the pessimist both die in the end, but each lives his life in a completely different way.”

– Shimon Peres

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• Left India in 1969 without a visa – aboard a cargo ship bound for Khorramshahr, Iran • Travelled for eight years and 35 countries - backpacking • Picked up seven languages and danced his way through France, Japan, Spain, South America, Canada, Taiwan and Korea • “I keep saying, if it doesn’t kill you, then you are no good.” Astad Deboo, avant garde dancer and Padmashree recipient Source: Adapted from an article by Manjula Sen, The Telegraph, 23rd March 2008 103

Stretch is flying endless hours

[Today, transatlantic flights are common. However, when Charles A. Lindenbergh took off from New York for Paris in a stuttering Ryan monoplane alone in May 1927 for Paris, he invited one of the worst nightmares of his life. Besides, he had no radio and a single mistake could be a painfully long, dark and lonely death inside the Atlantic.] Eleventh hour: The minute hand had just passed 1:00 am. It’s dawn, one hour after midnight…The uncontrollable desire to sleep falls over me in quilted layers. I’ve been staving it off with difficulty during the hours of moonlight. Now it looms all but insurmountable. This is the hour I’ve been dreading….This early hour of the second morning --- the third morning, it is, since I’ve slept. Nineteenth hour: When I leave, a cloud of drowsiness advances; when I enter the next, it recedes. If I could sleep and wake refreshed, how extraordinary this world of mist would be. The love of flying, the beauty of sunrise, the solitude of the mid-Atlantic sky, are screened from my senses by opaque veils of sleep. Twentieth hour: The nose is down, the wing low, the plane diving and turning. My plane is getting out of control…. No it’s the illusion you sometimes get while flying blind. As

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minutes pass and no new incident occurs, I fall into the state of eye-open sleep again. I fly with less anguish when my conscious mind is not awake. At times, I am not sure whether I am living through a dream or dreaming through life. Twenty-second hour: At times voices come out of the air itself, clear yet far away, travelling through distances that can’t be measured by the scale of human miles; familiar voices, conversing and advising on my flight….reassuring me, giving me messages unattainable in ordinary life. Twenty-fourth hour: But Paris is over a thousand miles away! Can I complete this flight to Paris? But the alternative is death and failure! Death! For the first time in my life, I doubt my ability to endure. Twenty-seventh hour: There’s nothing but frustration to be had by staying longer. It’s best to leave. Twenty-eighth hour: Is that a cloud on the northeastern horizon, or a strip of low fog – or – can it possibly be land? It looks like land, but I don’t intend to be tricked by another mirage. I can hardly believe it’s true. I am almost exactly on my route…I spiral lower, looking down on the little village. There are boats in the harbour, wagons on the stone-fenced roads. People are running out into the streets, looking up and waving. This is earth again, the earth where I’ve lived and now will live once more. Source: The Mammoth Book of Heroes, compiled by Jon E. Lewis

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he cause s e b y p p fe is ha . While d e r o “My wi b r am neve I s thing. I w e o m n o k s s e s or do book she shop ll out a sketch pu will just ppost or m a l a will w and dra lse I see. This ng e iration, p somethi s n i r e if anoth d even n a , lead to w o h e, some skills, t r a sometim y m t honing s u j s i t i oy.” it is a j

Source: Chris Bangle in Creativity — Unconventional Wisdom from 20 Accomplished Minds; Edited by Herb Meyers and Richard Gerstman;

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“My God, he used to sing round the clock. He’d leave home early in the morning one day and return home only the next morning! He was far busier than I was.” Source: Lata Mangeshkar on Mukesh in Bollywood Melodies by Ganesh Anantharaman 107

Painter Wasim Kapoor: Suffered a bad fall when he was only six months old. Could walk out of the hospital when 12. Used to paint on plasters! Seeing his potential, his dad hired a tutor who came to the hospital to teach him. Today, he has done over 600 art shows around the world, including several solos.

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Stretch is the power to see death in the

In Beaumont and Fletcher’s Sea Voyage, Juletta tells the stout captain and his company: Jul: Why, slaves, ‘tis in our power to hang ye.’ Master: Very likely; ’Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. Source: The Mammoth Book of Heroes; compiled by Jon E. Lewis

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The Winner is always part of the answer; The Loser is always part of the problem. The Winner always has a programme; The Loser always has an excuse. The Winner says, "Let me do it for you;" The Loser says, "That is not my job." The Winner sees an answer for every problem; The Loser sees a problem for every answer. The Winner says, "It may be difficult but it is possible;" The Loser says, "It may be possible but it is too difficult." When a Winner makes a mistake, he says, "I was wrong;"

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When a Loser makes a mistake, he says, "It wasn't my fault." A Winner makes commitments; A Loser makes promises. Winners have dreams; Losers have schemes. Winners choose what they say; Losers say what they choose. Winners use hard arguments but soft words; Losers use soft arguments but hard words. Winners follow the philosophy of empathy: "Don't do to others what you would not want them to do to you"; Losers follow the philosophy, "Do it to others before they do it to you."

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A Viking ship made from ice-cream sticks set sail across the Netherlands' Isselmeer Lake on Friday and its stuntman builder hopes to cross the Atlantic later. The 15-metre Thor was made from 15 million recycled ice-cream sticks glued together by the US-born Robert McDonald, his son and more than 5,000 children.

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"Pick up your ice-cream stick, send them to me and I will put them to use," McDonald, 48, said on radio, hoping to auction the ship later and donate the proceeds to charity. "Kids from all over the world started mailing them to me. I got enough sticks to build three of those ships," said McDonald. McDonald, badly injured as a child in a gas explosion that killed the rest of his family, is still looking for donations to finance his Atlantic voyage, the proceeds of which will go to children in hospitals and in disaster zones. He has worked as a stuntman in 400 films. He needs a crew daring enough to repeat the ancient Viking route to North America via Iceland and Greenland. Source: A Viking ship made from ice-cream sticks sets sail; The Times of India; 16th July 2007

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Stretch as in delighting customers

India has around 175 scheduled commercial banks with around 70,000 branches. Billions of cheques are processed annually and nearly 90 percent of these are processed manually. Result: Cash management for companies becomes a mounting challenge.

But Deutsche Bank changed the rules of the game. Operational excellence for us means delighting our customers. For this, we needed to innovate and hasten up the transaction time,â&#x20AC;? says Gaertner, Managing Director and CIO, personal

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and Corporate Banking, Deutsche Bank. With the understanding that “information is the key”, the bank came up with a novel idea: Field Force Express. With the help of a handheld device, a user’s (customer) credentials are authenticated in real-time with a central server. There are two modules — deposit entry and cheque return. The bank’s agent makes the data entry on the handheld; keys in the number of the cheque and its value. The innovation here is that an image of the deposit slip is captured for online transmission. The customer then gives a digital acknowledgement, which is used for data processing. The proof of the online transmission can be seen on the web server.

Result: The entire process is completed in 60 seconds. Source: Cheque processing. From 5 hrs to 60 seconds at Deutsche Bank by Leslie D'Monte; Business Standard;14th March 2008

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A Black Panthers activist, Tommie Smith persuaded many Black athletes in the US Olympic track and field team at the 1968 Olympics to use their victory ceremonies as occasions for protest against official US policies discriminatory towards the Blacks. Now Tommie, otherwise a certainty, injured his thigh even as he won the semi-final heat and was carried off the field on a stretcher. He was confined to bed for the next two days till the finals. The coach gave instructions not to let him out of the room. On the afternoon of the finals, Tommie's colleagues smuggled him into the stadium. He took the starting blocks, thighs strapped. Tommie planned the race. Teammate John Carlos would set a blistering pace for the first 100 metres. Into the curve, Carlos would be in the lead and Tommie well back (sixth in a field of eight!). That is when the drama would begin. And this is what happened. Carlos turned at the appointed hour 116

(oops, milli-second) and screamed, "Take over, Tommie!" And limping Tommie transformed into a panther and, in twelve quick steps, turned into a blur on TV screens and blasted through the 20 seconds barrier to a new world record of 19.83 seconds. Carlos, who had lost momentum in turning and shouting, finished with a bronze. On the victory podium, as the American flags went up, barefoot Tommie and Carlos wore black gloves, lowered their heads and gave a clenched fist salute. An inspired Peter Norman borrowed a Human Rights badge and joined in the protest! It would be easy to credit the stretch story to Tommie Smith. But wait a minute. It has been computed that with the initial pace John Carlos set up, he would have easily completed the race in a record-breaking 19.7 seconds. But Carlos sacrificed his interests for his injured partner and helped him create history! Source: Adapted from an article by Sadanand Menon, Business Standard, 13th June 2008 117

“He was so passionate about golf that he would occasionally, on nights, putt by candlelight.” – Ganesh Prasad Chowrasia (greenskeeper of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club) on son Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, after the latter won the $2.5 million Emaar MGF Indian Masters, a European Tour event in 2008.

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“In car design, the pluses and minuses of a surface are sometimes measured in the thousandths of a millimeter, and at a certain point, one thousandth of a millimeter is too much.” – Chris Bangle in Creativity – Unconventional Wisdom from 20 Accomplished Minds

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I am just a poor boy and my story’s seldom told I’ve squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest. When I left my home and my family, I was no more than a boy In the company of strangers In the quiet of the railway station, running scared. Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go Looking for the places only they would know. Asking only workman’s wages, I come looking for a job, but I get no offers Just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there. Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking even me I am older than I once was, and younger than I’ll be, that’s not unusual

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No it isn’t strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same After changes we are more or less the same. And I’m laying out my winter clothes, wishing I was gone, going home Where the New York city winters aren’t bleeding me, leading me to go home. In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains Yes he still remains. – Lyrics: Simon and Garfunkel

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Aaj kahenge dil kaa fasaanaa

Jaan bhee le le chaahe zamaanaa!

Maut wahii jo duniyaan dekhe

Ghut-ghut kar yu marnaa kyaa?

Jab pyaar kiyaa to darnaa kyaa?!

Source: Lyricst Shakeel Badayuni, Singer Lata Mangeshkar from the film Mughal-e-Azam 123

Stretch is increasing productivity consistently

Nucor Corporation has created a culture of intense productivity, whereby five people do the work that ten do at other steel companies, and get paid like eight. The vision came to life through powerful catalytic mechanisms with teeth.

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Base hourly pay is 25% to 33% below the industry average People work in teams of 20 to 40; team productivity rankings are posted daily A bonus of 80% to 200% of base pay, based on team productivity, is paid weekly to all teams that meet or exceed productivity goals If you are five minutes late, you lose your bonus for the day If you are 30 minutes late, you lose your bonus for the week If a machine breaks down, thereby stopping production, there is no compensating adjustment in the bonus calculation If a product is returned for poor quality, bonus pay declines accordingly

Source: Turning Goals into Results, Jim Collins, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1999

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Stretch is conquering the mountain within I'll never forget one line from the interview of [Edmund Hillary]. I'd said something about his 'conquest' of Everest when Sir Ed, politely but firmly, cut me short: "You never conquer a mountain; the most you can ever hope to do is to try and conquer yourself." â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Khushwant Singh

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Stretch is an unfailing memory

There is an interesting story about Fischer’s [Bobby Fischer, chess world champion] memory. He once telephoned the Icelandic grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson, but there was no one at home but his small daughter. Fischer didn’t know a word of Icelandic, and she didn’t know a word of English. Fischer memorized parrotfashion everything the little girl said, rang up an Icelander he knew and asked him to translate. Imagine Olafsson’s surprise when Fischer telephoned exactly at the time his daughter had told him to. Source: Gary Kasparov – Unlimited Challenge

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CHRISTOPHER REEVE 1952 – 2004

"He never gave up. He told me, ‘so many of us able-bodied people’ are paralyzed in our own lives. He was not." Jane Seymour, Christopher Reeve’s co-star in the 1980 film Somewhere in Time 128