Concept Layout for a book for convocation addresses.

Convoca vocation through the

years

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2003

24 annual

th

convocation

HUMANIS OF TECHN SHRI SAM PITRODA Dear graduating students, Chairman of the Governing Council Hasmukh Shah, members of the Governing Council, Dr. Koshy, family, friends, faculty members, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. It is indeed a great pleasure to be invited to deliver this convocation address. I would begin by congratulating all the graduate students and wishing them the best in their future personal as well as professional careers. I want to apologize for the fact that you do not have a written speech. I was approached several times and I said that if I promise you a written speech I promise I will not deliver. I would rather look at the ambience see the settings and then make some points as to what I feel that needs to be said on the spot. So if I ramble a little bit you have to forgive me. I really want to open my mind in today’s setting. It is indeed an incredible setting I look at the back drop reflecting Indian tradition, I hear the noise from the birds combining nature and I see young graduating students with hope for the future.

To me design is all about celebration of life, festival, joy.

It is great to feel and touch a well designed product.

NID is a very well known world renowned institution. I had several interactions in the past when Ashoke Chatterjee was at the institution.

Unfortunately this is my first visit and I am indeed delighted to have the opportunity and honoured to be here to see an institute that has made a significant contribution to the world of design. To me design is all about celebration of life, festival, joy. It is great to feel and touch a well designed product. Design does deliver beauty and adding beauty in many ways is an important part of enlightenment, energy enthusiasm and excitement. Design is not about fashion nor is it about just one or two aspects. Design is about productivity, efficiency, cost reduction. Design is about delivery something at the end of the cycle that consumers can really enjoy using. Design is about simplicity, utility, ease of maintenance, people talk about zero defect design is also about how to recover from failures. Design has to touch hearts and minds of the users.

And design does help many-many different dimensions.

SATION NOLOGY |2003 India has had a great tradition in designs.

Look at the temples in Madurai, look at the Taj Mahal, monuments, Golden Temple, the colours, the costumes, the smells, the sounds all around from north to south, east to west reflect the design diversity of this country.

The past has been a very important part of the lessons we have learnt in designs in India. Unfortunately I find that it is not really reflected to the extent it should in modern India.

I was in Delhi yesterday I had to meet somebody. I had the address but I couldn’t find it. I spent 20 minutes and finally made a mobile call. I carry UK phone so call from here to UK and UK to Delhi and the gentleman said that the only way I can get you here is please tell me where you are and I will find you. He took a car came to me and finally we went to his house. Then I thought of design; where are the street signs where are the right maps, who do I ask? I see very poor designs all around us in India. I also see lots of rich designs.

Unfortunately so much around us is waiting for great designs.

This morning at the airport I saw a lady sweeping at 6 o’clock in the morning. The broom was not designed for airport sweeping.

It is the same broom that people probably used in this period (pointing at the monument in the background) still continues to be the tool in modern India. I get worried when we can’t bring good designs to our offices, to our furniture, to government filing cabinets, in daily use of products and services that large number of people use a good design is badly need. Somehow it doesn’t get the attention that it deserves. I have seen great Indian designers designing fancy watches but I have not seen a designer designing a new broom. And to me these are some of the challenges I want to talk about.

24TH ANNUAL CONVOCATION ADDRESS

However designing for masses require different feel and touch for the masses. It is not very paying to design products for the poor. World over the best of the best talents is busy solving problems of the rich and the problems of the poor don’t get the right talents which are tougher and more difficult problems to address. To get design into the masses whether it is a train compartment, I must tell you this that every time I take a train ride in India which is rare I spend two hours washing the compartment myself. I clean the windows, I fix the fans, I clean the seat and my wife always says, “You are crazy”. You need that level of madness to really reflect good design, to really provide a significant change that this country needs in products and services around us.

What it means is that we would need to interact with the government, NGOs, industry and we need to really look at roads in front of us, buildings in front of us. Go see some of the government offices in Delhi and see the furniture; cobwebs, drapes and you can see my god there is so much to be designed and redesigned. I don’t know why these things don’t get done. I don’t know why in this country we don’t pay attention to little details.

Perhaps because we are always looking for Brahminal work and working for the masses solving mundane dumb problems is basically shudra’s work. It is this class structure that we have in our minds that doesn’t allow us to address the real design problems of the masses.

You need that level of madness to really reflect good design, to really provide a significant change that this country needs in products and services around us.

NID must and will play an important role but it requires systematic thinking, structuring and it would require collaborations with manymany different institutions. Technology has been the driver for development. It is one thing to design a good x-ray equipment or computers it is another thing to design a good broom. To me today all of these things are becoming internal. In my business Information Technology the bubble that busted three years ago I believe had lot to do with poor design in the virtual world. I have given many speeches in the US on this. The virtual world will not reflect the real world and as a result it would not penetrate the masses. If you open your computer today it is very complex. All kinds of little programs, you get in and out of programs; word processor, accounting, spreadsheet. That is not how your mind works. The virtual world was disconnected from the real world and because of this the penetration went probably 3 or 4 percent and then it collapsed. Userfriendliness was lost.

Humanisation of technology really didn’t go as far as it should have gone. Same thing a cell phone. The big ones earlier were not really effective. Now today we have about 1.2 billion cell phones because the design is just about right for the human interaction. It did require multidisciplinary approach even for IT and telecom people to take simple design of mobile phone to billion people. The earlier cell phone I had was like a brick that I used to carry with me and leave it on the top of my table. There were very few phones like that and as you see the new versions of technology coming more and more attention is being paid to user interface; simplicity, humanisation of technology, feel and touch, holding, handling, look. All of these things are digital to routine and mundane things. In India especially in modern Indian uses all modern processes in products designed to some extent abroad.

But then how many people are working on internet to give you information on how to repair water pump. They will give you information on New York stock exchange on the internet in English. That is the design challenge in this country. It really starts with the change in the mindset. It starts with looking at problems differently. It starts with grass root realities. These are the things we know, these are all the things we talk about.

Somehow it doesn’t get done. To me it starts with mindset. How do we change this? With all our education with all our capabilities why is this country the way it is. Why our airports are really not to the standards, why isn’t it pleasing to go to public places? Every time I come to Ahmedabad this great city I always make comments on the dirt and filth and the garbage. It is the biggest village in the world.

And there is no reason for it.

Look at your television cameras, look at bulb, you look at all of the modern pieces of equipment unfortunately lot of these designs don’t reflect local conditions in India. It requires local solutions, indigenous development, it requires local applications.

For example internet. Internet cannot penetrate in this country a thin. It is in local language in addressing local problems. I remember working on Water Mission with Ashoke Chatterjee in the mid eighties. We had then whole series of issues related to repairing water pumps. We had to print little books on how to repair water pumps in 15 different languages.

The logistics of delivering, distributing and making it available in that language to the person who was supposed to repair was so compact that invariably the person in Kerala got the book printed in Gujarati. Internet gives you that ability to have easy access to information when you need it in the form you need it, multidimensional, local language instantly.

Three days ago I had requested for a meeting through some friends on garbage collection in Mumbai. To my surprise 35 people came and spent two hours with me including all the key people in the government chief secretary. And when we looked at the whole garbage collection system we realised that there are so many design pieces missing from container to broom to delivery system.

Design is not just about a specific product it is about the process. All our processes in this country are obsolete. Every process needs to be redesigned. How do you get an admission in school, how do you open a bank account, all of these things are waiting for a challenge for each one of you graduating students to attack. Your world has changed considerably.

The world that we lived in I graduated just about 40 years ago from MS University in Baroda. There were no computers, there was very little communication, I had never used the telephone in my life until I went to US. And you are exposed to all kinds of new technologies and gadgets, tools.

How do you use these to create a new world for yourself and for average person in India? This is the real challenge in front of you.

How do you use these to create a new world for yourself and for average person in India.

This is the real challenge in front of you. It will require a different mindset on your part.

It will require you to look at India differently.

Here is the tradition how do you change some of that. How do you build on that base to create modern India is going to be the biggest challenge for each one of our graduating students.

I want to finally make a comment on a great institution like this and what is happening today to some of our great institutions of learning. As I said earlier in the beginning NID is one of the best, best of the best in the world and we have several institutions like that; Ahmedabad had IIM as well. All our institutions are in danger of politicise.

Our institutions need more autonomy, more flexibility, more freedom to really bring best education to our students and really prepare them for the changing world of tomorrow.

Globalisation, free market economy demands, the whole different set of training.

That is probably not possible with excess control, government interventions. I think we need to leave education to people who educate. We need to leave real task to those who know. I am saying this because I have been reading in the papers for last few days on this topic and I thought that it would be important to comment on it. It has been with us just before this meeting in Dr. Koshy’s office.

We started chatting, this topic came up and it has been on my mind. I think we are trading on dangerous water if we don’t speak up at this time on real need for flexibility, autonomy at our universities and institutions. Finally I once again want to congratulate all of the graduating students, I want to wish them great success and I also want to tell them and warn them that the challenges in front of you are very different.

Then perhaps you think going into the market.

India looks to you to give us better products, products that make you feel good, products that we can take to masses and I have great confidence that the tools you have been given at this great institution will help you, help us in help India.

Thank you.

SPEAKER PROFILE//SHRI SAM PITRODA Mr. Pitroda came to the USA in 1964, after receiving an advance degree in Physics from India.

He studied Electrical Engineering in Chicago, worked at GTE and formed Wescom Switching, Inc. In 1980, Wescom was acquired by Rockwell International, where Mr. Pitroda became Vice President, overseeing Rockwell’s Telecom business world-wide; he held this position until 1983. In 1984, Mr. Pitroda returned to India and founded the Center for Development of Telematics. In 1987, he became advisor to the Prime Minister of India, with the rank of a Minister, on National Technology Missions related to Drinking Water, Literacy, Immunization, Oil Seeds, Milk and Telecom. Mr. Pitroda was the first founding Chairman of the Telecom Commission in India, responsible for National and International Telecom operations, policies and administration, with over 500,000 employees. Currently, Mr. Pitroda is the Chairman and CEO of World-Tel Limited, an International Telecom Union (ITU) initiative to build telecommunications infrastructure in emerging markets. He is also the Chairman and Founder of several high-technology start-up companies in the US, Europe and India. Mr. Pitroda is also the founding Chairman of a non-profit Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions in India. In 2000, Mr. Pitroda was invited by the Secretary General of the United Nations to join a special advisory committee, on Information and Communications Technology, to address the global Digital Divide. Mr. Pitroda holds over 50 world-wide patents and has lectured extensively on Telecom, Technology and Development, in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. He has been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs world over. In 1992, Mr. Pitroda’s biography was published and made it to the bestseller’s list in India. Mr. Pitroda has lived in Chicago, Illinois since 1964, with his wife Anu, son Salil and daughter Rajal.

1

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1st annual convocation

address

WALKING ONE’S INT PROF. RAVI J MATHA It is not merely a formality for me to say that I am most appreciative of your having invited me to deliver the Convocation Address, and I am particularly honoured since this is the first Convocation. I am still somewhat doubtful about the wisdom of inviting close friends to perform such formal roles on such formal occasions! Apart from any- thing else, it is not easy to keep a straight face. Also, I am a little apprehensive about saying all the flattering things I would like to say knowing that I will have to face your unblushingly tomorrow. I have attended many convocations.

Convocation speakers will often start by saying that they will not give you words of sage advice, but then proceed to do precisely the opposite. But I am going to start by saying that I am going to preach. Please bear in mind that I do not practise what I preach. So, just sit back and prepare yourselves for a sermon!

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The Swan Within I am sure all of you must have read or at least will have heard of Hans Anderson’s beautiful little fable of The Ugly duckling. I will recount this tale in an abridged form. The ugly duckling was hatched on a farm by a duck. The egg was much larger than a normal duck’s egg and the egg took much longer to hatch. And when the duckling emerged it was larger than most other ducklings, it was disproportionate, it was gawky, it was clumsy and it as altogether thoroughly grotesque. And all the birds, animals and people on the farm thought that it was a most terribly ugly duckling. They made its life so miserable that they drove it from the farm and it flew over the and went out into the wide, wide world feeling so very ugly, hopeless and useless. The ugly duckling went through many adventures, and all these adventures reinforced its feeling of being ugly, hopeless and useless. I will recount two of these adventures, which I particularly like.

G IN TEGRITY AI|1978 In the course of his wandering through the wide, wide world, he came upon a lake and on this lake he found some wild ducks. The ugly duckling went up to the wild ducks and asked whether he could join them on their journeys across the world, because ducks are migratory birds and they fly all over the place.

The wild ducks looked at the ugly duckling and said, “You are remarkably ugly, but that is nothing to us, so long as you do not marry into our family.”

Unfortunately that argument could not get very much further because there were hunters on the lake and bang-bang went the guns and the wild ducks dropped dead. The poor ugly duckling hid in the reeds and one of the hunter’s dogs came searching for the wild duck. It came across the ugly duckling, had one look at it and ran away.

But I am going to start by saying that I am going to preach.

Please bear in mind that I do not practise what I preach.

The poor ugly duckling thought, “I am so ugly that even dogs get frightened of me.”

And again the ugly duckling went off into the wide, wide world feeling even more ugly, even more hopeless and even more useless.

One evening he came to a tiny broken down hut, He found a place in a corner and went to sleep. In this hut there lived an old woman, a hen and a cat. When the old woman woke in the morning she saw the duck and said, “Ah! Now I will be able to eat duck’s eggs.”

And so the very superior hen asked the duckling, “Can you lay eggs?”

The duckling said, “No.” To which the hen said, “Then will you hold your tongue!” The cat asked, “Can you curve your back and purr and give out sparks?”

The ugly duckling said, “No.” The cat replied, “Then you will please have no opinion of your own when sensible folks are speaking.” But the ugly duck- ling said, “There is something I would dearly love to do. I would like to dive into a pond of water and allow the cool water to close over my head and swim about.” The hen and the cat were absolutely shocked.

“Dive into water?” asked the hen. “Do you think the cat, which is the cleverest animal I know, likes to swim? Do you think the old lady dives into water and lets it close over her head?” But the ugly duckling said, “I am awfully sorry, but I am afraid you don’t understand me.”

And the hen said, “We don’t understand you?

We who have opened our doors to you, we who have given you a roof over your head, we who have given you the warmth of our fire, we who have offered our friendship-we don’t understand you? You are an unpleasant chatterer. Did you not fall into company from which you could learn? I speak for your own good. I tell you disagreeable things and by that you may know your true friends. Only learn how to lay eggs, curve your back, purr and give out sparks.”

We are constantly looking for the swan in us and we never find all of it.

So the poor ugly duckling said, “Oh dear, there is no future for me here, I had better go off into the wide world.” “Yes, do go,” replied the hen.

And once again the ugly duckling went off into the wide wide world, feeling even more ugly, even more hopeless and even more useless.

One day it came to a river and on the river it saw three of the most beautiful birds that it had ever seen. Children on the banks of the river were clapping their hands with joy and people were feeding the birds with bread. The ugly duckling had a tremendous yearning to join them and so he spread his wings and sailed on to the river. And as he landed, he saw his reflection in the water. And what he saw was the most beautiful snow-white bird, with a magnificent arched neck, even more beautiful than the beautiful birds on the river. All the people on the banks clapped their hands and said, “Look, we have a new swan and it is even more beautiful than the others.” And the three swans swam up to the ugly ducking, folded him in their wings and took him to them.

That is the story of how the ugly duckling grew up and came to realise himself.

All of us throughout our lives go through the same process as the ugly duckling. Our stories don’t have an end until the grave. We are constantly looking for the swan in us and we never find all of it. The ugly duckling perhaps was lucky. But we find new environments, we find new contexts, we find new problems, we find new approaches, we discover new capabilities in ourselves, and we are until we die, constantly looking for the swan in us.

Perhaps as is the case with yesterday’s ugly duckling and today’s growing swans, so is the case with institutions that nurture them.

As someone interested in the building of institutions, I have watched the growth and development of the National Institute of Design for now just less than IS years - ever since I came to Ahmedabad. It has been through very difficult times. But it started with excellent ideas and concepts.

However, it was subjected to most trying circumstances and perhaps, as though tempered with fire, I think it came out stronger on each occasion and its community, I hope, wiser as it searched and struggled for its identity. NID has many strengths. But I could hasten to qualify that, with caution that in every strength there lies the seed of a corresponding weakness. It is frequently the case that success is the cause of failure.

I think there are three very significant factors, amongst others, which relate to the identity of an educational institution: its organisational culture, its educational philosophy and the range of opportunities and roles, which it perceives for itself in the environment which it serves.

By culture I mean the sets of values, the beliefs, the norms, the attitudes which determine the patterns of behaviour within an organisation, attitudes towards the institutions, attitudes towards tasks, attitudes towards working relations, attitudes towards your peers, attitudes towards the environment, towards creativity, innovativeness, imagination, attitudes towards power and the use of authority, attitudes towards leadership - all these intangibles which go to make the character of an institution as much as they go to make the character of the people within that institution. And as the character of the people within the institution grows so only they and they alone can build the character of the institution.

Many years ago, there was a document written and circulated in NID, which, I think, was written, by Gira and Gautam Sarabhai. A significant and important document relating to the organisation of the Institute, it used the phrase ‘joint responsibility’ I would like to try to design and weave a cultural tapestry using the strands that I can extract from these two words: joint responsibility.

I accept the responsibility in the context of an organisation when I agree to undertake a task; I accept the responsibility for the completion of that task. Every task has an objective. I therefore accept that objective. In the context of an institution, that task is a part of the overall function of the institution.

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I think there are three very significant factors, amongst others, which relate to the identity of an educational institution.

I have therefore accepted the institution. The institution has an objective and the objective of that task must be consonant with the objective of the institution. I have therefore accepted the objective of the institution. Every task has a content and character to it. It might be, for example, the conduct of an educational programme. I have accepted that content of the task. By the very nature of the content it must have a boundary, which specifies the content, and therefore have I accepted the boundary. Every organisation has a pattern of behaviour by which it suggests behaviour that is appropriate or not appropriate to the performance of its tasks. It may be that it is accepted that the wisest use of authority is the most sparing use of it. It may be that we do not use coercion. We use persuasion. On the positive side it may be that the task demands more initiative than otherwise, more creativity.

I have accepted the positive aspects of the behaviour by which we accomplish these institutional tasks. In accepting, therefore, a responsibility, I accept the task. I accept the aim of the institution. I accept the content of the task, the boundary of the task and I accept the modes of behaviour by which those tasks are best accomplished within that institutional framework.

Its organisational culture, its educational philosophy and the range of opportunities and roles, which it perceives for itself in the environment which it serves.

When I use the word ‘joint’ it would imply that there is more than one person involved in that task. There are groups involved in the execution of the task and I have accepted therefore to work in a group. While I will never sacrifice my individuality, while I have accepted the responsibility, my individuality cannot express itself adequately unless I learn to work in a group. You must have seen nesting tables where tables of different sizes fit into one another. Similarly you have hierarchy of tasks.

It could be running the whole institution. The next level could be conducting the educational programme. The next level at NID could be conducting the ‘foundation’ part of the educational programme. The next level could be conducting a course in the ‘foundation’ programme. These are hierarchical tasks.

But they all must have a consonance in their objectives. Similarly there are parallel tasks - education, research, consulting, extension, work in the workshop. All these tasks have a commonality by virtue of the fact that they serve the same over- all set of institutional activities and aim at the same institutional goal. This commonality is what underpins ‘joint responsibility’.

It is easier said than understood. And one of the greatest problems in any institution is trying to bring about this commonality. If there is ambiguity, it must be discussed. It must be discussed threadbare until there is standing.

But in understanding, we have to be able to listen to others. It is common that we are aware but we do not hear. It is common that we hear but we do not listen. It is common that we listen but will not or cannot understand.

In such discussions, we need to listen with what my behavioural scientist friends call “listening with the third ear,” making the effort to understand another person’s point of view.

Perhaps the most beautiful description of this is the parable of the Sower and the Seed in the Bible, which talks of understanding as understanding from the heart. It is this understanding that is required in the course of the “give and take” which Smt Jayakar mentioned. This give and take is necessary if joint responsibility is to mean anything.

If responsibility is to be joint, then every member of the community must have the opportunity of understanding and accepting a responsibility. Responsibility is not the prerogative of the so-called seniors by whatever criteria that seniority be established.

If you are a senior professor and I am a junior professor, that seniority does not make you any more capable of running an education programme than 1. Your seniority is irrelevant to the task. But as a junior faculty member if at all I accept the notion of joint responsibility, then I have accepted the responsibility of undertaking important academic administrative tasks, just as the senior has accepted the responsibility of helping me, a junior accomplish them.

There is reciprocity, mutuality and a mutual concern between us to see that the job is done and if in any way, I as a junior am incapable or am inadequate to the task, it is the obligation of my seniors to develop me. That is basic to the idea of joint responsibility.

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If a person is to feel responsible he must have the elbow- room to make decisions. To that extent the institution must provide him with the conditions under which he can find and earn autonomy in carrying out his responsibility.

Autonomy like freedom is not just assumed. It is earned and won every week, every month, every year. The poet James Lowell perhaps described this excellently in his poem on Freedom. He wrote: “We are not free: Freedom doth not consist In musing with our faces forward the Past.

While petty cares, and crawling interests, twist Their spider-threads about us, which at least Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and blind In formal narrowness heart, soul and mind, Freedom is recreated year by year ...”

Later in the same poem he writes: “Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours; Men gather but dry seeds of last year’s flowers.”

Such to my mind is the nature of autonomy, and our attitude towards it is a part of the institution’s culture. To develop such a culture requires a great deal of organisational flexibility. The only way this flexibility can be brought about and sustained, and this perhaps underlines the whole process of bringing about joint responsibility, is the exercise of self-discipline within the institution’s community rather than the imposition of authoritarian discipline from above. Whether in terms of building the Institute or in terms of accomplishing a more limited task, if we, as a community accept that these are tasks for which we are jointly responsible, then we must understand the nature of responsibility and autonomy and the restraints they imply.

We must also understand that the working relationship in the Institute must be based on mutual concern and support underpinned by self-discipline.

The second factor that I mentioned relates to the educational philosophy. There is not an institution concerned with applied knowledge that imparts professional skills where I have not heard the unending and age-long argument about ‘theory’ and ‘practice’. Perhaps it started when the first system of formal education came into contact with the guild and the apprenticeship systems. It will probably continue until doomsday. I have heard this argument on this campus and on many other campuses. The substantive outcome of the argument may be important. But what certainly is important is the fact that this argument takes place. If the institution legitimises the fact that the argument should take place then implicitly it has accepted as part of its educational philosophy that its educational programme must be constantly reviewed and hanged as circumstances warrant such change. And it is these arguments and discussions that will bring this review about. By discussing it on this campus, you implicitly accept change as part of your educational philosophy. This is as it should be. Over time new balances need to be brought about between theory and practice.

Every institution in every different profession during each phase of its growth will have its own appropriate balance.

And one of the greatest problems in any institution is trying to bring about this commonality. If there is ambiguity, it must be discussed.

Every institution in different environments and contexts will have its own balance, and every institution as it develops will keep alive through its discussions the search for a new balance all the while.

A similar argument relates to ‘education’ and ‘experience’. These are not substitutable.

They complement each other and supplement each other, I thank God that I do not have to discover the laws of demand and supply all over again. I might have to spend the rest of my life doing it. I am sure we are all thankful that we don’t have to wait apprehensively under very crow on a mango tree waiting for Newton’s gravitational inspiration to strike us.

In fact, when I come to think of it, Newton was rather lucky with his apple.

I am equally thankful that when I get into my bath tub, I do not have to discover as new as to why the level of the water rises, causing me to leap out of the tub and rush through the streets of Ahmedabad shouting the Gujarati equivalent of “eureka” - whatever the Gujarati equivalent of “eureka” may be. But however much or however little each one of us might assimilate from the vast accumulation of human knowledge, to that extent we lay a base for ourselves from which we enhance the value of experience.

Let me illustrate this by taking your example.

The fact that anyone of you has been through the National Institute of Design for five and a half years does not make you a better designer than some one who has not. But I will say this.

If you come to this Institute with a desire to learn, with a real interest in learning, and have at your disposal the resources and facilities of NID for five and a half years, then I would say that you are an utter moron if by the end of that period you have not become sensitised to far more aspects of design that would have been the case had you been denied this advantage. If then I put such a person from NID together with a person who is not from the Institute simultaneously into an identical set of circumstances, I would expect the NID person to be far more sensitive to myriad more factors than the other person. And so I would expect the NID person to gain for more value from that experience than the person who has not had this facility for five and a half years. Thus education enhances the value of experience.

If you look at a part of your working life as a series of such experiences then from each experience you gain that much more as a result of your education. You are then accelerating your process of learning and this is what education is about.

While in such an Institute as this it is necessary to gain knowledge, in an institution concerned with the application of knowledge and the development of professional skills, it is also necessary to learn how to use knowledge.

To use the phrase of one of my friends in this audience, it is not enough to learn the mantras of the profession. Articulation is no substitute for doing. And by doing, you discover much more than new facts of knowledge and problems of implementation. By doing you discover your own capabilities or the lack them. By doing you discover as to whether you have the capability of making the leap from the point here analysis ends to the point where solutions begin. Have you the capacity to bridge the gap from where knowledge ends and inspiration beings? Have you the capacity to bridge the gap from where science ends and art beings? This is the value of doing: to learn what no book can provide - the discovery of your own capabilities.

Every institution in every different profession during each phase of its growth will have its own appropriate balance.

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Again, it is necessary to learn knowledge, it is necessary to learn the use of knowledge and by doing, learn of your own capabilities.

These are processes that interact. If you learn more knowledge, you will, hopefully, learn more from experience and in doing so will increase your desire and ability to assimilate knowledge, and both aspects will be influenced by the process of discovering yourself. You become aware of knowledge.

You search for that knowledge. You assimilate that know- ledge and you learn to use it. The common thread throughout these interacting processes is the process of learning itself. So what is even more important in the educational philosophy is the emphasis on learning how to learn - learning how, in the course of your working life, you can increase your rate, intensity and quality of learning.

In such a system the onus rests squarely on the learner. And that is very inconvenient.

If the onus is on you, you have no one to blame but yourself. If I have to go through this process with the onus of my learning wholly and squarely on me, this would be the surest and quickest way for me to discover my inadequacies and limitations. Discovering this is painful and frustrating. It is a common and understandable human reaction to transfer that pain and frustration on to people who can be most easily hurt. We choose the most susceptible and vulnerable. At home it is our parents. But here it is our teachers and our institution. The only ones we can hurt are those who care for us. Those who are indifferent we cannot hurt.

The only ones we can hurt are those who care for us. Those who are indifferent we cannot hurt.

Once again, as I mentioned in relation to the institutional culture, the only basis on which the culture for self-learning can exist is within a framework of institutional flexibility, which can only be ensured by self-discipline and not by the discipline imposed from above.

The development of these attitudes is a slow process. It cannot occur overnight. But it is a process through which we will have to go, if we want to achieve self-expression within a self-regulatory system.

While in such an Institute as this it is necessary to gain knowledge, in an institution concerned with the application of knowledge and the development of professional skills, it is also necessary to learn how to use knowledge.

To use the phrase of one of my friends in this audience, it is not enough to learn the mantras of the profession. Articulation is no substitute for doing. And by doing, you discover much more than new facts of knowledge and problems of implementation. By doing you discover your own capabilities or the lack them. By doing you discover as to whether you have the capability of making the leap from the point here analysis ends to the point where solutions begin. Have you the capacity to bridge the gap from where knowledge ends and inspiration beings? Have you the capacity to bridge the gap from where science ends and art beings? This is the value of doing: to learn what no book can provide - the discovery of your own capabilities.

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Lastly, I mention the range of opportunities and roles of the Institute in relation to the environment. There was a time when many people thought that NID was concerned with products of large industry. The faculty and the students of this Institute have, over these many years, demonstrated that their concerns are far wider. The Institute has widened its perspectives, the canvas is broader, and the pictures and designs get more complex. The Institute deals with industry; it deals with urban development; it deals with the physically handicapped; it deals with the environment; it deals with infrastructure; it deals with rural development. It is building a wide spectrum of opportunities, which the Institute offers to every creative person who legitimately takes part in its activities.

But every individual cannot be everything to everybody. The National Institute of Design does not produce universal men and women.

Each individual in this institutional framework will make his or her choice. They will make their choice not through the bludgeoning of the populist demagogy of small carrion minds who would like to use educational institutions for limited personal purposes. The Institute’s designers will hopefully, make their choice because they believe in them. You designers are the link between the substantial shapes and forms of the output of science and technology and the poetry of human sensitivities and needs. That poetry demands that your choices are honest, to yourselves and honest to the needs of the country that gave you the opportunity to learn. Walt Whitman once wrote, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he absorbs it.” In terms of such choices, I hope it can be justifiably claimed by anyone concerned with NID, as I hope it can be claimed by the institution itself, “Judge me Oh Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity!”

And so at long last I end this sermon with love and best wishes to the growing ugly ducklings of NID. I hope you never cease to look for the swan in you.

You designers are the link between the substantial shapes and forms of the output of science and technology and the poetry of human sensitivities and needs.

SPEAKER PROFILE// PROF. RAVI J MATHAI Prof. Ravi J Matthai (S.A. Hons, Oxon) worked in industry as a senior executive for eleven years, after which he moved to the education profession in April 1963 as a Senior Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. While with IIMC, he was also Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) from February 1964 to December 1964.

Prof. Matthai was invited to take over the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, as Director, in August 1965 and continued in this capacity until September 1972 when he relinquished the Directorship, but continued to work as a professor in the same institution.

A member of the Second Press Commission appointed by the Government of India and associated with many corporate, educational and research organisations, Prof. Matthai was also involved in an action-cum-research project on institution building, and experimented with linking rural education with development Prof. Matthai was a guiding force in NID’s experiments in organisation, and in the application of industrial design to community needs, through ‘The Rural University’.

He was a member of the Governing Council of the Institute from 1974 until his untimely demise in 1984.

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35 annual

th

convocation

address

EVEN THE WANTS TO SOMETHIN SHRI SHEKHAR GUP Thank you very much, I know what that applause was about that’s because Anand you sold me to them as an entertainer. It is like the 1960s Meena Kumari film which used to get very serious five minutes into the film, in fact my mother would take two handkerchiefs to watch a Meena Kumari film. But every half an hour when things got too serious Johnny Walker would appear from somewhere and do a little jig, “Jaane kahan mera, jigar gaya ji...” so maybe I am that comic interlude that he promised you. So thank you very much I will never complain about applause.

So Anand thank you very much for asking me to be here, Director Vyas and ladies and gentlemen, and as they say on Indigo airlines these days, boys and girls which is more apt for this audience. When I was coming here this morning I had no speech, I have no speech, I could have inflicted a one hour speech on you but I don’t think you want me to do that.

Anytime people ask me if I have a written speech I remind them of a cartoon Dennis the Menace cartoon, a famous one which I always showed my children and then my children began showing it to me. It is basically Dennis talking to his baby sitter and saying, “Do I get to eat more chocolate or do you really want to earn your living?” So that is my question.

Do you really want to be inflicted a one hour written speech or you want me to do my own thing. So please let me do my own thing. I am very happy to chat with you.

E BRICK O BE NG PTA|2014 So in the morning when I was wondering I don’t have a speech, I don’t know what to say, I am the most un-design like person to come to the National Institute of Design I would have never passed the entrance exam here. I could never draw two straight lines. So what am I doing here? So in fact I tweeted, I am new on Twitter, my day 108, so I tweeted saying looking forward to giving this speech here and blamed Anand Mahindra and Pradyumna Vyas for it. And somebody replied to all of us saying, “Oh! To err is human.” I said good point. To which I then replied, “But to forgive is ‘Design’”. And then I thought yeh samaj aayega ki nai ayega? So just to idiot-proof it I added, “Isn’t that apt to say from NID.”

I think any designer, anybody who designs anything in life has to struggle, has to fight between form and content.

Now I was thinking that I thought I designed a quick four word repartee. But I still had to idiot-proof it. So is there some thought there and the thought that came to my mind was that this is always a challenge of design, the form and the content. I think any designer, anybody who designs anything in life has to struggle, has to fight between form and content. And the basic challenge of design is to manage form with content. And you find in various professions including mine as generations changed, as times changed, as attitudes changed, as history changes sometimes one gets precedence over the other but none wins permanently.

Because if that was the case then boxes made of ticky tacky would have won and they would have been ruling us in these beautiful campuses would not be there and we would not be sitting under this shadow of trees and you will all be wearing those awful robes which I tell you all smell because they are rented by the hour to college after college. I have been inside them and I turn up my nose before I put that hat on because I see the inside of it and I can see these sort of DNA evidence of many crimes of the past. So creativity always follows us wherever we go and if we are gifted with a bit more creativity than others or if we are so gifted that we get to come to an institution like yours then it’s our responsibility to spread that creativity outwards.

Anand talked about anecdotes. I will tell you stories. Who am I? I am just a journalist, I am a reporter. I have so much fun in my life because people make my life so much fun. Whether I meet an 85 year old, 87 year old Sitaram Kesri, everybody poured contempt on him. But I think I learnt more from him than anybody else and he gave me more stories in my life than anybody else. Or a 93 year old Ustad Bismillah Khan.

People ask me which was the most interesting walk the talk I tell them the most fulfilling walk the talk was Ustad Bismillah Khan.

At the age of 93 when forget walking he could not even get up from his bed. And he was incoherent and I can tell you this the only walk the talk I have paid for in 13 years more than 500 walk the talks was Ustad Bismillah Khan because he said, “Beta aap aa gaye ho Ustad ko? Bina nazarane ke kaise hoga?” So I said, “Ustadji, I will give you my entire fee for this episode. And next morning I took it in envelope and gave it to him and he took it as a nazarana. And what did he say, I mean he said many things, I think if you can find that on Youtube, you will find that on NDTV’s website, I think it is the finest lecture anybody can give you on secularism in India. Because I asked him ki itne log Banaras se Pakistan mein gaye san 47 (1947) mein aap kyon Pakistan mein nai gaye? Bole, “Bhai main Pakistan kaise jata?

Wahan mera Banaras hai kya?” I said good point, Banaras toh Nai hai.

Content is your prayer. Anybody can soullessly recite a mantra but it has no meaning until is sung like your group had sung before the beginning of this ceremony.

Then he said ki dekho main sangeet, music kaise karoon? Main toh Bhairavi karta hoon.

Bhairavji ke bina Bhairavi nai kar sakta. Toh Musalmaan hoon, Namaz bhi padhta hoon lekin jab Bhairavi bolta hoon, jab sangeet bajata hoon toh Shivji ka dhyan bhi rakhna padhta hai. Toh maine kaha, “Lekin aap Banaras mein bhi rehte hain but can you go to a temple an do it” he said, “Nai, nai, nai.

Mujhe jaane ke liye mana kar diya ki aap Musalmaan hai, nai ja saktein.” Toh maine kaha ki phir aap kya kartein hain? “Arrey bhai main peeche jata hoon mandir ke woh joh Shivji ka rakha hai na murty wagerah, woh deewar ke saath hai. Main peeche se jaake deewar ko haath laga deta hoon. Kyon ki Shivji ki puja ke bina toh Bhairavi nai hai.” Now, devout Muslim.

Then I asked him ki Sir yeh bataein ki Iran mein kuch Maulvion ne kaha hai ki sangeet jo hai, music jo hai yeh sacrilege hai, yeh against God, against religion hai. Toh he said something so wonderful to me and again I remembered that coming a design institute today, he said, “Arre bhai, awaz toh Allah ko, Bhagwan ko sab wohi lagatein hain, sab wohi baat kehtein hai, meri baat suno, mera kuch kar do, lekin aap mandir mein jaate ho toh aap musically boltein ho, sangeet mein bhajan karke boltein ho ya kirtan karte ho ya aarti kartein ho. Similarly Maulvi jab mazjid ki minar pe jaata hai toh woh music mein bolta hai ‘Allah hu Akhbar’. Kabhi woh bina music ke bolta hai? Usne kaha agar bina music ke bologay toh Allah bhi nahi sunega chahe kisi naam se marzi bulalo usko.”

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So what was he telling you, he was telling you the same balance of content and form. Content is your prayer. Anybody can soullessly recite a mantra but it has no meaning until is sung like your group had sung before the beginning of this ceremony. So it is combining form with content. That is what design is all about. And it works in every field of life and every walker of life including mine, mine sort of philistine life.

But I will come to that in a couple of minutes.

Look, what was the first design I saw when I opened my eyes as maybe as a young kid, it was in Chandigarh, it was being built in the late 50s, I was born in 1957. It was being built in the late 50s; everybody thought it was a model city. It was being built by Le Corbusier the great architect, and we thought wow a clean city with trees, with sectors, with numbers. I got educated in Chandigarh I finished my education in Chandigarh, I fell in love in Chandigarh, I got married in Chandigarh, worked in Chandigarh.

I go to Chandigarh often, my mother in law which is our only surviving parent, lives there, but I hate Chandigarh now because I find Chandigarh such a design disaster. It is so soulless. Chandigarh represents architecturally and in terms of design exactly what is wrong with India’s society because it is so hierarchical.

Somebody tells me his address, the name of his sector I can tell you what is his station in his life.

Sector 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 rich people, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 judges and ministers, then as you go again and again, so it is so hierarchical that the city has no soul. It has no soul to the extent that there are no street names, there are no house names, so everybody has a sector number and a street number. In fact I remember there was a Punjabi poet on our campus who once wrote a poem on the agony of the rural students who come to the University. To the University’s impersonal environment, he doesn’t speak much English, so he feels very alienated. And the poem in Punjabi was a bit like ‘Mera koi naa nai, mera ek roll number,’ ‘I don’t have a name I just have a roll number. And then he says ‘Mera koi ghar nai’, ‘I have no address’, ‘Mera ek room number’, ‘I just have a room number’.

So I go to Chandigarh and I find nobody has any address here. I am sector this and sector this. Alright it is city built on grids but it is just sector this and sector this, it’s soulless.

So anything that is soulless, any design that is soulless is content with no form. And that is why I want to rebuild Chandigarh. It is an outrageous thought but I want to rebuild Chandigarh.

Then come to the city in which I live now Delhi. Delhi is a design monstrosity. I know that Professor K.T. Ravindran is here, he has headed the Delhi Urban Arts Council for a long time, to try and protect what’s there in Delhi. If I saved Humayun’s life from drowning in river Jamuna, although I don’t think who can drown in river Jamuna these days, and he offered me the kingdom of Delhi for one day the only thing I would like done is to demolish Lutyens’ Delhi, because what is Lutyens’ Delhi, it is a stratified caste based compound I call it India’s Kremlin, because the number of your house, the street, the size of your house determines your station in life.

And those must be preserved as they are and the rest of us in Delhi have been condemned to the mercy of DDA which I call Delhi Destruction Authority. And I am sure every city in India has an equivalent. And then you have these housing colonies HIG, MIG, LIG - high income group, middle income group, lower income group.

Now they are soulless, they are designless, they are pointless, thoughtless, every government colony tells you the person’s rank, they demean you, they reduce your quality of life to mere survival. And they make it impossible to redesign them in future. Look at New York. Brooklyn used to be a rough district.

Brooklyn is now the sexiest district of New York which has been rebuilt, rediscovered, it is the place to be. If you are creative, if you are rich, if you are rich and your pretence to be creative you go to Brooklyn. Look at what was called the meat packing district in Manhattan. I have seen it on my first visit to New York, it was just a meat packing district. It is now the most fancy address in that city. But can you rebuild the Vasant Kunj of Delhi, you cannot do it. Can you rebuild Lutyens’ Delhi, Delhi Urban Arts Community will not let you do it. The fact is that since 1940s I don’t think we have built 50 buildings or 50 structures or 50 designs in this country of any kind that we want to preserve.

On the other hand when you go around India you go to the most remote villages of India I saw students here from the northeast, I saw a girl obviously from Assam she was wearing a pat silk saree, I lived three years in Assam so I know little bit about Assam. Wherever you go you will find not just weaves, artefacts, handicrafts, you find that in anything people do with their homes and anything the poorest people do in their homes there is a sense of design and aesthetics. You find it in our Rangolis, you go to the south you find in the way people decorate their homes for festivals, you even find in the way in the south they cut the raw pumpkin and hang it outside their homes to save you from evil eye or whatever, every Indian believes in design and creativity.

And yet India by and large overall makes such a mess of design and creativity. How does that happen? I think that happens because somewhere in the middle of all this the State gets in, the Government gets in.

So anything that is soulless, any design that is soulless is content with no form.

This Sunday I was at a lunch at the officer’s mess for CISF, Central Industrial Security Force, which frisks us at airports. It is in the midst of a new Government complex in Delhi called CGO complex, Central Government of Offices complex. Most of the paramilitary forces, many intelligence agencies including RAW, almighty RAW are there. You look up and you see those buildings. I mean I want to ask Professor Ravindran how were those buildings allowed to be built? This is Lutyens’ Delhi, we had unlimited money, this is where the Brits built something we are trying to preserve but this is where CPWD has built this 21st century disaster. What kind of self-respect can people have working there, it’s crowded, it’s filthy, it has bad paint. Then I was told it’s is because of the L1 business that you know you have to get the cheapest contractor, cheapest architect, cheapest this and that. So it is the State in our country which has got into our lives and taken and sucked out our creativity.

And yet it’s the same State that set up institutions like these. How did that happen because you found creative people, Ahmedabad was lucky it had a creative family here, the Sarabhais, right. And I keep saying that bad viruses are the most infectious viruses but Anand good viruses are also quite highly infectious because if once somebody comes and spreads a good virus others pick it up.

Ahmedabad today takes a great pride in its design, in its weaves, in its embroidery, in the homes of its people, that is what builds a heritage of creativity going forward.

My own experience, I am a reporter when I worked for the India Today magazine for the first time we had a wonderful photo editor called Raghu Rai. Raghu Rai was a star. I mean all of you are maybe too young or too innocent to know about Raghu Rai but a reporter going out with Raghu Rai was Raghu Rai accompanied by some reporter. He was a superstar photographer in India. And at every news meeting he would want all the words thrown out of the magazine and for the magazine to be filled with just pictures. And anytime you said Raghu what is it, words are need, he will give you his lecture same lecture. He will say, “Dekho tum words likhte ho na yaar yeh etein hain, yeh bricks hai.

Aur jo main photo lata hoon woh khidkiyan hai they are windows, they are doors, they are ventilators. Unse hawa aati hai.” So we found a balance. Some bricks were needed some windows were needed, some words were needed some pictures were needed. So form and content found their balance and I think we created magic.

But sometimes interesting situations developed.

In 1983 I was covering Assam those days and that was a very violent year in Assam. In the elections nearly 7000 people were killed including three and a half thousand in one massacre over a few hours in a village called Nellie. That massacre unfortunately is still the touchstone of what can be the worst possible massacre in India’s history post partition. Now I covered, I broke the story of that massacre, it became a very big international story, it had also come out when Common Wealth heads of the Government Summit was going on in Delhi so Indira Gandhi got very upset and particularly with those who had got the story out in public.

Arun Shourie who is my mentor and teacher had by then been fired for the first time from the Indian Express. He got hired and fired again later. But he had just been fired and he was in touch with me and he said to me in Punjabi, “Shekhar if I come there to Assam for some time can we find evidence probably that some intelligence fellow had sent out warnings that this massacre was going to be carried out and they were ignored”. So I said Sir but why are you so sure that something like that will be there. He said, “Look I know how Government of India works. I am a Government officer’s son, I am sure in Government of India one thing that everybody does is to cover his backside. So I am sure somebody sent out a warning and I am quite sure somebody is hanging on to that warning in some records because there will be inquiries tomorrow.” So I said you come. So he came and I worked with him. And no I will not tell you the long story I wrote about it this year, I write a series called First Person Second Draft when I revisit some of the stories I covered earlier and I have mentioned this in detail there.

So design is also about comfort, design is also about life, design is also about soul and finally design is about another quality.

But basically he knew that there was a document. There was a wireless message sent by the SHO or the officer commanding of Nagaon police station saying that these people were gathering, he was a Muslim, nobody paid attention to it and massacre took place. So he said but we have to get the smoking gun, we have to get that wireless message. And he said to me dekh tu aur main likh dengay and people will trust us because we have trust.

But that is only content. For us to establish the story we need that wireless if not that wireless we need its picture. Now he didn’t say it then but I am saying now that was the form which was needed to establish the content. So I went Nagaon one late evening it had got dark by then I went to the police station, I asked for the SHO they said he has become very devout now he has grown a beard and he has gone to the mosque to pray. So I went to the mosque and I found him sitting alone and praying. And I told him who I was and what my purpose was and he said you have come and asked me in the mosque and you have come to look for the truth how can I say no to you.

So he took me to the police station he opened his log book and I can mention it now because he has been long dead. He opened his log book and I then discovered that Nagaon had no such thing as a photocopier. So with a Minolta while he held two bulbs I took 100s of pictures I think I have burnt 10 films of that document and that became the smoking gun.

So unless we had found that form the content we had would not had made one hundredth of the impact because anybody can say my warnings were ignored. Anytime there is a terror incident in India you will find a story the same evening when five TV channels same reporter saying intelligence had already sent a warning and this is my exclusive. But in this case this was needed.

So life keeps changing, my life has changed as a journalist. When we went to journalism schools I were given some formulas I am sure you’ve been given formulas at your institute of design. My formulas were that any new story has to be an inverted pyramid: most important thing at the top then less important, then less important, then less important, then less important. So if the desk editor is in a hurry at the end he can just lop off paragraphs from the bottom and nobody should notice. And that’s how it was done because in the old days when you had hot metal type the foreman read the type in reverse like this with thick glasses and said isko nikal do, isko nikal do, isko nikal do.

The other thing that we were taught was that news has six elements, five ‘Ws’ and one ‘H’. What are the five ‘Ws’: what, where, who, why, when and the H is how. But what’s happened now. Now, what, where, who, when have disappeared from my life as a journalist because everybody knows what these four ‘Ws’ before I know usually. Even my rickshaw driver knows it before I do. Cricket score kya hai, agar Gujarat hai toh stock market ka price kya hai, aaj sensex ka ya kahin par terror attack hua hai, ya Modiji ne kahan kya bola hai sab usko pata hota hai. So I have to now transit to why, how, and invent a new ‘W’, ‘what next’. I bet the same thing happens with all of you with design. I know maybe I am talking a bit more of architecture but that’s the thing that hits your eye most of all. I mean it really bugs me that I find so many new buildings in India being built by the same cookie cutter architecture school in Singapore because everybody says who is your architect, it is a firm from Singapore. And they all build these similar things.

I mean you talk about ticky tocky in America look at the city of Bombay. I think a couple of architects have ruined the entire skyline of Bombay. Some of the most expensive buildings in Bombay are the ugliest in terms of design and they are the most uncomfortable to live in.

I mean I will tell you a building with my sense of outrageous not humour but black humour and I will say it here, it is a convocation and if you want to know why go back to an article I wrote from Bombay under the series ‘Writings on the Wall’ there I mentioned Hafeez Contractor, I call that building Asha Parekh twin towers. This is the Shapoorji Pallonji Imperial gardens, you cannot find a room in that building which is a rectangle or a square.

Everything has funny angles. And you have to be a specially talented architect to achieve that. But I don’t think that was the purpose. The purpose was somehow to put something into a computer and something came out from the other end and you sold it to people who didn’t understand what was going on. Someone like me will have broken shins in those homes once a month.

So design is also about comfort, design is also about life, design is also about soul and finally design is about another quality. It is a rare privilege today that I get to speak to design students and design faculty, usually I am invited to speak at journalism schools.

And when I go there people ask me the same question even if I go to ordinary normal schools to give prizes people ask the same question, what are the essential qualities for a journalist and I say we can teach you everything. Writing, meeting people, developing contacts, everything we can teach you but you have to bring one thing with you.

And that one thing is, can anybody guess what is that? That is curiosity. It is not luck it is curiosity. I am journalist because I am curious.

I love my job every day. Every passing day I love it even more because I am curious. If one thing has changed in my life it is that I travel less and less overseas now. Because I am realizing that any time I spend overseas I miss seeing so many interesting things in my country because this is the most rapidly changing, the most diverse, the most wonderful country in the world.

So many castes, religions, languages, foods, determinant of identities in India change every 100 miles. So this is a wonderful India that you are stepping into.

When I was looking at the parade of all of you talented students graduates, what are you called grandaunts or graduates? Graduates.

And I could say that look in which other country will you have so many people looking so different so diverse as if each one has been individually designed by God. It is true about India. And frankly I have only one dispute with the founding fathers of our country. The founding fathers of our country got everything else right but they gave us the wrong slogan.

They gave us the slogan ‘Unity in diversity’.

I think they should withdraw that slogan and if it takes a constitutional amendment we should pass that. We should have a new slogan ‘Celebrate diversity’ because what is design, design is about diversity. Creativity is about diversity. No society, no country, no system in the world is such a fertile ground for creativity and design as India. So many castes, religions, languages, foods, determinant of identities in India change every 100 miles. So this is a wonderful India that you are stepping into.

And since I talked about curiosity I will end with my favourite story which I sometimes tell and which Anand just reminded me of, we were sitting there and he said that when I look at this architecture I think of Le Corbusier and I think of Louis Kahn and I want to go back to architecture school. And it is a story from a film which many of you may not have seen, in fact some of you may not have even been born when the film came out. It is a 1993 film but the film is so infamous that I am sure many of you have heard about it or seen it on the sly when your parents are sleeping. It is called Indecent Proposal. It is a Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, Robert Redford film in which Robert Redford rents out Demi Moore from Woody Harrelson for a million dollars for a night and which provoked Art Buchwald to write an angry column and his funny column got really angry. And what was he angry about, he said if Robert Redford has to pay for it something must be wrong with America.

Ahmedabad today takes a great pride in its design, in its weaves, in its embroidery, in the homes of its people, that is what builds a heritage of creativity going forward.

But having got there when this happens and the couple splits because Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore can’t handle it, they break up and Woody Harrelson goes back to teach where else but at his architectural school.

Now there is a two minute speech, Google it, it’s called the Indecent Proposal speech, it is on Youtube, two minute and eight seconds.

Please watch that speech because that is, we talked about bricks and windows just now, this Woody Harrelson standing with a brick and this is a class on Louis Kahn architecture. And Woody Harrelson says, “What is this?” so one student says it is a brick.

Some student says it is a weapon, he said no.

Louis Kahn says, “Even if brick wants to be something”. No brick wants to remain a brick.

And then he shows you pictures of churches of bridges, of arches and then he goes on to tell you that Louis Kahn is a man who died in the men’s room of Penn Station in Manhattan.

And for a long time nobody even noticed his body there but still he did work that lifts the human spirit and takes it to a higher place.

And that’s what design does. All of you have an opportunity now to lift the human spirit, to take the human spirit to a higher place but for that, one, you need curiosity of course you need your degrees but you need curiosity and second you need to respect everything that comes your way even if brick because remember Louis Kahn’s words, “Even if brick wants to be something.”

So thank you very much. Anand I did some story telling but some serious effort.

I am journalist because I am curious. I love my job every day. Every passing day I love it even more because I am curious.

SPEAKER PROFILE// SHRI SHEKHAR GUPTA Shekhar Gupta is editorial advisor to the India Today Group, the country’s most diversified media conglomerate. His weekly column, National Interest, currently runs in India Today magazine, in all its editions in five languages.

Over the past two decades, Shekhar’s weekly column, National Interest, has been regarded as the sharpest, most perceptive analysis of current events as they unfold. His columns were recently collected in the bestselling book, Anticipating India.

Shekhar also host Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7 every week.

During a 36-year career, Shekhar has reported on key Indian and international events, including the Nellie massacre in Assam, Operation Bluestar, the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War from Baghdad, the first “jihad” in Afghanistan and the many twists and turns in the troubled 1983-1993 decade in Sri Lanka’s Tamil North.

In June 2014, Shekhar concluded a 19-year stint at the Indian Express and the Express Group of publications. As Editor-in-Chief, he led the country’s largest network of award-winning journalists, with the Indian Express winning the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest three times -- for its coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002, for uncovering the Bihar flood relief scam in 2005 and for its sustained investigation into the Malegaon and Modasa blasts of 2008 and the alleged role of Hindu extremists and organisations.

He is finally getting down to creating time for a long-planned book on India’s contemporary political history.