A self-proclaimed common man who created uncommon wealth for shareholders, employees and the founders got a warm farewell at the 30th annual general meeting of Infosys. N R Narayana Murthy on Saturday chaired the AGM for the last time as he hangs up his boots in August at Infosys — his “middle child”.
Addressing shareholders, among whom sat people with just 15 shares and those with lakhs, Murthy said: “I am an average person with many below-average attributes…. My little story should be a confidence-booster for every average person in the world (so) that he or she can make a difference, at least in a small way, to this world.”
Such typical humility apart, what’s incontestable is the fact that Murthy will go down as the architect of one of the biggest wealth-creation stories inIndia. Infosys employees, through stock options, have benefited to the extent of Rs 50,000 crore as the company has distributed 27% of its equity among them. The dividend distributed among the shareholders amounts to Rs 11,623 crore. The market capitalisation of Infosys, with 4.5 lakh shareholders, has annually grown at a compounded rate of 50% since 1994, making it India’s second most valued technology company.
Watched by his newlywed son Rohan, daughter-in-law Lakshmi, wife Sudha and the families of other founders and senior executives, Murthy said turning 30 — Infosys is in its 30th year of operations — is a good time to reflect and look ahead. Thirty is also a time to break new ground.
The company, which announced four new members to its board — V Balakrishnan, Ashok Vemuri, BG Srinivas and Anne Fudge — is positioning itself for a new version: Infosys 3.0. Murthy said: “The crucial things we have to do are: be firm in pursuing our values, recognize our weaknesses, embrace meritocracy, be open-minded about learning from people better than us, learn from our mistakes and not repeat them, be humble, honest and courteous, be firm in taking quick decisions.”
“The Infosys journey has been an integral part of my life. My colleagues say Infosys is an inseparable part of me, and I am an inseparable part of Infosys. I have been a No. 1 actor in every major decision taken in this company so far. I have rejoiced in every milestone of the company.” He admitted: “It is not easy for me to deliver my last address at this forum. As I speak, a mosaic of images from the past whizz through my mind. The list seems endless, and it would be difficult to narrate them all. The day we assembled in my tiny apartment in Mumbai to decide that respect from every shareholder was the most valuable thing for us, was momentous.
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A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
"Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.
He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.
Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"
And he dropped it on the ground. And started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now, who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.
My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it Because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.
We feel as though we are worthless.But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, But by WHO WE ARE.
"You are special - Don't EVER forget it."
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Swami Vivekananda was a monk who at one time saw women as an obstacle. However on realising the highest truth he saw no distinction between sex and saw in women the presence of the Divine Mother. Swami Vivekananda worked effortlessly to try and uplift the plight of women, in particular Indian Women. These are a collection of his thoughts on women.
Swami Vivekananda on Women
“The soul has neither sex, nor caste nor imperfection.”
“The best thermometer to the progress of a nation is its treatment of its women.”
” There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved.”
“Woman has suffered for aeons, and that has given her infinite patience and infinite preserverance.”
“The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence.”
“Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the man who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold sex distinctions. (CW ,V.4, P.176)
It is very difficult to understand why in this country [India] so much difference is made between men and women, whereas the Vedanta declares that one and the same conscious Self is present in all beings. You always criticize the women, but say what have you done for their uplift? Writing down Smritis etc., and binding them by hard rules, the men have turned the women into manufacturing machines! If you do not raise the women, who are living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don’t think that you have any other way to rise.
In what scriptures do you find statements that women are not competent for knowledge and devotion? In the period of degeneration, when the priests made the other castes incompetent for the study of the Vedas, they deprived the women also of all their righ ts. Otherwise you will find that in the Vedic or Upanishadic age Maitreyi, Gargi, and other ladies of revered memory have taken places of Rishis through their skill in discussing about Brahman. In an assembly of a thousand Brahmans who were all erudite in the Vedas, Gargi boldly challenged Yagnavalkya in a discussion about Brahman. Since such ideal women were entitled to spiritual knowledge, why shall not the women have same privilege now? What has happened once can certainly happen again. History repeats itself. All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women. That country and that nation which edo not respect women have never become great, nor will ever be in future. The principal reason why your race h! ! ! ! as so much degenerated is that you have no respect for these living images of Shakti. Manu says, “Where women are respected, there the gods delight; and where they are not, there all works and efforts come to naught.” There is no hope of rise for that fam ily or country where there is no estimation of women, where they live in sadness. (V7. p.214-15)
when people are discussing as to what man and woman can do, always the same mistake is made. They think they show man at his best because he can fight, for instance, and undergo tremendous physical exertion; and this is pitted against the physical weak ness and non-combating quality of woman. This is unjust. Woman is as courageous as man. Each is equally good in his of her way. What man can bring up a child with such patience, endurance, and love as the woman can? The one has developed the power of doin g; the other, the power of suffering. If woman cannot act, neither can man suffer. The whole universe is one of perfect balance. (CW V.2,p.25-26)
If you do not allow one to become a lion, he will become a fox. Women are a power, only now it is more evil because man oppresses woman; she is the fox, but when she is no longer oppressed, she will be the lion (CW vol.7,p.22)
[Talking to an American audience] I should very much like our women to have your intellectuality, but not if it must be at the cost of purity. I admire you for all that you know, but I dislike the way that you cover what is bad with roses and call it good. Intellectuality is not the highest good. Morality and spirituality are the things for which we strive. Our women are not so learned, but they are more pure.
Not until you learn to ignore the question of sex and to meet on a common ground of common humanity will your woman really develop. All this is the cause of divorce. Your men bow low and offer a chair, but in another breath they offer compliments. They sa y, ‘Oh, madam, how beautiful are your eyes!’ What right have they to do this? How dare a man venture so far, and how can you women permit it? Such things develop the less noble side of humanity. They do not tend to nobler ideals.
We should not think that we are men and women, but only that we are human beings, born to cherish and to help one another. No sooner are a young man and a young woman left alone than he pays compliments to her, and perhaps before he takes a wife, he has courted two hundred women. Bah! If I belonged to marrying set, I could find a woman to love without all that! (CW Vol. 5, p. 412-413)
Men and women in every country, have different ways of understanding and judging things. Men have one angle of vision, women another; men argue from one standpoint, women from another. Men extenuate women and lay the blame on men; while women exonerate men and heap all the heap on women. (CW V.7, p.378)
“In the West its ideal is wife, in India in the mother”.
“In India the mother is the center of the family and our highest ideal. She is to us the representative of God, as God is the mother of the universe. It was a female sage who first found the unity of God, and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hy mns of the Vedas. Our God is both personal and absolute, the absolute is male, the personal, female. And thus it comes that we now say: ‘The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle’.” (CW V.4 p.170)
- Swami Vivekananda
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Several months back, after finishing an interview with Dr APJ Kalam, and just before leaving his Rajaji Marg residence he made me repeat these three words in a schoolteacher’s tone: perseverance, hard work and patience.This, he said, was alone the path to progress. Later, much later, I realised, that those were the very words he’s lived by all through his life. They are both philosophical and practical, quite like the world he grew up in as a boy in the island town of Rameswaram, in south India.
His father, a humble boat owner, Jainulabdeen, was a devout Muslim and a close friend of the Rameswaram temple priest. Kalam was brought up in a multi-religious, tolerant society; one with a progressive outlook. His father often quoted from the Quran to make the young Kalam see the world without fear. He had seven siblings, and a doting mother who, at times, made chappatis for Kalam, while the others were given rice as Kalam’s day would start at four in the morning and end at 11 pm.
His father wasn’t educated, but he wanted Kalam to study. Kalam would get up at 4 am, bathe, and then go for his mathematics class, which was taught by a teacher who took only five students in the whole session; and bathing before class was a condition he had laid to all his students. After his morning class, Kalam along with his cousin Samsuddin went around town distributing the newspaper. As the town had no electricity, kerosene lamps were lit at his home between 7 pm and 9 pm. But because Kalam studied until 11, his mother would save some for him for later use.
Being a bright student, Kalam always had the support of his schoolteachers. Schwarzt High School’s Iyadurai Solomon often told Kalam that if he truly, intensely desired something, he would get it. “This made me fearless,” said Dr Kalam. And outside school, Ahmed Jallaluddin, who later became his brother-in-law, and Samsuddin, encouraged Kalam to appreciate nature’s wonders. So at once, while growing up, he was exposed to a religious and a practical way of looking at the world.
The flight of birds had fascinated him since he was a boy, but it was years later he realised that he wanted to fly aircrafts. After finishing school, he took up Physics at St Joseph’s College, Trichi, but towards the end he was dissatisfied. When he discovered aeronautical engineering, he regretted having lost three precious years. But he was glad to have discovered Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy and F Scott Fitzgerald and other English poets in his college years.
At Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Chennai, where Kalam studied aeronautics, he learnt an important lesson: the value of time. He was leading a project on system design, when one day the principal walked into the class to see his work. He appeared dissatisfied and told Kalam that he wanted the project finished in the next two days; else his scholarship aid would be withdrawn. That unsettled Kalam; years of his father’s hardships would come to naught. Kalam worked without food and sleep. On the last day, his professor came to check on his progress. He was impressed and said: “I was putting you under stress and asking you to meet a difficult deadline,” recounted Dr Kalam.
Although Kalam has led several projects in his professional life, he’s treated each like his last. Such was his passion. No wonder, he’s always led projects. His advisor, Major General R Swaminathan explained Kalam’s success as a leader. “He has this unique capability of being a boss as well as a worker. He can take on any role with ease.”
When Dr Kalam’s first major project SLV 3-failed the first time he was almost shattered. Also, around this time, Kalam’s childhood mentor, Jallaluddin, died. “A part of me too passed away…” said Dr Kalam. But he never thought of quitting after SLV-3. “I knew that for success, we have to work hard and persevere.” And so, SLV-3 was launched again, this time with success. He drew strength from philosophy, religion and literature to tide by his professional setbacks; also a life with few companions. In time, he also learnt to deal with professional jealousy and uncooperative team members.
Success followed Dr Kalam. Prithvi, Agni, Akash, Trishul and Nag missiles were huge successes. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan and Bharat Ratna, and then he became the President of India; one of the few presidents who have touched the hearts of so many poor children in the country. Because he also came from a poor background, he knew the power of education in changing one’s future.
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This story begins when I was a child: I was born poor. Often we hadn’t enough to eat. Whenever we had some food, Mother often gave me her portion of rice.
While she was transferring her rice into my bowl, she would say “Eat this rice, son! I’m not hungry.” This was Mother’s First Lie. As I grew, Mother gave up her spare time to fish in a river near our house; she hoped that from the fish she caught, she could give me a little bit more nutritious food for my growth. Once she had caught just two fish, she would make fish soup.
While I was eating the soup, mother would sit beside me and eat what was still left on the bone of the fish I had eaten; my heart was touched when I saw it. Once I gave the other fish to her on my chopstick but she immediately refused it and said, “Eat this fish, son! I don’t really like fish.” This was Mother’s Second Lie.
Then, in order to fund my education, Mother went to a Match Factory to bring home some used matchboxes, which she filled with fresh matchsticks. This helped her get some money to cover our needs. One wintry night I awoke to find Mother filling the matchboxes by candlelight. So I said, “Mother, go to sleep; it’s late: you can continue working tomorrow morning.” Mother smiled and said “Go to sleep, son! I’m not tired.” This was Mother’s Third Lie.
When I had to sit my Final Examination, Mother accompanied me. After dawn, Mother waited for me for hours in the heat of the sun. When the bell rang, I ran to meet her. Mother embraced me and poured me a glass of tea that she had prepared in a thermos. The tea was not as strong as my Mother’s love, Seeing Mother covered with perspiration; I at once gave her my glass and asked her to drink too. Mother said “Drink, son! I’m not thirsty!” This was Mother’s Fourth Lie.
After Father’s death, Mother had to play the role of a single parent. She held on to her former job; she had to fund our needs alone. Our family’s life was more complicated. We suffered from starvation. Seeing our family’s condition worsening, my kind Uncle who lived near my house came to help us solve our problems big and small. Our other neighbors saw that we were poverty stricken so they often advised my mother to marry again. But Mother refused to remarry saying “I don’t need love.” This was Mother’s Fifth Lie.
After I had finished my studies and gotten a job, it was time for my old Mother to retire but she carried on going to the market every morning just to sell a few vegetables. I kept sending her money but she was steadfast and even sent the money back to me. She said, “I have enough money.” That was
Mother’s Sixth Lie.
I continued my part-time studies for my Master’s Degree. Funded by the American Corporation for which I worked, I succeeded in my studies. With a big jump in my salary, I decided to bring Mother to enjoy life in America but Mother didn’t want to bother her son; she said to me “I’m not used to high living.” That was Mother’s Seventh Lie.
In her dotage, Mother was attacked by cancer and had to be hospitalized. Now living far across the ocean, I went home to visit Mother who was bedridden after an operation. Mother tried to smile but I was heartbroken because she was so thin and feeble but Mother said, “Don’t cry, son! I’m not in pain.”
That was Mother’s Eighth Lie. Telling me this, her eighth lie, she died. YES, MOTHER WAS AN ANGEL!
*M – O – T – H – E – R *
*“M”* is for the Million things she gave me,
*“O”* means Only that she’s growing old,
*“T”* is for the Tears she shed to save me,
*“H”* is for her Heart of gold,
*“E”* is for her Eyes with love-light shining in them,
*“R”* means Right, and right she’ll always be.
Put them together, they spell* **“MOTHER”* a word that means the world to me.
For those of you who are lucky to be still blessed with your Mom’s presence on Earth, this story is beautiful. For those who aren’t so blessed, this is even more beautiful.
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Pepsi Dog lived in a beautiful colony. His master took care of him. He bathed him with soap, gave him good food to eat and a ride in his car.
The stray dogs of the town were jealous of him. Many extended a hand of friendship towards him. But he barked at them and shooed them away. To tease him, the stray dogs went close to him and called him Bhoonku and came back.
One day, Tinku, Sonu, Bunti and Monu dogs went to the bungalow where Pepsi lived and peeped inside the gate.
Earlier, when they did that, Pepsi came out barking at them at the slightest sound and if the gate was opened by chance, he made them run. But that day he did not come.
Banti asked his friends, "What is the matter Today, Bhoonku has not come?"
"Who knows? Maybe, he has gone out somewhere. The car is not seen too. He is enjoying," Tinku said.
"Listen carefully, somebody is calling out faintly from inside. It must be Bhoonku," Monu guessed.
"Come on, let us see. Maybe, Bhoonku is not well," and Monu entered the gate.
His friends too followed him. The sound was coming from behind the house. The dogs quickly went behind where they saw two men shoving Pepsi away in a sack.
"Bhoonku is in trouble. These people are taking him away somewhere. We must help him. The house is deserted. The owner has gone some where," Tinku said.
"What should we do?" Bunti asked.
"Attack! Bite them all," Tinku asserted.
And they all pounced upon the two men. The thieves could not take control and were bruised badly. They fled.
After that Bunti took out Pepsi from the sack and untied his feet.
"Friends, forgive me. Though I did not behave well with you, you saved me from the thieves. I will always be grateful.
"You all are my friends from today. Come on, shake hands," Pepsi offered one of his front limb for friendship.
The stray dogs too promptly extended their front legs. They loved it.
"Where is your master?" Tinku asked.
"He was playing with me when his master rang him with some important work. He did not even shut the door. I was resting when two men came and nabbed me. Pepsi narrated, "They would have sold me somewhere. I am saved. Please sit here, I will bring some food for you."
"No, on some other time. We are happy that you have made us your friend," Bunti said.
"With comforts I had become arrogant. I will now never hate anyone and will live happily with all. You keep coming, we will play and yes, take a ride in the car too," Pepsi said.
The dogs jumped with happiness. Then bidding bye to Pepsi, they left. They were happy that they had done a good deed
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This is
the story about a boy and a girl. They met at a college where they
studied together. Boy was rich and the girl belonged to a normal middle
class family. They were best friends and shared everything with each
other. By the end of the college they realized that they loved each
other and couldn't live without each other.
After college they
told everything to their parents. Both of their parents were happy for
their children and were together with them in their decision to get
married. They didn't cared about the girl being middle class. One day
both of them went some place to have fun and on the way to return home
back they had to face a huge accident.
They had not even thought
of that. They were only happy in their own life but no one had even
imagined that they had to go through that. The girl was badly injured
and was taken to the hospital. She needed the blood as most of the blood
was lost due to the accident. There was shortage of blood in the
hospital which matched her but it was the co-incident that the boy's
blood matched. He was ready to give blood and was taken for taste. There
was another huge stroke for him,doctors told him that he was found HIV+ while testing.
He
had no idea what to do then he remembered once he had taken blood from a
general hospital and it was the carelessness of that hospital due to
which he had HIV.
His life was ruined there was nothing he could do. He decided not to
tell his love because he knew that if she came to know she wouldn't be
able to live. So he left her in the hospital after arranging the blood.
After
the operation she asked for him but he wasn't there. She was shocked to
hear that he left her alone forever and she was not ready to believe.
Her parents told her that it is due to there poorness he left her. After
few days she came to know the truth and her love for him grew deeper.
She went back to him and they started living together.
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