"Maanaa Andheraa ghanaa thaa,Diya jalaana to manaa nahi thaaa"

The beauty of life is not in the opportunities it gives you to prove who you are . It neither can be reduced to a balance sheet of your happiness and sadness .The beauty of life is its unpredictability .Its capacity to prove to you time and again as to how little you know about your exixtence and also how little you know from where you came and where you are going to go .Some of us take the easy way of saying “Well no one knows about these things .And its futile to try and understand these philosophies .After all what did Aristotle ,Vivekanand ,and countless others do ?They all bit the dust”.So chill out !!Just groove to the music of life .

By and large it is true .I have had very little time to philosophise about life .I was too caught up by early tragedies ,then a  tempestuous love affair ,then work ,work and work .At times the work bored me .At times it exhillarated me .At most times I felt I did work which was good and productive .At times ,I had to cope with a dumb witted boss who knew nothing about anything (leave aside education),and at times I worked with persons who were streets ahead of me .I worked with colleagues who were mostly average in their perceptions to the larger picture of life ,capacity to work hard and take risks.I accepted their false and true opinions with grace .I have seldom made a mistake in understanding a persons mind .I can see through their “apparent”,and get to the “real”.The result –I have never felt let down.No one lets you down -you let yourself down by choosing the wrong friends and colleagues at work .(Please touch wood for my sake!)But I have had this fear of the unknown .I don’t know what is going to happen in the next 5 minutes as I write .I am acutely aware of my moments .I don’t waste them without giving thought to them .And life continues to surpise me .

Nirmal Kumar -way to go !!

I realized how small I was when I was invited to a function organized by the CALOREX FOUNDATION which had as its theme “Explore,Innovate ,Create ……….THE FUTURE”.There were a galaxy of stars and celebrities who had descended to the Natarani Darpan Academy (run by the Sarabhais of the Vikram ,Mrinalini ,and Mallika Sarabhai fame).Some of them looked so ordinary that one would never notice them in a crowd of even 50 people .But they were amazing minds and absolutely out of the ordinary .There was the physically challenged Nirmal Kumar ,who is a IIM Ahmedabad alumini.He resisted the tempatation of a 7 figure salary because he said he felt that the autorickshaw charged him 10 rupees extra when he was a student at IIM . “I had paid 25 rupees on my way to the Pride Hotel.But on my way back ,the auto driver asked me for 35 rupees.I argued ,and soon realized that there was a problem in the system .I tried to go to the roots of it .And after some time came up with the concept of G-Auto”.For all of you who haven’t heard of it ,G-Auto is the most trusted form of autorickshaw in Gujerat,because  no one needs to bargain.Everything is systemized ,complaints are atttended to and rectified.There are different autos for different purposes  -there are heritage autos which have a fixed rate to show you the heritage sites ,there are airport autos in which the autorickshaw drivers can speak in English .There are 10000 autos under the brand of G-AUTOS.And very soon ,Nirmal is targeting 50000.!Simply amazing guy .He is short and he is ungainly .But as precious to our society as a diamond .Probably one of the reasons that makes Ahmedabad a safe city –its autos are safe .And the credit must go to Nirmal for that .

He has a amazing background  There was no electricity, telephone lines or hospitals in Nirmals home village of Risuara in Siwan district of Bihar  . Nirmal's high school was three kilometres away from his village, which he covered on foot with a back affected by polio.
" When you are born in a place with little means, you learn to rely on yourself for everything. You become a fighter," he shares. 
 Nirmal was struck by polio at the age of three -- but could not be treated in time as there were no hospitals in his village, only 'quacks'. However , it never stopped him from playing football in school or taking the cows through the rice fields.

With unsteady fingers, Nirmal learnt how to hold the pencil, firm his grip, and read and write. In the evenings, he would clean up the lantern shade with a dry piece of cloth, oil the wicker, light it, and in its glow dream of a better life. "Lagan bahut thi." ['I was very dedicated.'].I am reminded of Ataljis poem “Maanaa ,andheraa bahut ghanaa thaa ,magar diya jalanaa to manaa nahi thaa”!!
He won the National Talent Scholarship and decided to pursue a BTech in agriculture. While he was relieved to have won the scholarship, the paltry sum of Rs 800 a month wasn't enough, so he gave math tuitions. "I have never been afraid of hard work," he says.

Perhaps that's why he gets impatient when his sales team complains about not getting a client. "I ask them how I, without political links or monetary support, could get ONGC, Reliance and the State Bank of India on board? Weak people make excuses."

That's why he wasn't surprised when he wrote to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for an appointment to discuss his future venture, and he actually got one. Fifteen minutes stretched into 50 minutes, and Modi agreed to inaugurate G Auto. Nirmal thanks his parents, or rather his entire village for making him the way he is. "Not once I was made to feel that I was handicapped," he shares

A star had been born .I am so surprised that people with everything do so little .Its people with very little who perhaps make the greatest contribution .But the beauty of life is making us change our priorities ,our mindsets and our perceptions .Thats why it is important to come across people like Nirmal Kumar .!!

(If you want any proof of his efficient system just ring up 9274444444.You will get a immediate response from G –Auto .And then try to ring up the SBI !!)

Next blog –“I am only 9 months old”.I was staring at a form that looked like it was 30 years old .(Don’t miss the next blog .Another amazing human being .!!)