A Warrior’s search for Synchronicity

Certain people have the ability to demand excellence of you by virtue of the clarity of their purpose, the integrity of their character and the sheer energy that permeates all barriers. Benjamin Zander who conducted Boston Philharmonic Orchestra for 20 years describes it very prescriptively in his talk “giving an A”. He gives an A to all students in his class at the start of the academic year on one condition. They have to write him a letter in 2 weeks time which starts like this “I got an A because…………..” , explaining all the reasons why they deserved it and they need to start behaving like the person they described, not the person they are. Thus in 2 weeks he transforms his students into a class of “A” students . I remember a quote which says ” A lion has to be a lion all it’s life;a dog has to be a dog. But a human being can play with and bring about a huge number of different identities; the one he finally chooses will be determined by neither reason or common sense but by imagination”

Manjubash Sir, who was the Principal of S.N. Vidyabhavan School Chentrappini, where I got the chance to study for a year in 10th standard, as part of their first C.B.S.E batch, is one such soul who has that ability to awaken your imagination and enable you to chose to be an “A”, with his mere presence. I got to meet Sir again after a 10 years hiatus and interact with his current students at Indian Public School, Erode. One of the questions his current students asked me was “what quality in him inspired me the most”. All of us are really lucky if we are able to identify what we really want from life at an early age. In most cases it is not the money, fame or the social standing but a sense of fulfilment that fills up your soul, when you do what you love. Sir starts his day at 3 A.M in the morning and goes on till about 9.30 P.M in the night doing what he is passionate about, demanding excellence from people around him, giving them an “A” and unlocking their imaginations. Making that choice of what kind of person you want to be and building up towards it, not just trusting your instincts but obeying them, believing in the transformative power of stories that we tell ourselves which we eventually become,makes all the difference.

Steve Jobs mentions about his experience of getting fired from Apple “the heaviness of success was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. Less sure about everything” . Likewise when things work out, a certain sense of invincibility sets in till you meet with a humbling experience. This time when I met Manjubash Sir he mentioned that he would not have given me admission, had it not been for the strong recommendation from T.K Sarangadharan Sir (secretary of the trust which owned the school), whom me or my parents did not know personally. But he pulled all strings to convince Manjubash Sir to take me as a test case. I sill don’t know what prompted him to do so and he does not remember an incident which happened 20 years ago. Sometimes the unseen influences in our life are unexplainable , but humbling when you come to know about it and you feel grateful for that soul who gave you an “A” not because of you, but because it is in his nature do so.

Like Mr Zander says “Giving an A” transforms people, transforms relationships

Let us start “Giving an A”