ADAM GRANT ON LECTURES

 ADAM GRANT ON LECTURES

IN

THINK AGAIN

Lectures are not always the best method of learning. They are not enough to develop students into lifelong learners.

If you spend all your student days being fed information and are never given the opportunity to question it, you won't develop the tools for rethinking that you need in life.

Valedictorian

 Valedictorian      

             

valɪdɪkˈtɔːriən

A valedictorian is the highest-ranking academic student in graduating class. Typically selected based on having the highest Grade Point Average (GPA), this student is awarded the honor of delivering the farewell speech (the "valedictory" address) at the graduation ceremony.

Etymology and Origin

Latin Roots: 

The term originates from the Latin phrase vale dicere, which simply translates to "to say farewell".

Tradition: 

The practice dates back to 1750 at Harvard University, where the student chosen to deliver the farewell was initially selected for their speaking ability to keep ceremonies entertaining, before it became strictly an academic award.

How They Are Chosen

While GPA is the primary metric in high schools and colleges across North America, the selection process can sometimes factor in other achievements that the Institutions might consider.

POPE LEO

 

Pope Leo

Life is not a race to show off on our own, but a path we learn to walk together.

Anyone who doesnot know how to live with  and for others has not yet understood life.

RELATIONSHIPS

 

We were born in the 1950s.

We grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. They were decades of shortages. No one had anything except a few. The nation had just woken up into independence on August 15, 1947. The British had left after dividing India into two nations. It triggered a violent strife that killed  200000 to 2 million of the population of undivided India.  It was quite unfortnate that the partition of the country  into India and Pakistan had been accompanied  by mass violence and refugee crisis of  unprecedented levels the world had never experienced before. The chaotic period had displaced an estimated 12 to 15 million people as they fled across the newly drawn borders.

In that era of unfulfilled desires, people had somehow survived. The members of the families had bonded together with love and affection. They slept on the floor on mats. The kitchen was always busy where all the women in the house had exerted themselves together. Men would go out to work in the fields. Since there had been no other option people lived in joint families. They were happy though they didn't have enough. It was  an agrarian economy.

Gradually the scene shifted. Job opportunities at different locations in the state or country or even abroad broke up the joint families. People moved out to wherever they were employed. However the family ties were so strong that all of them had made it a point to come together on holidays or vacations at the family house. For a couple of weeks it would be just  like the good old days before they had left for greener pastures 

Tourism of those days were visits to the places where members of the family stayed in various localities due to their posting there. The children looked forward to such visits as they brought them closer. It made family ties stronger. People were more than willing to help each other in times of need. They welcomed visitors, be it relatives, friends or at times even total strangers wholeheartedly to their households. Sharing and caring were the essence of relationships. 

Then we awoke into the 1970s, 1980s.and 1990s.  It was the Gulf. US. Europe. Anywhere. Everywhere.  Emigration was on in a large scale. The economy became dependent on foreign inward remittances, not to forget money orders from locations within the country. Though unemployment was very high, there was improvement in job opportunities within the country.

It was the dawn of nuclear families. With that, joint families were disrupted. They are now almost extinct.   

Now no one welcome anyone. You are not expected to stay when you make visits. The first question that you invariably face is, "When did you arrive?" 

The next is quite interesting. "When are you leaving?"

Between these two questions, you get the silent message that you have no place there. At the best, you would be offered tea or coffee or soft drinks and a few biscuits. You are expected to leave soon after that. In case you mention that you don't take the drink placed before you and request for a glass of plain hot water, you can be certain that it would reach you after 45 minutes. The message is explicit. "You are not welcome."

Relationships have lost their place in human lives. You secure yourselves within the four walls. Except for your own nuclear family, you don't think of anyone else.

No one cares. No one shares.

MISSIONARY AT BANDIREVU BHADRACHALAM

There were two eminent personalities in an organisation, one senior and one junior.

Initially the senior went around telling everyone that the junior had  a very low pay. Then the junior left. Afterwards the senior went around telling everyone he had a very low pay. The senior too  left  later.

Now listen to the story of Sreekanth. He has been posted as a missionary at:

CSI Bhadrachalam Mission 

Mission compound, Bandirevu, Bandirevu. P. O Nellipakka, Bhadrachalam, Telangana

Pin. 533352

He is awaiting the results of the BD exam he wrote in April 2026.

He had been working in the mission field before he enrolled for  the BD course.

He may be ordained as a Pastor in about two months. The salary he expects is Rs.12000.00 per month

The mission he has joined is sponsored by the Women's Fellowship of the CSI South Kerala Diocese.

When he reported at the mission, the previous missionary had left on transfer for higher studies. The mission house is a two room kitchen, sheeted house. Adjacent to it, there is a sheeted church. 

The mission runs an approved English Medium UP School. It has students upto 6th standard.

The temperature at the place is 47 degree. 

Sreekanth has a co-worker from Vellarada who is new to the Mission field.

The mission has two cabs to bring children to the school. 

When Sreekanth reached there, the vehicles could not be started as the batteries were down. Further, one of the vehicles, eaten away by rust, is unserviceable.

There are teachers at the School. But they have to be compensated with a decent salary.

A compound wall enclosing the area is absolutely essential as the School is populated by children. Their safety is paramount.

They have a local market around 7kms away. Bhadrachalam at 40kms is the nearest place for major supplies.

The missionaries cook their food. There is no Fridge. It means the left overs  cannot be preserved for consumption later.

Sreenath has no complaints. He says God will take care. He expects his first salary after one month of reporting at the mission.

He has left his wife and two daughters at his house at Dhanuvachapuram. The wife is unemployed. She has a chronic back ache for which she gets admitted off and on for addressing the ailment. The girls have been enrolled at a primary school close to the residence. 

Sreekanth reached the mission on a Friday. He had a day to clean up the Church for worship. While cleaning up he encountered a black cobra that he had to dipose off.

The worship was conducted in Telugu, a language in which he is not proficient. But technology helped him traverse the issue.

There is a bore well that provides hard water. He buys drinking water.

River fish and meat are available along with vegetables in the local market.

A mason charges Rs.1300.00 per day and the assistant Rs.1000.00 per day for masonry work.

Sreekanth is cheerful.He is happy he had a stint in the mission field earlier. He says it had taken him to Kashmir, Kulu Manali and many other places.

Sreekanth is happy he has chosen to serve the Lord. 

He maintains God will lead him on, in his journey.

MASSIVE HEART ATTACK AND 100% BLOCK IN ALL ARTERIES

The wife, a very close relative, wrote:

"My huband is in a very bad situation. He had a massive heart attack and is hospitalized 100%block in all arteries. They put one stent on. They got a heartbeat for a while.

 I am in the hospital waiting room"

(The husband is an excellent gentleman)

Concerned, I wrote to her.

"When Papa had a Cardiac arrest, soon after Prostratectomy  in June 1980, the doctor said he'd be gone in half an hour at the most.

He was 62.

After CPR he was  on the Ventilator for 48 hours.

When the doctor said half an hour, it was around 10 pm that night.

I sat on the floor outside. 

Medical College Hospital, Trivandrum.

B-Theatre - no benches or seats there - and I began praying. 

I prayed just one sentence repeatedly staying awake the whole night.

"Daivame ente Papa ye ee rathri kondupokaruthe"

(Oh God, please don't take away my Papa, this night)

I could have been naive. But a thought, a crazy one, was in me. That God would let him be in this world if Papa had survived till 6 am  the next morning.

The supplication was relentless 

Morning around 8 AM next day, word was, he was alive. 

The doctor told me there was some improvement.

God gave him back

He lived on 28 years.

Miracle.

I understood one thing. 

God acts at the right time.

To this day, it has been true in my life, our life.

It will be in yours too."

A LEAF FROM LIFE

                  

                    A LEAF FROM LIFE

Papa had retired from KDHP CoLtd - it was James Finlay for a while - on 31January1975.

We left Munnar on 30 January 1975.

Papa's retirement had led the family into a turmoil. Unfortunately Mummy had passed away in 1978. As Papa was staying alone in our house at Thalavady, we had applied for a telephone connection at the house for accessing him through phone. Several years went by. The phone connection did not materialise. Exasperated we withdrew the application. It was BSNL or its predecessor.

Years later when Laji with his family was staying with Papa, they felt acutely the necessity of a telephone connection at home. An application for the connection was submitted again. In about two years the phone was allotted and it was installed at our house in no time.

The fun began there.

Those were the days when mobile phone was yet to make its entry in the country. But there was a solace. One could access anyone in the country through the STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) facility. It had made communication smooth and fast.

Earlier one had to book a call at the local telephone exchange. You would be placed in the waiting list. They would put your call through when you move up in the queue and reach the number one slot on the waiting list. It was a cumbersome procedure where you might have to wait for pretty long a time.

Naturally, when you make STD calls your telephone bill would leap frog.

The question is, when you obtain a telephone connection after a long wait, what would a sane person do. In the normal run, he would surprise his dear ones and friends with calls from the newly installed phone.

I just wonder, who gave the odd idea to Papa. 

He took out several Inland Letter forms and wrote out to everyone - son, daughter, relatives and friends - that he had been allotted a new telephone connection and that the phone had been installed at the house. He inscribed the phone number in the letter. Fortunately there was a letter box in front of our house and it meant he did not have to walk far to post  the Inland Letters.

Then he sat at  home.

He was happy, many of the people on receipt of the Inland letters had phoned him up.

At home, in Trivandrum, we had all been busy with our heavy schedules. We expected Papa to ring us up from Thalavady, expressing his happinsee on the obtention of the new telephone connection. Phones at home were a rarity at that time.

After a while, when there had not been any phone call from Papa we surmised he was not going to call us from his new phone.

We called him. He was full of rancour. He said he had advised many people that he had a telephone installed in his house and they were  provided  the number. He had a grouse that I was the only person who did not call him at once though I was his son. He was very angry.

I kept quiet. I didn't know what to make of it. As I looked at it, being his son, Papa ought to have called me on the phone the moment it was installed.

Those days telephones were a luxury. People were overjoyed when they were allotted a phone connection.

I told Papa when I met him later, instead of writing a letter inscribing the phone number,  how wonderful it would have been if he had surprised me with a call from the new phone.

Well, Papa kept an iconic inscrutable face and the issue ended there.