Speech by CEO of Mind Tree

I would like to share with you one of the best I received just a few days ago. Its a Speech delivered By Mr Subroto Baghchi, CEO Mind Tree to the class of 2006 at IIM Bangalore defining success.

Here are a few parts of the speech.

My mother used to take ash from the chullah and mix it with the earth and plant seedlings. This time when they bloomed, the neighbours asked her why she was taking so much pain to beautify a Government house? My mother replied it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom.She said," I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited".

That was the first lesson in success," It is not about what you create for yourself, it is about what you leave behind that defines success".

Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it. If we can create it, others can live in it. This is the essence of success.

The safdurjung Hospital is a cockroach infected dirty place. The over-worked under resourced sisters are victims of de-humanized life at its worst. One morning attending to my father i realized that the blood bottle was empty. Fearing that air would get into his blood I summoned the sister to do the needful. she very rudely asked me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death I was in pain, frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came my father opened his eyes and murmured to her," why have you not gone home yet?" here was a man on his deathbed more concerned about the overworked nurse. I was stunned at his stoic self.

I learnt that there is no limit of how concerned you can be for another human being. Success is your ability to rise above your discomfort whatever be your current state.

Two years at the age of 82 my mother had a paralytic stroke. I flew down from US and spent two weeks with her. She was neither getting better nor moving on. I had to leave back to work. while leaving her behind I kissed her face. Int he paralytic state and garbled voice she said," why are you kissing me? Go kiss the world!"

At the confluence of life and death a woman whose life was crowned by adversity was asking her son to go and kiss the world!.

Success is about giving back to life more than you can take. It is about creating extraordinary success with ordinary lives!!