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It has been an awfully gloomy week. Cloudy, drizzling, heavy overcast and persistent rain have confiscated Sun altogether. Getting up in the morning, for no strange reasons, feels as if I was sleeping for 2000 years. Perhaps, Mother Earth is sober and shedding tears for the heavy losses in Pakistan and Indian Kashmir.

I continue to have this strange feeling that the human civilization, with all the industrial, technological and bio developments, is becoming an uncontrollable acute virus occupying Earth. An analogy might help. When we get cold or allergy, we take pills, which induce anti-bodies in the body to control the virus. I wonder if earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, giant-scale epidemics (SARS, Influenza etc) and other natural outrages are indeed symptomic of the earth’s resistance to an intelligent, exponentially growing lethal virus – humans. One could even speculate that Mother Earth influences the collective human conscience resulting in terrorist attacks and bloody, expensive, resource-depleting wars.

Arun Vaidyanathan’s shortfilm has been selected for screening at the Indo-American arts council’s film festival, come this nov 3-6th in Manhattan. I think this is a significant milestone for Arun, to be screening alongside movies such as Deepa Mehta’s new film”Water”, much appreciated and oscar nominated “Born in Brothels” and a lot of other acclaimed shorts. Good luck to Arun and all the crew of ‘Thaniyoru Manidhanukku’ (for a soul). Many of you might remember Harini and I took great pleasure in helping Arun in the making of one of his earlier short-films that continues to recieve good reviews at TriggerStreet.

This past weekend’s retreat was great and i returned with sore body-parts but inspired thoughts. I had the rare opportunity (i am sure more of it would come) of meeting a billionaire, Ken Langone (co-founder, HomeDepot) and a multi-millionaire Mark Patterson (co-founder of MatlinPatterson Global Advisers). Their speeches and words of encouragement were truly inspiring. Frankly, I have never been this close to people of so much wealth and accomplishments under their belts so I had all the reason to cherish the occasion.

A few words of advise phrases of the weekend.

Ken : “The greatest pleasure of creating so much wealth is in sharing it”. [Hmm…I guess he could say that. Someone asked him what kind of risk he is taking (in business) these days, he answered (rude?) that he has amassed enough wealth that he doesn’t risk anything these days!]

Ken : “Making a mistake or being wrong doesnt make you bad. So be brave enough to make mistakes. If you aren’t failing or making mistakes, you aren’t learning. of course, Don’t make the same mistake twice!”

Mark : “Both you and your spouse/children should have the same goal for you. Otherwise, they will be surprised or even leave when you finally accompolish your goal”. Think through this one, there is more to it than it sounds.

Mark [drives million dollar race cars for fun] : “One thing I learnt driving race cars is NOT to look at rear view mirros […and lose track]. In life, never look back to worry about mistakes, always look forward into whats coming with cheer, excitement and inspiration”

Mark : “Have a reasonably good idea of where you want to be and what you want to do life, but be ready to make twists and tweaks. Don’t hurry there, the greatest pleasure is the journey and not at the destination” – This was in response to the question i had asked Mark about if he had figured a goal early in life.

Believe me or not, At some point during Mark’s speech I started dreaming about a speech I am giving in some future (hope near future!) when I have become successful enough to be asked to address 100 business school students.