The date: June 22nd, 2011. The place: Wimbledon.

40 year old Date- Krumm is battling 31 year old Venus Williams. They were evenly matched : One set all and then 6-6 in the third set. Said the commentator: “ The crowd is cheering for Date-Krumm because she’s not afraid to show her emotions. Venus is hitting so powerfully that you wonder how her opponent would handle it.

I have a great admiration for G3 (Gayathri); not only because she is one of the most honest people I have known, but also because she was the one who introduced me to rowing.In the summer of 1998, I followed G3 along with 20 others from Ogilvy onto the murky waters of the Adyar river to take part in the Merchants & Bankers Regatta. Eight long weeks later, holding the overall Championship Cup in our hands, we knew we were hooked on rowing.

I started rowing when I was 44. I am 54 now and still ‘perfecting’ my technique, which, by the way, is far from perfect. I like to think that this has nothing to do with my sporting abilities. Having earned my 2nd Dan in Karate at the ripe old age of 44 and having mastered the Black belt Katas that involve more than 50 intricate movements flowing into each other, I was pretty confident I could handle something as simple as rowing.

10 years on, and with the notion of ‘gently down the stream’ a distant memory, I decided, to explore the sport in greater depth and understand what the sport truly meant to me.

I was once watching a play rehearsal where the group was rehearsing a crowd scene. The actors in the crowd had no dialogues, and their only job was to listen to the main actors on centre-stage, and nod and react excitedly.  Now, it could easily have happened that some of those actors could have thought of themselves to be ‘just nameless characters making up a crowd’ and could have just gone through the motions. Yet, to my surprise, each person was delivering his ‘small role’ with a passion, gusto and enthusiasm as if it were the main character in the play!

No less a magazine than the Economist described Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga as icons of the ‘leadership industry’. While I agree that both have thousands of fans, what threw me was the attempt to compare the two. Is nothing sacred? I asked myself. Then again, I didn’t want to start off feeling biased.

If you’ve attended a few  15th year  (or higher) MBA reunions, you would have encountered a large number of your old mates  who are trying to  figure out ‘meaningful’ ,‘interesting’ or ‘fulfilling’ things to do. In fact at one alumni meet I attended, an entire 2 hour session was convened where the braves who had taken the plunge (like me!) , offered tips and inspiration to the others who were ‘contemplating’ such changes.  Very often, the contemplation remains just that because people can’t quite figure out what to do, and often the ideas remain at the level of the vague ‘I want to be on my own’ or the more clichéd ‘I want to start a restaurant’.  A few months later when I was invited to speak briefly on the same subject at a book launch, I decided to convert my new found ‘expert’ views into a (MBA friendly) five- step process – here goes:

Last week I had the opportunity to fly three different domestic airlines. On the face of it, the experiences were pretty similar – the aircraft were comparable, the food was average (and sadly had to be paid for), ticket prices were at parity, and all the flights were delayed for various reasons.

However, one of the airlines did manage to impress me with their focus on the ‘small details’.

Every one knows about this dashing Scotsman who stormed Madison Avenue at age 38 and became an advertising legend. A towering and awe-inspiring personality who dwelt beyond the great seas. If someone had told me that one day I would get to know the Great Man at a personal level, I would have questioned that person’s sanity.

I first heard the wail of a blues harp way back in 1979. It was one of those nostalgia drenched evenings at my friend Zamb’s place. We were listening to  Ray Charles gruffly bellow “Two old cats like us”, when the music turned to the ‘Hootin Blues with Sonny Terry and his blues harp. In that instant, I was hooked. And have been ever since. 

Today, 32 years later, and a card carrying old cat myself, I continue to be mesmerized.