This morning, at the Awakin Talk with Prof DVR Seshadri where he spoke with honesty about his commitment to live a life of integrity and values. He shared some stories of his life where he learnt tough lessons from his early transgressions. The stories below are written in first person, as narrated by Prof Seshadri, during the Talk.

Story one :

As a doctoral student of IIM-Ahmedabad, I used to run around the campus. Once I saw a beautiful flower in the garden of one of the faculty quarters. I plucked that flower - the instinct was “It is so good, let me pluck it.” And gently there was a voice from the balcony. I looked back and there was standing the founding Director of the Institute - the highly respected professor Dr Ravi J Matthai. And he just told me a soft voice, “Young man, dont you think the flower is more beautiful on the plant than on your hands?” I dropped the flower then and there, just muttered some sorry and then ran away. It was 1981 - my first year and he was long retired by then.

That was a very defining moment in my life - that nothing we are supposed to take that is not ours.

Story two :

I got married in June 1982 - I was a student getting a stipend of Rs 500 in not a very good financial position. I was newly married then and time and again, I would pine to travel back to Chennai where my wife was based.

Around that time, there was an assignment in a course of Information Systems and I could just not put my brain to address that assignment. At the eleventh hour, I requested a friend for his assignment and I literally copied it. I thought it would go unnoticed. Unfortunately - or so I thought at that time - the teaching assistant noticed the almost 90-100% overlap and he raised this point internally. It got escalated to the Dean and he hauled me up saying “You are supposed to be a doctoral student and what are you doing? We can throw you out.” I was let off the hook with a warning.

This one too was a defining moment in my life. My pride about being a notch above the others was brought to ground. That was the first and last time that I crossed the lakshman rekha (dividing line) of pilfering someone else’s work.

My learning has been to have zero compromise on values - whether it is intellectual rights. Even if it means losing your job, so be it. May be you will discover something you are more passionate about instead of sticking to a thankless job which does not hold your interest.

I can say that I was transformed by Mathai's intervention at other levels too. Since then till date, I always carries my own water bottle wherever I go, so that I don't harm the environment..