Vanity cards. I didn’t know what they were until i read a few written by Chuck Lorre a few months back. It is an interesting way to communicate your thoughts without preaching. Random stuff or observations, sometimes a line other times a little more. When i started writing i tried to write on topics i found interesting or topics others would be interested to read. I guess i was wrong there. I think life is all about choices and corrections. So this is me correcting myself.
The other day in class there was a man from one of the “coaching centres” for CAT. For those of you unaware of CAT, it is an entrance exam for a seat at one of India’s prestigious management institutes. So he was try to sell us a management degree for which we had start preparing from now. He was very good at it, i wonder where he got his management degree if he has one.He spoke for 40 minutes without a pause or without boring anyone. One of his key points was the salary if you graduate from one of these institutes. *12 Lakhs*(about 20,000 dollars). I was sure most of my classmates were sold after this point. This was confirmed by his next question. who wouldn’t be interested by this salary he asked. Without any delay me and my friend raised our hands.Quite frankly, i was expecting more hands. Quickly he switched to damage control mode and went back to his topic. At the end of the lecture some of my smarter friends started asking him questions about the course and i was sure most of them were weighing their chances at the exam already.
I was still wondering about his skill at selling. He was damn good at it !. This happens a lot in my country. Most people get lured and cheated on the premise of a better life. I guess we are a race of people who are constantly unsatisfied with our state of lives. I think to have a better future we must make our peace with the present first.
“Humble beginnings” another phrase i find interesting. Most of the greats i have read about had very simple beginnings, they didn’t go for the prize on day one, they just took one step forward facing immense criticism. I think that is what should be taught in indian schools today, to be obsessively and insanely in love with the present and at the work in hand. I think it would be nice to quote an example here, cricket. Yes, cricket. I don’t know why but we are madly in love with cricket. Lunch table discussions, car ride discussions and any other possible discussion is always about cricket. If there is any game most kids play its cricket !.when i was a kid there wasn’t any ground close by where we could play so we used to play inside my friend’s house ! My friend wrote an interesting article on this titled “India has to do a cricket for its growth”.
Since i started with chuck Lorre, its only fair that i end with him. In his first vanity card he said “I believe I have a great dog, maybe the greatest dog in the whole wide world, yes, he is!” out of nowhere. It was like writing your train of thought down uncensored. Apple has been a company i could look up to and they come up with the most outrageous phrases like “unapologetically plastic” or “insanely great” . Borrowing from Apple, I think thats what we need obsessive unapologetic insanely outrageous love for something.
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