Recently I attended a talk by Sir Mark Tully at the British Business Group in Goa. During the lecture he made certain observations about Indians and the observations are:-
“Indians are suspicious of certainty, want to lead the middle path and want to find a balance in life.”
I was moved with these comments. On one hand we find ourselves indulging in palmistry and astrology, constantly looking to find what lies in future and trying to get rid of uncertainty from the mind. Yet, Sir Mark Tully made this comment, coming from his extensive travel in India, with the experience of interaction with so varied spectrum of Indians, I was left reflecting on the thoughts.
On being asked a question, he replied, that once decided, the Indians try to find fault with those same decisions. Hence the implementation of these decisions becomes difficult. The path constantly looks different and uncertain though.
We just need to look around, specially in the political and economical horizon and we always find the proof. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about the serious topic of Nuclear Treaty or a socially sensitive topic of Women’s reservation Bill or an economically sensitive topic of SEZ.
However I wonder if corporate India or Indian managers also demonstrate the same behavior. Do we also behave like this in our professional matter?
I also wonder, if this is our strength or a weakness, where the only constant we find in every aspect of life is uncertainty. Does this mean that we as Indians can find the way out of uncertainty easily or that we can live with uncertainty at ease OR does it mean THE OPPOSITE?
Don’t we want the certainty; are we not capable of leaving peacefully with the knowledge of certainty?
Or is it that the path of certainty is away from the middle path? Do we construe that a decision creates an imbalance in life?
I for one certainly don’t have all the answers, but I am certainly looking for the ones.
