A different take on the success of desis. Liked this point of view too .

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Yesterday, all the news channels, social media platforms, and tabloids worldwide were splashed with the news of Google announcing India-born and bred Sundar Pichai as its new CEO. It’s the second year in a row that an Indian has been handed over the reins of one of the most powerful companies of the world after Satya Nadella was made the CEO of Microsoft last year. Nothing can be more inspiring and motivating than the fact that these guys who rose from the modest soils of the Indian middle class are today poised to rule and impact the entire world.

While I was reading about Sundar’s achievements today, an unfortunate thought had dawned upon me - that he would have never got this big an opportunity had he stayed in India. So, I subconsciously began to admire America for being such a great country in supporting entrepreneurialism without which perhaps there would not have been the Google as we know today and there would not have been a Sundar Pichai to inspire millions.

And just about then, a sentence that popped out from my father (who was sitting beside me and listening to my raving of Sundar’s life) exposed something that, in this hour of rejoice, may have been entirely forgotten. It’s something that is slowly but surely fizzling out of this world. It’s something without which there would not have been a Nadella or a Pichai, to ours and Google’s or Microsoft’s disadvantage.

It’s the generation that we grew up holding hands of. It’s our parents.



When I was raving about the above to my wife, my father chipped in and said “It’s really great; his parents’ hard work and sacrifice has paid off well"

When guys like Sundar, Satya and my own generation were growing up it was the period of pre-economic liberalization - when India was considered as a Third world country. The middle class used to struggle to meet ends. Going to a restaurant for that generation used to be a luxury – a once in a blue moon affair. Telephones and cars used to be a few owners’ pride and a whole bunch of neighbours’ envy. And foreign vacations? Phew! Those perhaps used to be the dreams of many from that generation but sadly for a lot of them it never turned into a reality.

No. Not because that generation could not have afforded all of these. They surely could have saved and used the money to realize some of their dreams and desires. But then they made a choice. They sacrificed! And made us their dreams! And our education their desire! That entire generation had put their blood, soul and money into just one thing - our education; at the expense of their own personal desires; often passing away without ever seeing their own personal dreams come true. It was this sacrifice that has made you and me, and from amongst us has emerged the Nooyis (Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi), the Pichais and the Nadellas.

Our parents’ generation created a double ripple effect of sacrifice and education. Almost no one was spared from that storm. No one family had the guts to make such sacrifice on their own. It was a uniform and team act. Everyone one was into it together and influenced each other to do so. The entire country was gripped by that fervour.

And for this reason, Sundar Pichai (or for that matter Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen), does not just owe his success to his IIT engineering degree, or Stanford University or Google. He owes it to that entire generation, including his parents, that created the culture of extreme personal sacrifice in favour of educating us.

I owe it to that generation.

You owe it to that generation.

And today, Google owes it to that generation.


Aninda Baruah

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In the light of Sundar Pichai's success, this is a tribute to his parents and all our parents for whatever little we have achieved or goodness we have done in our lives till now.

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Please let your smart brain analyse first. Mine is taking rest.

While bowing to the generation of people who produced Indira Nooyi, Nadella Satya, Sundar and others and identification of their special characteristics, could identify geographical residential areas in Chennai which tends to produce MORE senior managers, leaders and administrators.

As a person living in Chennai for the last over 50 years have this to say.

These locations fall around Triplicane and Mylapore residential areas of Chennai. During the last 60 years,as these old localities became more of commercial, the next generation of people from these areas shifted to locations near Mambalam and P.thangal railway stations in Chennai.

The surprising part before 40 years, Mambalam and P.thangal (Nanganallur) residential areas too were brimming with lower and middle class people.

Now after 40 years, am amazed to see the economic prosperity and social standing of the same families, along with rise in the country's prosperity. The lower middle class and middle class families living in these areas had all the financial problems while raising their children. But they believed in a set of values like faith in God, simplicity, honesty, hard work, NOT being spendthrift etc. They gave utmost priority to their children's education.

Also would like to mention that the Mambalam residential area of Chennai of those times had the good fortune of having about half a dozen high schools run by the then very active Rama Krishna Mission from Kolkata. Inculcating the best teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda at fees next to nothing, children from these era belonging to poor families, could raise to great heights.

Most importantly, is there a scientific way to identify which set of practices/habits/environment/parents/teachers, can bring out the best from a generation, without being accused as being communal ?

Or at least, the countries of the world can avoid bringing up Osama Bin Ladens, Mohammed Attas and organisations like Al-Qaida or ISIS.

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