Criticism is something I can live with - and learn from. But not from random, anonymous people.
And hence, for the first time, I have taken the trouble to delete some particularly hateful - and hurtful - comments of 'anonymous' origins left on this blog.
These anonymice have the following problems:
a) "Every post you write is about IIM... "
Huh? That's factually incorrect. But even if it were true, this is my blog. You're not being forced - at gunpoint - to read it!
b) "You don't reply... " or "You reply only to people with an IIM connection"
Huh ?? I don't reply that often because I don't just blog - I have a life. Time is finite! Besides, not all comments merit a response - often there's nothing of value I can add beyond what I've originally written.
But I do take note of comments - and ALWAYS reply to anyone who directly emails me.
Thought for the day
If the word 'IIM' does tend to pop up in my writings now and then it's because for me it was a singular and defining experience.
I'm reminded of a very beautiful observation in a special issue of Time magazine called the 'Asian Journey Home' in which immigrants go back to their homeland and write about the experience.
This is what Karl Taro Greenfeld wrote in an essay about the experience of returning to Tokyo where he spent the days of his "youth" (a decade ago) and finding everything had changed. What he was seeking was another world which existed only in the "repository of his memories".
"If you are truthful to yourself, you will admit there was a time when you felt most honstly and authentically yourself. A week or a month or, perhaps if you are lucky, a year or two when the swirling circles representing your character, personality, style and appearance swam into perfect congruence and you were precisely the person you aspired to be. When I return to Tokyo I am reminded of that state of equilibrium".
For me, perhaps, the two years spent at IIM A captured this state. Which is why my mind wanders back to it quite often. As simple as that!
