Padma Sri awardees are usually a delight to be with and learn from. Last week marked an intensive interaction with the 100th Padma Sri awardee post covid. Usually the awardees I interact with are known personality types – people I understand and grew up with. Or knew as IIT seniors or peers or friends or former teachers. It is a very long list starting with Bharat Ratna CNR Rao, my BTP guide Prof RA Mashelkar, my first boss Sri AM Naik of L&T, my childhood friend Prof Sharada Srinivasan, my IIT Peers like Prof Manindra Agarwal, industrialist Satish Kaura, my consulting role model Rajat Gupta, my IIT professor Juzer Vasi, my academic role model Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, angel investing pioneer Saurabh Srivastava, my BTP external guide Prof MM Sharma and so on. It is a very long list and accounts for a super majority of the 100.
But the last few months have brought me in touch with a rather varied group. At one end of the spectrum is Padma Sri Savjibhai Dholakia of Surat – a diamond millionaire with a Jet and a Rolls Royce Phantom – whose passion is river restoration using an army of equipment and little innovation. I visited several of his restoration projects, met up with his family and leadership team, visited his home town and came back duly impressed.
It seemed end-state : till I met the next Water Warrior.
Last week I met Padma Sri Uma Shanker Pandey – a simple villager who studies water as if it were god. He took me on a walk down the path of Lord Ram – into pristine forests of Chitrakoot – and on a path trodden by Bharat Ratna Nanaji Desmukh and the institutions established by him – the Deendayal Research Institute and the Mahatma Gandhi Vishwavidyalaya – both in Chitrakoot. I also got to meet some outstanding volunteers at DRI including Shri Abhay Mahajan and Shri Vasant Pandit. And to be fair, I came back extremely impressed. This wasn’t one of my South Bombay or Lutyen Delhi meetings over caviar at a fancy restaurant or private club. It was in a village setting. The path we took, started where four wheel drives stopped. A journey through pristine jungles almost untouched since the times of Lord Ram. The group I was meeting was as sophisticated as it was simple. As evolved as it was humble.
Vasantji – an Oxford educated poet – disagreed with almost everything I have been trained to accept. Why should everything have a business model ? who are we to decide what is good for the animals whose habitats we want to grab in the name of development. Capitalists say that those who earn will eat. Socialists say those who work will eat. But our ancient wisdom says those who work will feed the rest. I got to hear a nationalist song produced by Nanaji. It basically said, “work for all hands, water for all fields”. At some level it is very simple, yet very profound.
Padma Sri Umashankar pointed out that there are four books about the production of water and maybe 400,000 on sale of water.
It is a thought to be continued in another post.
