Legacy: Letters from eminent parents to their daughters by Menon, Sudha (electric book reader .TXT) 📕

you risk finding yourself thrown on the ground. I know in childhood you have had a few falls from riding on the horse’s back.

Darling, I want you to live life to the fullest and cultivate a variety of interests. Being multi-faceted is a very important part of being a successful human being. Today, when several of my friends are retired from active professional lives and sitting in their clubs playing cards, I find myself unable to do that. Perhaps, if I had learnt the art of killing time at a young age, I would have enjoyed it but my youth was spent in building up my career with the result that today, I don’t even know how many cards a pack has! I know it has two Jokers! Thankfully, I have my own pet passions—Golf, movies, music, reading, watching an occasional play—which adds so much value to life. Let us not overlook my addiction to Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cuisine.

My letter to you will remain incomplete if I don’t tell you what you mean to your parents. The five years that you spent with us after you returned home from your studies was such a precious period, one in which I felt like you were ours, finally. That was also when we talked business, you and I. I know you are a private person and shared more about the man you were seeing then with your mom than with me, but just getting to talk with you about life in general and business matters was hugely interesting for me.

Happiness, I’ve always felt, comes from following your heart. Today I think that going into a different line will maybe will open up vistas for me that I would never have seen, but for your prodding. I am looking forward to spending time with you, so you will be able to teach me things that I never learnt from anywhere else. With a child, especially with a gifted daughter like you, learning can be fun. I’ve already learnt so much just by watching you conduct yourself.

I have learnt to love from you. Having you and loving you brought another dimension to my definition of love, taught me of a love that is pure, taught me to be more considerate, more appreciative and understanding. Adults can learn from a child’s love; there is no give and take there, just joy and complete acceptance. From you, I learnt what it is to love unconditionally.

Dear Anjali, I brought you up as the son of the family, ‘my puttar’. But now, it is such a pleasure to have a daughter. She is more forgiving, caring, and more than generous in reciprocating your affection.

Maybe I never told you this before but sometimes I dream of you sitting next to me, listening to my rambling nonsense, and not disappearing to cater to all the other distractions in your life. I love your attention, dear daughter. I want to enjoy your company. There are too many distractions that take you away from me and your mother, like the phone constantly buzzing by your side. I want to ask you, do you know where the birds sat before mobiles phones were invented? On telephone wires that no longer exist. Now you know why I don’t possess a mobile. But you have not noticed and I have not asked you, because there are always too many distractions for us to have the time to share that.

With all my love,

Dad

Ganesh Natarajan

anesh Natarajan’s earliest lessons were learnt from his father, a simple village boy who worked relentlessly to make a career for himself so that he could look after his parents and thirteen siblings. That journey took the young man from his village in the state of Tamil Nadu to the city of Kolkata where he set up a small enterprise, and from there to, Tatisilwai, a small village in what is now the state of Jharkhand.

His father’s commitment to his family and to the people around him left a lasting impression on Ganesh. As a young man, he recalls evenings spent serving up milk to the children of the village and joining them in singing patriotic songs which, his father told him, would make them better human beings. From his father, who worked hard at the factory and then at the Ramakrishna Mission’s Seva Kendra till late night, Ganesh learnt the qualities of sincerity, hard work, love for the community, and the ability to maximize his time. From his mother and grandmother, he learnt generosity of heart and the ability to make the whole world his own and to reach out to everyone who touched his life.

Today, Ganesh Natarajan is the Vice-Chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies, one of the most successful IT companies in the country, Co-Chairman of the National Knowledge Council, and a member of the Chairman’s Council, NASSCOM.

The little boy who grew up to be a God-fearing young man now finds himself an atheist, increasingly questioning his earlier beliefs, thanks to daughter Karuna, a keen science scholar who is currently engaged in cutting edge research in Hematology and Oncology at the prestigious Harvard University.

Ganesh writes a nostalgic letter to Karuna, a letter in which he wonders if he could have, perhaps, spent a little more time with her during the few years that she was with them, before setting out in her early teens, on a trans global journey that took her to some of the biggest educational institutes in the world, including the Cambridge University. And yet, he says in his letter, he is glad they had the courage to let her find her own wings and take off in pursuit of her dreams.

My dear Karuna,

As always, it is a pleasure to write to you, this time especially so since you have now embarked on the next phase on your voyage of scientific discovery.