Excellence

The thought of Excellence as a way of life strongly came back strongly last week- it does, from time to time. The trigger was a guest lecture I hosted for my course, titled Seminar on Thought Leadership. The guest faculty was Padmapriya, a former student of mine from the 2002 MBA batch of Kirloskar Institute of Management.

She has made a habit of excelling at everything she does. From academics, where she has been among the top of her class, to dance (a diploma in Bharatanatyam), to beauty paegents (Miss Andhra Pradesh at one time), to corporate work (at GE Capital doing high end analytics) and what takes the cake, a movie career with 33 odd leading roles in 6 Indian languages, winning several accolades, including National and Filmfare Awards. Not to mention NGO work designing a program for tribals in coastal Andhra to produce and sell organically grown farm produce. And the last was a part of her Diploma program at National Law School, Bangalore.

Can't help thinking how the world would be if everybody took themselves so seriously in everything they did! Self-belief and focussed work can really take you places. And she is not finished yet. She intends to go on to do a Master's in the U.S. and try her hand at world cinema. I can only wish I had a lot of students like her, so I can bask in all the reflected glory.