Autobiography

The Painting called Life

Report Submitted to

Instructor: Prof. Neharika Vohra

Academic Associate: Ms. Sanjana Srivastava
In partial requirements of the course

Explorations in Role and Identity

By

Jaju Darshit Hariprasad (15151)

MYSPACE #2
On 17th October 2016

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Contents

Autobiography............................................................................................................ 2
Home....................................................................................................................... 2
Elitism and Ego........................................................................................................ 2
IIT Roorkee.............................................................................................................. 4
Job, Skills and the World.......................................................................................... 5
ERI........................................................................................................................... 7
What seems dominant in my mind?...........................................................................8

Autobiography
Home
In the plains of Maharashtra, in the silent town of Malegaon, there lived a boy. Raised a single
child, pampered and protected as he was, he was also an introvert. He made very few friends.

He did not go out to play; as he was not very good at cricket. Also, he was bullied by others, he
felt. He stopped playing cricket. He used to spend most of his time at home, with his mother. For
him, his mother was his teacher, sister, friend, everything. His mother was his world. His mother
was a pathologist. He saw since his childhood, so many patient-mothers with their children.
They were so poor! His mother provided lab-testing to these people for free. This motivated him
to do something good for the people; to bring in smiled to the faces of such mothers when they
feel that their children would be safe
He always wished to do many interesting things in life; but finally settled into things he was
actually comfortable with. He learnt music, drawing, scored well in school-exams, etc. But there
were moments when he did things just because he had to. He thus was engaged in so many
mundane things. There were so many exciting opportunities on the table for him; but he was
forced to follow those mundane things. But he did, nonetheless, he did. He always had in his
heart a desire: a desire to do something good for the society; a desire to contribute to the
humanity; a desire to bring in smiles in the lives of people.

Elitism and Ego

He was sent to Pune for preparing for Joint entrance exam conducted by the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IIT). This was the first time he was away from home for so long. This was the first
time he was out of his comfort zone created by his parents. He had to make friends. The biggest
problem he faced was in starting the conversation. But nonetheless, he tried to open up. He
made a few friends. But his friend-circle was still very limited. Since he talked to very few
people, and never concerned himself to gossips, many of his friends started sharing their
secrets with him. He felt his friends trusted him! He was a good listener. His friends started
sharing personal stories with him. He felt good about this: I make few friends, but build deep
relationships! he thought.

The two years of preparation included studying classical physics, calculus, conics, chemistry
and many such subjects. He enjoyed and developed an urge to apply his newly developing
analytical mindset to every aspect of life. He used to find optimum routes to classes; and that
included jumping through other peoples property compounds, designing meal to have optimum
balance so that he could cope up with acidity problems. But at times he went too far. When
people used to share their personal problems with him, he used to apply his analytical brain
there too! This enraged a few people; calling him robotic and boring and insensitive! They
stopped talking to him. While there were others who found sense in what he said. They liked his
approach. Soon, he lost many of his friends. His friend circle narrowed further. But in this
process, he developed a arrogance in himself: The people who dont talk to me dont
understand how things work. I understand. I was helping them. They dont listen. Okay: that is
their problem. Life is a cause-effect game. It is a complex problem that can be broken to smaller
problems. And synthesizing solutions to these smaller problems is the essence of life. The
people who dont understand me do not deserve my time. It is good that they left me! I have
better things to do with my time.
By this time, his mother was getting worried about her son. Dont become heartless, son! She
used to say to him. But she thought he would learn that as he would grow up. He became an
elitist, and he developed his friends of like-minded people.
He then went to IIT. Life there seemed exciting in the beginning. Here his life saw many
transitions.

IIT Roorkee
The first major transition came in his life during second year of Engineering. He was quite
egoistic at that time. He always tried to seek attention from peers and seniors. In the process,
He lost touch with his inner voice, his intuition. Ego and overconfidence never made him realize
his weaknesses and areas of improvement. So, his performance, both academic and extra-

curricular, suffered. Working and studying hard did not completely help. He then realized that
apart from hard work, what equally matters is being in sync with your inner voice and your heart,
and this process was being hindered by egoistic attitude. From that day onwards, he has been
trying to be simple, humble and believer in my actions with an element of detachment from
negativities of ego. Since then, he is glad to say that he has been performing well in academics,
received awards from hostel level to national level for academic and design excellence. More
importantly, throughout the process, he had been making some great friends, who always
inspired him to be humble, compassionate and hardworking. He realized that if your mind is in
sync with your heart, you surely get the best of results. So, there is no need to seek external
attention.
As he started to focus more on academics, he decided in the final year of engineering to go for
Master in Civil Engineering. He started preparing for GRE, and particularly for reading
comprehension preparation, he read many amazing articles form different subjects like history,
philosophy, psychology to sciences and politics. This process, coupled with his interest in poetry
helped him to understand a situation from multiple perspectives and make informed decisions.
He realized that he was equally good enhancing the breadth of his knowledge and integrating
things from different areas of knowledge to come to one decision. So, in a nutshell, he
developed interest in becoming a generalist/ an integrator by preparing for an exam which
generally helps one become a specialist!

The third transition came during placement season at IIT Roorkee. For the first few days, he did
not get even shortlisted for the best Job offers on the campus. This created a lot of pressure on
his mind because of which he could not convert three consecutive interviews. He felt devastated
and lived a miserable life for the next few days because it was after a long time that he received

a setback. He realized that consistent academic growth in the past had made him intolerant to
handle setbacks at that time. This was another component of ego which he had to attenuate. He
worked on this by teaching children from slums outside the campus; involving himself in an
academic project, following other hobbies and practicing introspection. After a few days, he got
placed in a very good company which provided him the Job-profile of his interest at a
convenient location in the country. From this, he learnt that setbacks play an important role in
attenuating ego and subsequent character building. He actually practiced taking setbacks as an
opportunity to strengthen his passion and belief in himself.

Job, Skills and the World

When he moved to Gurgaon for job, he found ample free time during weekends and thus started
teaching children in slum areas nearby. He got to understand many problems which were being
faced in primary education system in India. Then, he worked in a research project to understand
the relative effects of various factors contributing to the situation. He realized that solving the
most basic problems of the bottom of pyramid of the society is really challenging and it is his
responsibility to come up with some solutions to such problem, not because it is good but
because it is necessary.
He started to think more about thisIn India, 8 children under the age of 5 die every 150
seconds. Many of the deaths are caused by diarrhea, which can be easily prevented by
providing clean drinking water and putting an end to open defecation. This fact shows that the
rapid economic growth has failed to bring about reduction of inequities.
A sense of purpose developed in him to address such issues and this drove him to implore the
General Manager-CSR of his company to get himself involved in a CSR project under Swacch
Bharat Abhiyaan to construct 8300 toilets for Govt. schools in villages across 7 states in the
country. He went to his General Manager; who rebuffed his proposal, saying:

You are a fresher from IITR, Darshit! You should be designing complex transmission networks.
I really feel it is important for me to do this Sir! Please give me this opportunity. I will work on
my regular projects too and do this project overtime, he replied.
He was then included in the project as a part of core design team. So, after 7 field visits across
3 states in India and 5 type tests, he came up with a sustainable design. The toilets required
lesser water for cleaning. Provision of forced-lift-hand-pumps ensured that water could be
pumped even in areas that lacked electricity. The toilets were sturdy enough for rough usage in
schools and could be built in 3 days. Thousands of toilets are thus being built based on that
design. He felt good about himself: Root cause identification is important first.fancy designs
come later...
Thus he developed a strong desire to solve basic yet the most pressing problems concerning
the bottom of the pyramid of the society.
2 years on, he was happy to be a student again. This time at IIMA- the confluence of brilliant
peer group, world-class faculty and illustrious alumni to inspire and guide the future leaders of
the society! I must make each moment I spend here count! he said to himself.
IIMA was demanding when it came to studies. He made lots of notable discoveries bout himself
when at IIMA. One such notable discovery was that he doesnt reflect well when he a lot of work
to do. When he worked a lot, he came under stress, so he couldnt reflect well. So, he flet his life
was not getting well connected. Should he develop a skill to actively reflect despite working
hard? Or the reflections are to be made after the phases of intense hard work? Nonetheless, he
developed this art of reflecting while working hard.

ERI
At IIMA, he took ERI (Explorations in Roles and Identity) - a course on self-exploration. This was
an experiential-based learning course. There he made stark discoveries about himself: the traits

he had in him developed deeply due to his childhood, his elitism, his transitions and the drive to
apply his skills to contribute to betterment of society
One such thing he noticed was he did not really develop his emotional side. He was too
analytical. He still thought people trusted him. But something was missing in him: he always felt
that. May be he was not really right about thinking on the trust part. May be his too much focus
on analytical stuff distanced himself from many people. He realized that it is very important to
understand the emotional side to build and connect with people, and this connect will help build
strong and lasting relationships. He understood that not all aspects in life can be viewed from a
problem-solving perspective. Not all the dots have to be connected. He started thinking
Life is not a math puzzle; rather it is a paintingIn a painting, some parts are connected, and
some parts are isolated, unconnected to the theme. Sometimes these unconnected parts give
a new meaning to the painting. They add beauty to the painting, to life, to the world
Not all dots have to connect. Everything need not be perfect. It is the journey to perfection that
matters; the pursuit of exploration, the pursuit of happiness, that matters. And everyone is on
that journey. We might not reach the destination. We must not stop though. Thus, everyone is
struggling, and it is okay to be imperfect.
It is so easy to criticize people by looking at certain aspects of their behavior. Without looking at
the complete picture of the personality, I made judgments about people. I have no right to judge
people. Once I see the more parts of the picture of the personality, I find the person more and
more beautiful. Never Judge! Never Judge! It is okay to be imperfect, we all are. But it is not
okay to stop in the pursuit to develop. So work hard!
3 Lessons of ERI:
a) Do not Judge
b) Work Hard

c) Be Imperfect
The last lesson, be imperfect fascinated him. He understood that we all are imperfect, we all
have vulnerabilities. And in a relationship, vulnerability is the real strength! This statement,
made by one of the moderators in ERI, really changed the way he looked at life.

What seems dominant in my mind?

After ERI, I feel better now. I feel grateful that I could explore my lack of emotional side. I am
grateful to the instructors to see that it was naturally happened given the way I was raised. I feel
happy that it is not too late to develop my emotional side. I feel great to have made best of
friends in Myspace-2.
I understand that sometimes it is okay to just reflect, and appreciate the issues in life. Some
issues need not be solved. Opening up my emotions will develop bond with a person. I still am
fascinated by the statement made by Prof. Bhanumathy: In relationships, vulnerability is the
real strength! Too much focus on idealism will make me just like those ideal gases: which are
self-content and dont react (and thus form bonds with others). I want to explore the world and
its people, and by exploring the world I will explore myself. I will never stop working hard; I will
never judge people (not because it is bad, but because it is unnecessary); with the people I
value the most in my life, I will be open about my thoughts and feelings. I will appreciate that all
of us are developing, each of us is vulnerable and thus we are not all-perfect.
Regarding my goals in life, I want to bring smile to that mother who would be ensured that her
child would not die due to diarrhea. That one smile will be enough for me! I dont think I can
solve the problems of the world! But I can at-least try my best to make things better wherever I
can! And when I find many people like me, who are in pursuit to make ourselves and our
surroundings better, it would be a great source of inspiration for me. I talked to my mom that I
want to work with UNICEF, or WHO. I told her that when I imagine myself doing such work, it

gave me peace. I also told her that she herself, as a pathologist; inspired me to think of this.
She is happy with the career path I have chosen. I hope it would be an exciting journey.