Full
transcript of Mr Ratan Tata’s address on Graduation
Day April 8, 2006
Dean Rao, Rajat Gupta, Members of the Board, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Members of the Graduating Class.
To stand before you after an overwhelming introduction makes me feel
rather humble. Before I go on, I thought I would tell you a short
story which depicts perhaps what some people other than Dean Rao
might see what I do.
The story is of a man who goes into a shop to buy a parrot. He picks
out a parrot and asks the shopkeeper how much it is. The shopkeeper
says, “5000$.”
The man says, “Oh! That’s terribly expensive. What does this parrot
do?”
The shopkeeper says, “Oh, he types in English with his beak.”
The man says, “That’s far too expensive. What about that parrot?”
The shopkeeper says, “Oh! That one is 10,000$ because he is
proficient in 3 or 4 languages and he understands SAP.”
The man says, “Well, I really don’t want that, what about the last
one there?”
The shopkeeper says, “Oh! That is 30,000$.”
The man says, “What does he do?”
The shopkeeper says, “I really don’t know, but everybody calls him
Chairman.”
And that I think is what some of the people in my organization would
probably feel.
It’s a great pleasure to be here with you today and to be a part of
what to all of you in the graduating class must be a great moment. A
great moment, because not only does it mark the termination of a
curriculum that is well recognized and amongst the best in the
country, but you also head into the business world in India at a
time when India has certainly come into its own, and is very
rewardingly been seen by the world around as a country on the move,
and that you all have an opportunity to play a role in the future of
this country’s development.
In many ways I can only stand here and express my sadness for not
being your age at a time like this because truly it is an
exhilarating moment in time. Most of you would and should look at
the coming years as years of great fulfillment and great
participation in what stands in the future of this country. The
responsibilities that you will have will also be very great. Many of
you are going to be leaders of this country in the years to come.
and in that role you will not only have to excel, which I am sure
you will in your careers, but you will have to demonstrate
leadership to the people around you, the people who you serve and
the communities in which you operate.
I would hope that most of you will in fact strive for leadership in
a principled manner with values, because that would be the
foundation that this country needs to have if it is to take its
place in the world. I would hope that each of you would lead by
example and that each of you would live by the principles that you
espouse…That you will have a sense of vision, because one of the
things that this country has had has been an inability to look into
the future, our business leaders have sometimes been followers
rather than leaders.
For this you would need determination and a sense of belief in what
you are intending to do and I believe on many, many occasions you
would have doubts as to what you are pursuing would be the right
thing. But if you do believe in what you are trying to do and you
pursue it and stay with it in a determined manner, I am quite sure
that you will succeed. All of you have a special role, I think, to
succeed- it is your way of proving that the investment you have made
or your parents have made in your education is the most valuable
investment that you would have made in your life.
I would hope that as people who might take an elite position, would
be considered amongst the elite in the country, you will always
display humility in the manner in which you deal with your
fellowmen, both in your company and in the country and you will
continue to have passion in the areas in which you will work. While
all of you have a great satisfaction in the kinds of salary
placements and the value that has been attached to you which is
quite justified, I believe that each of us have another
responsibility and that responsibility is to play our individual
roles, small as it may be, to lift the quality of life of the 6 or
700 million people in the rural areas. I hope that what you do, in
some way or form, will directly or indirectly touch the lives of
those people because that also will lead to the future development
of this country.
Most of you I imagine will be deeply engrossed in your careers and I
hope that each of you will have a tremendously exhilarating and
rewarding life in the business community, but it is not business
alone, I would feel that a class like yours would go into the world
in India or elsewhere. That you would leave your mark not only
amongst your colleagues in industry, but for future generations who
would look back on you and look to you at the contribution you have
made that lives on after you.
I would like to wish you all the very best and great success in the
life that will follow shortly.
Thank you very much.
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