The Hindu : Business : `Happiness? IT's the tip of your tail!': Premji

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 10, 2005

Business

Business

`Happiness? IT's the tip of your tail!': Premji

A small kitten had just returned from cat philosophy school. He was running around in circles, trying to catch his tail. A seasoned old alley cat, asked the kitten what she was doing.

"I have learnt that happiness is in the tip of your tail, and I am trying to catch mine, so that I will always be happy."

The old Tom replied: "You have learnt well. I never received a fancy education, but I too have heard that happiness is in the tip of my tail. What I have also discovered is that if you forget about trying to catch it, it will follow you wherever you go."

Moral: we must decide what to focus on and what we should ignore. If we chase after a wrong goal, we will end up getting exhausted. Wipro Chairman and Managing Director, Azim Premji, used this story to round off his bracing keynote address that opened Day 2 of the ongoing annual summit of the National Association of Software and Service Companies. Indian's are life long learners, he said, and if they're in the Information Technology business, success follows — like the cat's tail — for cultural and historic reasons His theme: the real reason, why half of all outsourced and remotely enabled knowledge services come to India, accounting for 20 per cent of the $17 million software export earnings in this fiscal year.

Top of Mr. Premji's countdown list is the Indian culture of respect for knowledge and the discipline and competitiveness demanded by the often maligned Indian educational system. This is a good filtering system and only the best trickle through, he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business