'Perhaps they will see parts of their own life story reflected in mine!'

Mind Without Fear | Rajat Gupta

One of the first Indian honchos to have made it big, way before a Indra Nooyi or a Sundar Pitchai could make it this big - across the Atlantic - would obviously be Rajat Gupta!

Rajat Gupta had managed to reach to the ‘toppest’ echelons of the US corporate world, with his sole acumen, determination, grit and vibrant spirit!

Being the eldest child of the family, and having being orphaned when still in college, Rajat Gupta had a great burden up his shoulders! He also had his task cut out!

After his graduation from IIT Delhi, he moved over to Harvard Business School in the US, and then joined the globally-renowned consultancy firm, McKinsey, where he had spent close to four decades of his life!

But then, things took a turn for the worse in 2011 – 12, when he was accused of insider trading, and was condemned to a prison sentence by the US law courts!

Rajat Gupta has remained in oblivion for long, until he decided to take a stand! A stand to speak his voice and his defence from off his heart!

Mind Without Fear thus happened in March 2019.

Mind Without Fear, hence purports to be a kinda memoir giving us all glimpses into the man, his life, his successes, his failures et al from his own points of view, without any tom-tomming of sorts! On how he became a victim of circumstances, and how his blind trust on some of his friends and acquaintances eventually led to his downfall, and how he survived the whole ordeal by his sheer determination and courage, which, then, forms the crux of this memoir!

Personally, what attracted me to the book was its Title! It’s taken from one of my (and by default, most of our) all-time favourite songs of Tagore!

Mind Without Fear!

And this obsession with Tagore is manifest in Rajat Gupta’s book all over so much so that, Tagore’s famed quotes are strewn across his chapters to add to the impact of his confessions!

And well, he opens his memoir with a candid confessional statement! Says he –

Like anyone who has lived a full life, I have some regrets. The one that haunts me most is my choice not to take the stand. I consider this book my testimony, and this time I have no hesitation about taking the stand.

And so well he does take a stand!

The epigraph to Part One starts off with a wonderful quote from the Gita!

O Krishna, drive my chariot between the two armies.

I want to see those who desire to fight with me.

With whom will this battle be fought?

 - Bhagavad Gita, 1:21–22

And rightfully, on a related vein, he asks midway through his memoir,

How was I supposed to stand up and fight, when my adversary was merely a shadow?

The book is available on Amazon amongst a host of e-stalls at a very competitive price! Grab it quick!

On the ‘Why this Book?’ question, he has an answer again on the opening pages itself –

Just excerpts for y’all -

Not too long ago, I took my twin granddaughters to the US Open tennis tournament. We were strolling between the courts when two strangers approached me—both Indians in their twenties. “It’s so good to see you here,” one of them said. “You’ve been a role model for us. I hope you are doing well.” We chatted for a couple of minutes, and they took some pictures with me, before we went our separate ways. 

If I think about who I would most like to read this book, it’s people like them. People who encountered my story or my work, who were inspired by my values or my success and confused or disheartened by my downfall. People who have been wondering: Why did this happen? And how is he doing? Perhaps they will see parts of their own life story reflected in mine. Perhaps they will learn a lesson or two about what to do and what not to do.

Writing his Prefatorial to his memoir from Westport, Connecticut, January 2019, Rajat Gupta says,

I am an orphan. Immigrant. Businessman. Leader. Philanthropist. Role model. Convicted felon. If you read the business press you might have followed my story, which captured the public’s attention during 2011 and 2012…

The judge went out of his way to block any reference to my character and to the aspects of my work that mattered most to me. The prosecutors were skillful in manipulating the press. And I missed that opportunity to tell my own story, and to let the jury, and the public, see who I am directly. For that, I take full responsibility. This book is that story.

The book starts off on a solemn note with the lovely Tagorean song, ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’, from his Gitanjali, and ends with an amazing discourse on the Gita! The Bhagawad Gita!

Rajat Gupta’s life and deeds remind me of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem titled, ‘If’

Just giving y’all excerpts from this wonderful motivational, inspirational poem –

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Why ‘If’? You may be tempted to ask this pavapetta blogger! ;-)

Because Rudyard Kipling, winner of the Nobel, had to undergo more of such unending hardships right from the time he was a kid. His foster mother’s abuses were so distressing to the little kid in Kipling, abuses that he endured with such stoic silence! As an adult, he yet again suffered huge losses when the bank in his which he had kept his life’s savings, had collapsed. As a result he became, all of a sudden, penniless!

Although he was beset with innumerable misfortunes and personal tragedies, (his daughter died, at the tender age of seven, on a trip to America, after having contracted pneumonia, and his son, enlisted in the army, died in battle!) still, his spirits were always jubilant, and his energy on such a positive high!

In spite of the trials and hardships in his life, he managed to keep his spirit high all of the time, as he believed in the dictum that, ‘Storms make the oak tree take deeper roots’! Hence, the more the storm, the deeper the oak’s roots! The oak is no ordinary tree! When other trees fall by the wayside in the face of even the slightest storm, the oak not only survives the fiercest storms, but also emerges triumphant, on top, because its roots are so deep and so strong!

Of such mettle was Kipling! He directed his energy and his spirits towards his muse! Now he started writing passionately, and soon he became a rage, a sensation and the talk of the town! He went on to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, and this poem was written soon after.

As is widely known, power lines from this inspirational poem adorn the entrance to Wimbledon, as a gentle reminder to players, on what it takes to be a man! Or, in today’s parlance of parity, a human!

Rajat Gupta’s life proves true to a tee on this credo! And howww!

images: Grigor Dimitrov via twitter, twitterdotcom/mindwofearbook