The other day at Lodhi Gardens, Anoothi asked me what three qualities I value most in a person (as an aside, it seems AT Kearney is as fixated on the number three as McKinsey is). The first two were obvious choices - empathy and honesty. I thought a bit about the third and finally picked discipline. Here's a bit about why these are the things I value the most. 

Let me start with empathy. Life is a long and often difficult path. Everyone here is fighting their own battles. What I mean by empathy is (1) simply the realisation and acceptance that everyone is fighting unseen, unheard battles (2) an ability to be able to make space for people without necessarily being told about their problems (3) a connection with one's own and others' emotional side. I believe that if one has these three qualities, one will always make himself/herself available for everyone around them. It will come effortlessly. I consider myself fortunate to have been surrounded by empathetic people in College; people with so much empathy that they have actually spoilt me. Swati, for instance, always makes herself available for everyone in such wonderful ways, even if she isn't necessarily your best friend or even if it takes so much out of you. I constantly look up to her and hope that I have the strength and fortitude that she displays.

The second is honesty - something that I have come to value recently. For me, honesty also includes openness with people. At Oxford, I found people very empathetic and very disciplined but found many of those around me to be mysterious individuals who didn't open up easily. They were difficult to read and hence it bothered me for some time, till I came to terms with it. Why this trait matters to me is because we are all so consumed in our lives that it is difficult to know how those around us are feeling. In that case, it is useful if we can be open about how we are feeling and what we want, so that those around us can respond adequately. I have seen so many relationships crumble because people wait for the other person to pick up cues. 

Finally, I have come to value discipline immensely. Discipline, in particular punctuality, helps keep life organised. It helps people around us plan their lives and their days easily. I go back to Salman "Dabangg" Khan - "once I give a commitment, I don't listen even to myself." In this way, commitment just makes the operation of the world easier. Discipline is also an ability to take short term pain for long term gain. In that respect, it complements the above two traits very well. 

These three qualities are not only those that I seek in others, but those that I try to achieve in life. I am lacking in all three, especially discipline, and the desire to improve myself constantly is what keeps me wanting to wake up every day. Perfection, thankfully, is never achievable and hence there is always scope to improve. 

A precarious moment

Being a former consultant, airplanes and airports are like second homes for me. The spate of accidents in the middle of this year and several horror stories told by friends barely affected me. Today, I had my first airplane horror story. 

Landing in Delhi in the middle of the winter is an uncertain situation. The fog ensures that flight schedules are completely up in the air. It was thus no surprise that my flight was 2.25 hours delayed. The flight finally took off at 11 PM from Bangalore and was scheduled to land in Delhi around 1 30 am. After reading and sleeping through the journey, the pilot finally made the 'prepare for landing announcement'. I looked outside the window and Delhi looked like a volcano ready to explode. There was a thick layer of foggy clouds that seemed red with rage (the light of the city trying to find a way out). I thought to myself what a dramatic scene it looked like. The cabin crew was seated and we made our way down. First we entered the fog and I could not see even the wing that was barely a few metres from me. Then gradually the city started appearing. And then, suddenly, the pilot aborted the landing attempt and made a rapid ascent back. In barely a minute or two, we were back at normal flying height. I still don't know why the pilot needed to do that, but it was one of the scariest moments of my life. Then we howevered in the air for about 10 minutes before making another attempt. This time, the fog seemed even thicker. As we descended, I was thinking what it would be like to die. I was planning my last thoughts. Thankfully, the runway appeared and we made a rather non-eventful landing. 

In those tense moments, I went back to what Aparna told me - about how such an incident a few years back had made her scared to fly. I can understand why. It isn't a pleasant experience, to put it mildly. Fear, I suppose, is the most innate of our emotions and I felt it quite intensely today. I also started thinking about how irrelevant all other emotions/troubles felt at that moment. But such thoughts are futile and irrelevant. 

Now I am back in the foggy soup that is Delhi, and can't wait and continue my love affair with the city, write a few new chapters maybe.

Oxford, Michaelmas Term

The curtains are now falling on a rather eventful Michaelmas term here at Oxford. With the submission of my last assignment today, and the conclusion of all formal events at The Rhodes House this term, there is now a need for me to reflect and internalise.

The Rhodes House was the fulcrum of my experience here, and much of what I did revolved around this world. I go back to when I was selected as a Rhodes Scholar - I had been sceptical and dismissive about this whole thing. Whenever I was asking about what it felt to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar, I would just shrug my shoulders. Life had come to mean much more to me than what the Rhodes Scholarship can ever be.

I was very fearful about coming to Oxford. Once I came here, I soon realised that I was actually two people.-One was the person I was back in college - passionate, loving, empathetic, insecure and very hardworking. The second was the person I became at McKinsey - confident, successful, distant, mature and, to an extent, complacent. The worst moments I experienced here at Oxford was when I was unable to reconcile the two, when I tried to bring the learning one of these personas had, to a situation that that persona had never faced. I feel much better now, because I feel that I have largely reconciled the two and created, hopefully, am amalgamation of the two that will make life a smoother journey.

The first few weeks were among the best days of my life - I was completely cut off from everything I had been used to, and everything that was breeding a certain complacency within me. It felt good to be a nobody again, to know that you are among the hundreds of unknown faces that throng the town at this time of the year. It was when I began to have a face, a personality, that bigger questions began to emerge. It is when I had to start filling the personality of 'Subhashish in Oxford' that I the journey became more difficult.

My time at Oxford thus far, however, has been defined by my rediscovery and refinement of love. My experiences of four years back had frozen something within me, and no matter where I moved and no matter which ladder I climbed, I was still there in that moment four years back. It was a conversation I refused to have with myself. But here I was at Oxford, old wounds reopened once again, and I looked within and I realised that all this while, love never left me. It continued to power me on, continued to make me a better person, continued to make every instance of hurt turn into an opportunity of love and service and selflessness. All these years, I thought of myself as a maudlin soul. But this term, I realised how happy an individual I am; that behind my love-lorn poetry is an individual who is here to truly live. And that hurt, hope, despair, love, hate and everything else are all parts of this experience of living; that my constant espousal of love was not as much the wail of a hurt lover as it was the celebration call of someone who had tasted nectar.

What I feel most proud about is my steadfast refusal to be overwhelmed by systems that I was part of. For instance, the M. Phil. in Economics was a course that could have very easily overwhelmed me, especially had I come here immediately after my graduation from St. Stephen's. But the last two years have endowed me with a bit more perspective. It allowed me to enjoy the subject and appreciate and critique it. But it also allowed me to keep the subject at bay, and not let it overwhelm my life. Every single day, I chose to go out there and do what I would add more value to me in life - be it yoga, rowing, reading or meeting people. Even in the last week, with two assigments and a test waiting for me in two days, I refused to close myself in my room. Rabbit holes aren't places where dreams are made and fulfilled, the world is; and that is where I would rather live.

There are so many things that I did for the first time. For one, I took good care of my health, had more fruits than I have ever had in life before, treated myself to a hot glass of milk every morning, did 10-15 minutes of power yoga before classes and either of rowing or running or my exercise schedule every evening. For most part (and for the first few weeks for sure), I studied more regularly than I have ever done before. I also subject myself to social situations where I have not been most comfortable.

To sum it up, Oxford has been wonderful, not easy. It has been wonderful because it has forced me to ask all the right questions - and that is has enabled me to go find the answers. It has instilled in me the zeal of an explorer, and even when I saw a storm approaching, I went ahead and conversed with that storm. Because storms clear the layers of hurt, pride and tiredness that one builds around oneself, and it brings us closer to the truth. I stand tall, a bit exhausted from the storm that hit me, but looking forward with misty eyes to the next set of adventures.

Signing off,

SB