I have been a frequent traveler and for many years, especially from 2000 onwards, there was hardly any week without travel. My association with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a powerful facilitator and during his Presidency (2002 – 2007), I had been to every single state and Union Territory of India and joined his entourage to Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, Myanmar, and Mauritius. I also went to Japan in 2004 to prepare for his visit, but it did not take place.

After my stable angina become precarious in 2019, I was grounded at home. Accepting the situation rather stoically, I withdrew myself from the happenings around me and focused on writing books. Working diligently, I could publish India Wakes with Bart Fisher; Diamonds Are Forever, So Are Morals, a biopic of Govind Dholakia, with Kamlesh Yagnik; Decoding the Pandemic with Prof. Seyed Hasnain; and Win Locally to Succeed Globally with DA Prasanna. I did Simple Spirituality on Kabir solo.

Then, the rising star of robotic cancer surgery Dr. S. Chinnababu met me, and inspired by his journey, I wrote Living for a Legacy. It is being reviewed by global cancer experts and will be published later this year. Even after the book was done, several thoughts remained with me – how cancer will always be present despite avoiding tobacco and other carcinogens, and how, as more people would be saved by advanced treatments, they would need medicines to remain free from a cancer rebound. 

Recently, Amit Kaptain visited me. Tall and handsome, the CEO of Vadodara-based Ami Lifesciences was born in Mumbai, while his parents hail from Umbergaon on the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra. He did his schooling in Mumbai and after graduating in science and completing an MBA from SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Amit started his career with E. Merck, handling the sales of Lab and Specialty Chemicals and Equipment for about five years. In 1997, Amit created his own enterprise in indenting APIs, chemicals and intermediates for the industry and exports of formulations. 

In three years, he lost most of his money and landed up in Sun Pharmaceuticals, selling their APIs and formulations in the Far East and Southeast Asia. In 2006, Amit joined Ranbaxy and worked there for close to eight years. By 2012, he became head of the global API business. In 2013, when Ranbaxy was in turmoil, and was eventually acquired by Sun Pharma in 2014, Amit moved to Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in Hyderabad and rose to become their Executive Vice President and Global Head for Sales and Marketing. He quit Dr. Reddy’s in 2000.

Are we hostage to China when it comes to APIs? Amit gave me a broad smile and said, “No way.” India is way ahead of China in chemistry and there is nothing that Indians can’t do. Right at the time a patent is filed anywhere in the world, Indians know how to crack it and wait in patience for it to expire. Of course, with the arrival of biologicals – extracted from, or semi-synthesized from biological sources – in the pharmaceutical industry, the situation is changing. Indians are not yet equipped to create biosimilars and even after the patent expiry of biologicals, they are still not challenged by Indian companies and continue making money in the market. 

So, what is wrong? “A lack of innovation!” said Amit, as plainly as one would say that the sky is blue. His answer made me straighten my back. As a pupil of Dr. Kalam, an undisputed hero of innovation in India, my first reaction was of disbelief. How could it be? But as I dove deep into the situation, I could see the reasons and why they were there, and how we could come out of the impasse. 

Innovations are different from inventions. Innovations are new ideas, methods, or devices around something that already exists. While chemistry was around in India right from the beginning of the twentieth century when Prafulla Chandra Ray established Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. in 1901, biologicals in India were limited to Hepatitis B vaccines and insulin. There was no base to evolve.

China made the most of the opportunity. Its deep links to American academics and research have helped it grow, in part through absorbing knowledge when it was being created and developing new advanced gene therapy drugs and other pharmaceuticals even before American companies could do so. A patent has a basic term of 20 years from the date of filing, which usually happens several years before a drug is authorized.

Because of the intricacy of biotech drugs, which are created through biological processes involving recombinant DNA technologies, they are frequently referred to as “biosimilars” rather than generic copies. One of the first big biotech drugs to lose patent protection will be Enbrel, for example. It is a rheumatoid arthritis drug sold by Amgen and Pfizer Inc., with a market of $3.5 billion a year. Roche’s cancer drug Avastin, with annual sales of around $6 billion, will be the next. 

So, what is the way ahead for India? Three steps can be clearly seen. The first step is to acquire crucial platform technologies and relocate them to India as urgently as possible, as it could have better been done yesterday. Then, a fast-track approval process should be put in place, especially for life-saving cancer drugs. Finally, all the drugs that are going off patent must be Made in India, supported by PLI (Production Linked Incentive) and RLI (Research Linked Incentive) schemes. Such proposals from the industry must be preferred over other drugs.   

India is blessed with immense biodiversity. We have the sources in our plants and trees for making most modern biologicals. By putting the genes from these plants into yeast-like mediums, these can be grown faster and cheaper. In the interest of the nation, export of all such materials and extracts must be prohibited for at least a decade and all drugs used in the treatment of cancer must be declared essential and regulated. This will set the ball of innovation rolling.

There is a scriptural account that while the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, was holding a feast, a mysterious hand appeared, writing on the wall of the king’s palace. The monarch summoned the wise man Daniel, who interpreted that the king needed to learn his lesson lest his kingdom fell. 

Nothing happens in this world without a cause. For innovation to happen, there ought to be platforms, people, support systems, and above all, motivation. While the industry works for profits (and why should it not?), governments must work in the interest of people, especially the poor, and even more so for poor patients, who must get the best of the medicines they need. 

Innovation is now a must-have, not just a nice-to-have.  The economic equivalent of “survival of the fittest” has been replaced by “survival of the most innovative” as the new Darwinism. The writing on the wall reads that India lacks the capacity to manufacture novel biological drugs. It is regrettable that out-of-patent medications are enjoying protection period pricing in the Indian market simply because Indian companies are unable to produce cost-effective biosimilars. If correct action is not taken now, India’s fate would be sealed, as happened in the case of the tyrant and indulgent king of Babylon.

Time and again I found books reaching me when I needed them the most. Be it The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand in 1974, which lifted me from an average engineering student to a meritorious one, or Gestalt Therapy by Fritz Perls in 1985 that helped me get rid of my migraine, or Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung in 1996 that provided me the model for writing Wings of Fire with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, I did not buy these books; they reached me in a strange and inexplicable way. I can surely add to this list, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware that I recently read.

Well, I have been confined to home with stable angina for a while, and spend my time mostly reading and writing. Friends occasionally visit me and I remain active in my science and technology and innovation circle through them. However, there are no more schedules, meetings, and appointments. There are no targets to be chased. I indulge in a little meditation and reflect on the wonderful, action-filled life of more than four decades. So, when this book by Bronnie Ware reached me, I thought about the regrets I had in life. I decided to read the book first before articulating my list. And what a lucid narrative the author has produced! I have been a voracious reader and can feel a book after reading the first 10 to 20 pages. But this book kept me guessing till the end. And though it dealt with the difficult end-of-life situation, not even for a moment did it turn gloomy or depressing.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian woman and this book is her first-person account of working as a carer hired by the families of terminally ill patients. The reader meets 18 patients in the book – mostly old, but also a young man. While sharing her interaction with these patients, Bronnie Ware shares her own life story with brute honesty and candidness – her reckless youth, nomadic way of living, and working as a compulsion to meet her basic expenses. She mostly lived in London and the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, and rather effortlessly take readers into those settings. The flow of thoughts, choice of words, and clarity of the narrative make one wonder if this is the work of a one-book author. 

As for the five most common regrets expressed by people on the verge of death, these were: a wish to have been courageous enough to live a life true to oneself rather than by the expectations of others; the regret of working hard and neglecting family and friends in the process; the lack of guts to express one’s emotions; losing contact with friends of early years; and not allowing oneself to be happier by compromising with bad situations and not walking out of them. Bronnie Ware even avoids putting them in fancy terms, and leaves it to the reader to articulate each regret type in his or her own way and “feel.” 

I deeply appreciate the book and the five regrets sound so true. Mine were: incessant travel due to work; mistaking the apparent with the real; believing people for their words; and above all, considering myself as the hero of my little drama without realizing the great puppet show that this world is. So must have felt most people, in a thousand different ways. The academically brilliant students turn out to be very ordinary in later lives and dropouts become billionaires. Hardworking people burn out and look-busy-feel-easy types rise high in their careers. 

Who lives? Who takes actions? Who regrets? Drawing from the Upanishads and the Buddha, I can differentiate between my mind – the playground of my thoughts; my body, carrying the imprints of all my past deeds, including that of my ancestors in the form of my DNA; and the presence of an immortal Self in me that is the foundation of my present existence, but sees all that I do or that happens to me as images falling upon a mirror. 

So, the answer to who I am is my body, supported by the environment and food, and my mind. Now, the important insight is that there are two types of minds: a thinking mind and an observing mind. There is a beautiful shloka in the Mundaka Upanishad (Verse 3.1.1)

द्वा सुपर्णा सयुजा सखाया समानं वृक्षं परिषस्वजाते।
तयोरन्यः पिप्पलं स्वाद्वत्त्यनश्नन्नन्यो अभिचाकशीति ॥

Two birds are sitting on the same tree; one of the two, tasting the fruits; the other, just watching.

Every moment of our lives, there is a tussle going on between the impressions of the past embedded in our bodies as drives and impulses, and the reasoning of the mind – to eat or not to eat the fruit. Obviously, in childhood, and even in youth, most actions are decided by “impulses”, and in later life, “reason” must prevail, which seldom happens unless one is mindful. 

Now comes the question of regret. Fundamentally, regret is sorrow. It is an emotion felt in circumstances that are beyond one’s control or power to repair. The regret of not eating a fruit, or having eaten the fruit! In the Vivekachudamani, Adi Shankaracharya describes Saadhan Chatushtya, a four-fold endeavor on the part of the seeker to become eligible to know the Ultimate Truth. 

विवेकिनो विरक्तस्य शमादिगुणशालिनः । 

मुमुक्षोरेव हि ब्रह्मजिज्ञासायोग्यता मता ॥

He who is discriminating, detached, possesses the qualities of peace etc., and is desirous of liberation, is worthy of inquiry into the Absolute Truth. (Vivekachudamani, Verse 17)

All mistakes happen due to an unprepared mind. An honest look will reveal all the shortcomings in oneself, waiting to create disastrous results. So, if there can be one regret, it can be wasting life, or better said, the human birth, in not accomplishing this four-fold education of the mind. But here again, how much freedom one has to choose, is arguable. So, is it all a fixed game? Almost. 

The Buddha gave, perhaps, the best knowledge mankind has – the 12-step cycle of dependent origination, प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद in Sanskrit. In these steps, there is a step between sparsh and vedana, contact and sensation – this is because that is. If this stops, that will stop. By remaining neutral to the contacts of this world, by not acting upon them, by seeing them appearing and dispersing like clouds in the sky, we can stop the cascade of cause-and-effect by not acting upon our impulses without applying reasoning thought with patience – allowing life to happen, instead of merely feasting on the fruits. 

So, even this fixed match is fixed in your favor. Human birth is the best chance, among sentient beings of millions of life forms on Earth, to escape this mortal cycle of death and rebirth. All the circumstances in one’s life are meticulously designed to teach a way out. Even the supposedly unpleasant event of death can be an exit for the spirit from bondage into physicality. What a pity it would be to lose even this fixed match!

Asafoetida, called Heeng in Hindi, is the dried gum secreted by tap root of several species of a carrot family plant called Ferula. These plants grow naturally in Karakum Desert spread over Eastern Iran, Turkmenistan, and mountains of Afghanistan. After five years of sowing a seed, a plant is ready to yield. The stems are cut down close to the root, a milky juice flows out and quickly sets into a solid resinous reddish-brown mass. After a season of giving resin, the plant dries out permanently.  

When modern science arrived with analytic tools, asafoetida was found to contain volatile sulphur-containing compounds, which participates in various biological activities upon consumption. Upon deeper examination, three major sulphur constituents that have been identified include 2-butyl 1-propenyl disulphide, 1-(methyl thio) propyl 1-propenyl disulphide and 2-butyl 3-(methyl thio)-2-propenyl disulphide. If we look inside popular drugs used for antimicrobial activity, against hepatotoxicity, and anticarcinogenic activity, these three compounds are almost always present. 

Supply chain disruptions during long Afghan war, that started in 1979, and militancy in Kashmir made Heeng very expensive. The import bill of about 1500-2000 tons of Heeng that India has been importing have crossed ₹1000 crore per year. The over-exploitation of wild population and lack of organized cultivation made Iran declared it an endangered species. As goes a cliché – necessity is the mother of invention, plant, and microbial biotechnologist Dr. Sanjay Kumar, arrived on the scene and developed a practical method of rapid regeneration of this species. 

Dr. Sanjay Kumar approached ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR) and secured seeds from Afghanistan and Iran following a lengthy process. Using ecological niche modelling (ENM) a site was selected near the Center for High Altitude Biology (CeHAB) at Ribling, in Lahaul & Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh. One in a hundred asafoetida seeds germinates under normal conditions but by meticulous planning and care, the CSIR-IHBT team achieved 2 plants for every 3 seeds. The Headspace-gas chromatography (HS-GC) analysis on one-year old plant has confirmed presence of all major sulphur compounds.

.The tissue culture laboratory at CSIR-IHBT has developed an efficient method for regeneration of Asafoetida through somatic embryogenesis. Scientists have grown cellular mass out of cultures from root, leaf, and stem of mother plant. The high frequency of regeneration of the derived callus will encourage them to carry out protoplast culture, somatic hybridization, and genetic transformation. The group joined hands with Himachal Pradesh State Department of Agriculture that organized cultivation in five districts. Plantations were also made in Uttarakhand, Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir.

Besides a long-standing friendship, I share with Dr. Sanjay Kumar nativity and alma mater. We both were born in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh and studied at the GB Pant University, of course in different times and fields. With doctorate at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Sanjayji has been trained at the Texas Tech University and the Kansas State University in the U.S. and Rothamsted Research in the UK.

For Dr. Sanjay Kumar, science is the discovery of the secrets of nature. Through his work on high altitude plants, he discovered a novel carbon fixation pathway. Transplanting this pathway in a heterologous system reduced photorespiratory losses leading to photosynthetic gain and yield enhancement. According to him, winter dormancy and drought stress in tea, carry all the secrets for secondary metabolite synthesis and imparting stress tolerance to other plants.

Another work of far-reaching consequences led by Dr. Sanjay Kumar is growing of apples in North-East India. Apple trees thrive in temperate climates and needs cold winters to ensure plant dormancy and subsequent fruit production. Apples play a leading role in the economy of Himachal Pradesh. The uncertainties of the monsoon, dependence over the old cultivars, and pathogen infestation have created unwarranted uncertainties and hardships for the apple growers. 

Most apples need at least 1,000 cold hours. Low-chill apple types can thrive with as little as 400 winter chill hours, whereas moderately chill apple varieties need between 400 and 700 chill hours. Dr. Sanjay Kumar organized efforts to get apple trees that can withstand heat and have been bred over time in kinds that are suitable for colder winter climates. Many dwarf rootstocks with disease and insect resistance as well as cold hardiness can be developed by technological intervention. 

Apple trees in an orchard are generally not grown from apple seeds. There are two parts of an apple tree – the rootstock, which controls the size of the tree and the scion or cultivar which determines the variety or kind of fruit that grows on the tree. The scion is the plant which has the properties desired by the propagator, and the rootstock is the working part which interacts with the soil to nourish the new plant. The two parts are joined together by grafting. 

The CSIR-IHBT, Palampur, where Dr. Sanjay Kumar assumed leadership in 2015, have developed micropropagation technology for the rapid multiplication of commercially important rootstocks which can be utilized for re-plantation in apple orchards. By “designed grafting” low-chilling apple cultivars, apples can now be grown in warmer climates at even 700-meter altitude. The CSIR-IHBT, Palampur, had supplied 87,000 plants for cultivation in Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh.

When my friend Dr. Ben Karenzi was in India, he informed me that apple crates must travel all the way from South Africa to Rwanda, making them very expensive. The climatic similarity between Manipur and Rwanda made us think of growing apples in Rwanda to great economic gains there. John McChlery, horticulturist from South Africa endorsed the proposition. Of course, things happen at their appointed times, and we can play out little parts and wait for larger forces arriving at the scene. For the bioeconomy to be successfully integrated into society, there must be a relationship between science, politics, and society. 

Bioeconomy is a buzz word these days. Though it is generally used in context of ethanol substituting a part of petrol, but the bioeconomy’s largest niche is occupied by food systems. There are tremendous possibilities and the two stories I discussed are merely tip of an iceberg.  As self-made scholars of the emerging field of bioeconomy, Dr. Sanjay Kumar and I see approximately $100 billon Indian bioeconomy as of 2023, poised to become $150 billion by 2025 and $300 billion by 2030. Like all things pass, poverty also must go for our small farmers living in remote places by taking and science and technology to them

I consider meeting Dr. Sunkavalli Chinnababu as a gift that the new year 2023 brought me. Not even 50 yet, Dr. Chinnababu is a rising star in cancer surgery and is considered among the best in performing robotic-assisted surgeries in the country. A pleasing person with impeccable manners, he is full of zeal and exudes enthusiasm. He invited me to his house and at the workplace and during our several meetings I felt as if I was meeting a younger version of my mentor, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. 

Chinnababu was born in a family of limited means in a village in the interior of the Kalyana-Karnataka region, as a second child to his parents. As goes the legend, his great-grandfather was a landlord in the West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh, considered the “rice bowl of India.” An elephant guarded his house. As is always said about rich people of bygone eras, he was too trusty and lost his fortune to scheming relatives and friends that forced his next generation to migrate for livelihood. 

Travelling westward, crossing the arid Deccan Plateau by public transport in a cascade of small trips spread over a year, they arrived at the Tungabhadra River basin to do farming, perhaps the only livelihood they knew. Putting together whatever they had, they bought two acres of land and settled for good in a village called Ashok Nagar Camp. It was a remote place; a habitat of some 300 people, not connected to any road or railway line. A small irrigation canal, emanating from the Bhadra Dam and flowing eastward, was its only connection with the rest of the world. Even the canal would dry up for three to four months every year. 

Chinnababu had to walk three kilometers every day to attend the government primary school in Nalkudre, a small village near Davangere. The teachers were more like guardians to the children. Teaching was done at a slow pace with a lot of emphasis on discipline, especially taming the impulses. He enjoyed his studies. There was not even an iota of remorse about the hardship of the long walk every day. But as every contented soul eventually gets blessed, the decision of the Government of India in 1986 to establish co-educational schools, known as Model Schools, called “Navodaya Vidyalaya,” with one in each district, arrived as a boon. 

The aim of these new schools was primarily to provide talented youngsters living in rural areas, with high-quality modern education, which would otherwise never reach them. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi even ordered free boarding and housing facilities, everyday necessities, bedding, etc. for the needy, and textbooks, stationery, and uniforms for every student. Two students from every school were invited to write an entrance examination for the Navodaya Vidyalaya in Shimoga, now called Shivamogga, and Chinnababu happened to be one of them.  

The Navodaya Vidyalaya followed the PCMB (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology) system. Therefore, there was no hesitation when deciding between Mathematics and Biology, together with Physics and Chemistry, as is the case with other educational formats. He could appear for both the Engineering and Medical entrance examinations. He secured an engineering seat at the Regional Engineering College, at Surathkal, Mangalore; as well as a medical seat at the Jagadguru Jayadeva Murugarajendra Medical College (JJMMC), Davangere, which he eventually joined “because it was nearer to his village.” 

Once, alone while studying a cadaver, a dead human body dissected for teaching medicine, in the gross anatomy lab, Chinnababu had a deep spiritual experience. He felt as if the end of life was staring upon him, and suddenly realized that each cadaver was still a person. It was just that the “act” in the world was concluded for him. If this was what we all turn into at the end, what must one live for, he pondered. And he could sense the Immortal Spirit inside, which was making him work through people alive to extend what had already been done, into what further needed to be done. That day, Chinnababu took a decision to live for a legacy – not money, power, or fame, but to make things better for the coming generations. 

Dr. Chinnababu started finding new meaning in events and experiences with his teachers and patients. He realized the truth of the saying of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822 –1895) that luck always favored the prepared, or that chance favors the prepared mind; or even better, of Seneca, a philosopher of ancient Rome, who defined luck as the intersection of preparation and opportunity. He did his master’s in general surgery from Government Medical College, called GMC, Surat, and super specialty in Surgical Oncology from the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute (GCRI), a state-owned cancer research institute in Ahmedabad. 

In 2007, Dr. Chinnababu started practicing at the Kamineni Hospital in Hyderabad. In May 2009, he attended the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Orlando, Florida, and rubbed shoulders with world leaders there in oncology. Inspired by the discussions on whether experimental cancer therapies should be available outside clinical trials, Dr. Chinnababu took a sabbatical and got trained at the Long Beach Cancer Center, Los Angeles, and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, investing all his savings in the process. Renowned head and neck surgeon Dr. Jatin Shah, and oncologist Dr. Ashwin M. Shah became his role models. 

In 2010, Chinnababu created a company, ClinSync Clinical Research Pvt. Ltd., with the aim to synchronize clinical research with drug development, with oncologist Dr. Suresh Attili, Dr. Suresh Kamireddy, and Kiran Avacha, at the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute. They succeeded in creating many affordable indigenous drugs used in cancer treatment, notably Imatinib and Capecitabine. Moved by the plight of a widow with children of a 26-year-old man who died of tobacco-induced esophageal cancer, who did not have money to take the dead body and perform the last rites, Chinnababu created the Grace Cancer Foundation, inviting IPS officer B. L. Sujatha Rao to lead it. 

Dr. Vijay Anand Reddy, director and radiation oncologist at Apollo Cancer Institute, Hyderabad got Dr. Chinnababu an invitation to join the Institute with new equipment – a surgical robot. Together with gynecologist Dr. Rooma Sinha, they made an incredible team in driving the robotic program in India.

Working with Dr. Subhash, a doctor in Nizamabad, every Friday since 2009, Dr. Chinnababu goes there to attend to cancer patients who have no means to travel to Hyderabad and pay for costly treatment at super specialty hospitals. Eventually, he adopted the Indur Cancer Hospital and established the only community cancer center for five districts in north Telangana, including a state-of-the-art linear accelerator, and radiotherapy machine. Dr. Chinnababu also organizes the Global Grace Cancer Run every year to create awareness about the prevention of cancer, which is indeed very effective to keep away cancer, the brutal king of all maladies. On October 9, 2022, in the fifth edition of the Run, 10,00,00 people participated across 130 nations.

What drives Dr. Chinnababu to learn new treatment modalities at the world’s best centers, perform a cancer surgery a day for the last 15 years, travel to Nizamabad every Friday, and indulge in clinical research to make medicines affordable? His answer is, repaying for the benediction of getting a human birth. The education, privileges, and love and respect that he receives must be paid for by serving the poor and needy. And above all, by creating a legacy, laying a path that younger doctors may tread in their careers.  

Life has its own way of cheering you up. As you grow older, age shows up on your energy levels, the futility of striving for good things stares at you, a feeling of resignation looms large, and then something surprising happens to cheer you up, as if a ‘gift’ has been delivered without any occasion. I received such an invite to address 200 children from the best of the schools in India, Dubai, and Singapore, assembled at the iconic Hyderabad Public School in a keynote address at the concluding event of a five-day camp called The Round Square, organized as part of their centenary celebrations. 

I have been living in Hyderabad since early 1982 and had passed by the Hyderabad Public School spaced away from the road by a huge playground fenced by big old trees hundreds of times, glancing at the majestic building, but had never entered inside. I grew up in a lower middle-class setup and never enamored myself by the things that are meant for the elite – including institutions like clubs, hotels, and public schools. Of course, now my grandson studies at Hyderabad Public School and would be a part of the elite upon growing up, God willing. 

The Round Square is an international network of schools. German educator Kurt Hahn (1886-1974) founded it in the late 1960s; it started in a round-shaped building in a square area at Gordonstoun in Scotland, from where it derived its name, and then six schools networked to follow Kurt Hahn’s educational concepts. Their network has grown to have 230 schools across 50 countries since then. There are 60+ Round Square schools in India, which encourage students to go beyond academic excellence and strive for personal development and responsibility through service, challenge, adventure, and international understanding.

I was mentored by legendary Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, and it was only natural that I invoked his memory in my speech. Dr Kalam was passionate about interacting with children and made it his mission to visit as many schools as he could. There is no data, but my ballpark estimate is that 20 million children had seen and heard Dr Kalam in their schools. No other leader in the world had done it before him or after him. So, while interacting with the students, I invoked his memory and imagined what he would have said on this occasion about the cultivation of gratitude and patience in life. Sabr and Shukr are like the two wings of a bird to fly over this world full of suffering, as Buddha called it. I exhorted children to feel thankful for whatever they already had and to cultivate patience without getting agitated for all that they wished to have in their lives. 

Hyderabad Public School has a great tradition. Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen, T K Kurien, and Harsha Bhogle studied here. Three students later became Chief Ministers, and many became Union Ministers. I wondered what if the Prime Minister of post-2050 India was sitting there that day. And why not a girl? When I said it, there were loud cheers and I have no words to describe the positive energy that was palpable in the way children were conducting themselves – sitting attentively, walking buoyantly, and making eye contact while interacting.  

Good schools are essential in society.  American social reformer Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) famously said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.” A lot has been done in independent India in this direction. There are good schools in every town and primary education has reached most of the 600,000 Indian villages.  

In the Round Square schools, six ideals are fostered among the students – International Understanding, Democracy, Environmental Stewardship, Adventure, Leadership, and Service – making an acronym of IDEALS. The principal, a dual Master of Sanskrit and English, from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, personified the education of New India – anchored in a 5 millennia-old civilization and aspiring to lead the world in the 21st century. Listening to him – a baritone voice, flowing like a symphony – was indeed surreal. 

Why is good education for children important? Three fundamentals come to my mind – social skills, personal growth, and the expansion of consciousness. Every child is conditioned by his family atmosphere and, unless exposed to other children, runs the risk of growing up as a dysfunctional adult in the society. In schools, children learn to interact socially with others outside of their family and the wider community. By interacting with children of different backgrounds, genders, and beliefs only one can be free from risky prejudices. 

Education instils discipline, which aids in a child’s ability to maintain concentration. The foundation for prospects for future growth is laid by children’s education. The periods of teaching different subjects, intervals for biological breaks and food, assembly, sports, music, arts, and above all, the cultivation of civility, prepare a child to become a competent and productive adult. Educational programs today are made that way. Children can develop emotional and mental fortitude through schooling, which benefits them in their later lives.

Perhaps the most important fundamental is the expansion of consciousness. By raising the consciousness of their students to the next level, good teachers indeed act like sculptures of the soul. Swami Vivekananda has said, “We are magicians waving magic wands and creating scenes before us at will. We are the spider in his huge web, who can go on the varied strands wheresoever he desires. The spider is now only conscious of the spot where he is, but he will in time become conscious of the whole web. We are now conscious only where the body is, we can use only one brain; but when we reach ultra-consciousness, we know all, we can use all brains.” (Complete Works v. 7 p. 15)

Once the consciousness of a child is expanded – from the confinement of “I” and “mine” to “we” and “ours” – the behaviour of the child is automatically changed for rest of his life. Hyderabad Public School is doing it – enthusiastically and effectively I must add – and it was evident that evening. In the book You Are Born to Blossom, where Dr Kalam gave me an opportunity to co-author, he writes, “The management of knowledge must move out of the realm of the individual into the networked groups.” (Chapter 7). I could see this truth shining through The Round Square.