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INSPIRATION

Good morning

It is really nice to be here. I will not take much time with this, but will ask for your attention for a good … five minutes. I’m here to share things with you, that I now wish somebody had told me when I was your age.

Let me start with a very short story.  

Pythagoras once passed by a blacksmith’s shop and he heard the sound of hammers hitting on some metallic surface. Now, the simultaneous striking of hammers of different shapes and sizes somehow sounded like music. With careful thought, he figured out, that if you have two hammers – one twice as heavy as the other, then on being struck on the same surface, they will produce two (musical) notes exactly an octave apart (how many of  you know what an octave is?). Now, as it turns out, this simple principle is fundamental to the making of many musical instruments. Take the Harp for instance, choose any pair of strings, one of which is twice as long as the other – the difference between the notes they produce, will again be exactly one octave. Have you heard of the Jal-Tarang? Try producing notes an octave apart using two (identical) cups of water. You will notice that one of them will hold exactly twice as much water as the other.

The key take away from this story, is that the sounds of random hammering at the blacksmith’s shop inspired Pythagoras to figure out the fundamentals of producing music. These (simple) fundamentals, in turn led to the development (and the eventual refinement) of various musical instruments that we today know of. 

My first question to you: Do you think the blacksmith had explicitly asked Pythagoras to go to him and listen to his hammering? Or, did the blacksmith say to Pythagoras “listen to my hammering ... it sounds like music?”

This is my first advice for you: Inspiration is for YOU to find. Nobody will come to you and say “please be inspired by me.” The sooner you learn this, the better it is. You can’t be sitting back for inspiration to come to you. You’ll have to find it yourselves: in your different experiences, in people around you, and (you'll be surprised) even within yourselves.

Regardless of what profession you are into, you learn from a Sachin Tendulkar to only let your work do the talking; you learn from a Dev Anand that there is no retirement … so you’re inspired to move on and on. Which brings me to the second advice: There is no unique source of inspiration. Did you ever imagine that random hammering in a blacksmith’s shop would inspire the development of musical instruments? You don’t have to be a cricketer to be inspired by Sachin Tendulkar or be an actor to be inspired by Dev Sahab. Just love your work enough to not wait for retirement and let that work in turn speak for your worth.

The third and the final advice relates with the principle of ‘quid pro quo’ (give and take). For example, any accountant will tell you that when you buy furniture, its value is equivalent to the amount of cash you’ve paid for it; or lend some money and you get an asset (in the form of your debtors) of an equivalent value. So it is natural for you to believe “what is given equals what is taken.”

With inspiration, however, there is something different here that is worth observing. The blacksmith of our story could only offer the sounds of hammering (which was intrinsically valueless … nobody pays to listen to hammering). But what Pythagoras got out of it was of a significantly greater value (leading to the eventual development of many musical instruments). Herein lies the final lesson: What is OFFERED is always limited … but there is fundamentally no bound to what can be RECEIVED. Notice that this is also a lesson on humility. Suppose you are the kind of student who is often approached by others for help. Be forthcoming with help, but do not take pride in it … for what you have to offer (no matter how much), will always be limited, and cannot prevent them from eventually going beyond what you taught. 

Let me sum up by reminding you the three key points.

First: Inspiration is for YOU to find and Second, There is no unique source of inspiration. Today, you’ll get to hear some of the best minds across different fields of sciences. You’ll also have the chance to interact with students from different schools. I’d strongly recommend that you open yourself to the different sources of inspiration that come your way with the third lesson in mind: there is no limit to what you can take away from here.