Day 176: Boria Majumdar visits Wipro Kolkata: says “The moment you think, I have achieved fair enough, AND now I can REST, that moment itself ‘YOU ARE FINISHED’…”

My critiques inspire me. It is they who inspire me to go the extra mile. I am quite an ordinary person with some extra-ordinary dreams. I was and am more of a diligent than a genius. No one, absolutely no one in this world can take away my grit and guts. I have unrelenting faith in myself and a rock solid determination. I will never give in, never, never, never give in. I would love to have more number of critiques than people who do false praises. To all my Critiques, thank you for being there.

Well! today, I am here to share about an interesting event (at least it is for me!). This Wednesday, as part of the ‘Grow Familiar’ initiative by Strategic Marketing division of Wipro Technologies, the famous and internationally acclaimed sports Journalist and Writer Boria Majumdar visited Wipro Kolkata. As part of similar initiative, Chetan Bhagat and Milind Soman had graced Wipro facility at Pune and Chennai campuses earlier. This time it was in Kolkata and I could not afford to miss this opportunity (of a face to face interaction with a celebrity). I was well before time sitting on chair with my toes touching the ground and heals almost vertical, back straight and my chest slightly bent forward. I was so curious to meet this person, whom I used to watch and listen on various TV shows. 

Boria was given the topic ‘How Growth and Advancement of Technology has helped sports?’ to put forward his views. He described the topic taking Cricket as reference. He started with the example of BCCI, the national governing body for Cricket in India, becoming the richest cricketing council in the world just in a period of 20 years. This all happened when BCCI gained private TV telecast rights. It was a significant milestone and people could get away with the poor quality of telecast by Doordarshan. You might remember the era when camera pointed to the onside boundary when it was a four or a six on the off-side, even the pathetic quality of TV commentary. This brought multi-million deals with private TV broadcasters and with this, the story of humongous profit began. This was supplemented with innovation and creativity at each level in the digital media. BCCI did a lot of business not to tell about the IPL and all this was possible with the apt use of growing technology.

Boria displayed comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of  the game. He can even tell you on which ball of a particular game, Sachin scored a century, who was the bowler, how did he get out in game X and so on. He also mentioned on his upcoming book “Autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar”. He shared how Sachin showed utmost determination in practicing during morning and evening hours, how he used to travel in the local crowded bus and how he used to wear the same Jersey in the evening practice session  which he wore during morning practice after a wash, sometimes it even used to be wet pockets. This legendary Cricket went on to sign the first multi-million dollar deal for the country. Lots of things to come in the book to be published by the end of year.

One thing which strike to my mind is his unrelenting commitment and supreme passion. On a question ‘What it takes to become a BORIA MAJUMDAR?’ he said “if you want to achieve something extra-ordinary in life you must marry with your passion, you should eat, sleep and live with it.” On a lighter note he said “you should love it (your passion) more than your wife.” Later he said, you must keep innovating and updating your skill-set at each point in life because the moment you think “I have achieved enough, I can REST now, that moment itself you are finished”. He gave example of the Little Master who even at 40 is touring South Africa ahead of the India trip this November to get used to the local conditions and prepare well in the given circumstances.

Boria shared “Do your best in a given task (and situation) and that is all you can do, feel Good, feel Confident. You cannot make everyone happy. Just and Just believe in yourself.”

I was amazed to see the simplicity, in-depth knowledge, to-the point content of his presentation, and all his motivating words for the younger brigade. I was so engaged in watching him speak and listening to him that didn’t ask him a single question in the Q & A session. Thank You Boria for visiting Wipro and for MOTIVATING us. Thank You.

Narendra Gupta
2:20pm