I want to be honest and upfront here my
talk today is going to be about that
four-letter word you know what I’m
talking about I can see some of you
getting a little anxious decidedly a
couple of you are mildly curious about
what this is but don’t worry it’s not
what you’re thinking I’m going to be
speaking about this element called luck
that four-letter word which is part of
our lives whether we like it or not some
of us are in awe of it some of us are
mildly possibly scared of it but whether
we like it or not luck is a part of our
lives and we just have to internalize it
and accept it for what it is I mean
think about it when they’re trying to
get you married and and right now I’m
talking about those people who either
didn’t have the locker or didn’t have
the efficiency to pick up a boyfriend or
a girlfriend and convinced them to walk
up the altar with them when your your
folks at home your parents they try to
get you hitched and set up a marital
alliance for you they inevitably get
hold of a consultant someone we know
colloquially as a pundit gee now this
gentleman the first port of call for
this gentleman is this document that’s
called
your horoscope you’re all familiar with
that right now when he gets all of this
horoscope he flips through it he
examines it in great detail identifies
planetary alignments and not too sure
what what else happens down there but at
the end of the entire process he gets to
a situation where he takes a call
whether that marital engagement is a go
or a no-go now let’s be clear this is
not just about an odd nutshell agreement
that we’re talking about this pervades
our life it is in its entirety right
from from birth till death and
everything in between what what happens
here is that you pick up anything that
happens in life right a naming ceremony
for your child you’re going on a travel
expedition you want to be sure about
what time you should go the mood for
that the exam that you guys took or you
know sometime in life each of this has
goes to a process of invoking the divine
blessings just your luck
literally acaba gear cauldre and that’s
how it happens in life but so therefore
is there a is there a methodology
involved in identifying that lock in
creating your luck or actually playing
around with your luck or is it just
preordained does it just have to do with
an alignment with the Almighty and an
intermediary in between that’s what
we’re going to be examining for a bit
now I spent about 20 plus years in the
Special Forces regiment of the Indian
Army all of you I’m sure
Curt see the the media blitz creek which
had happened post the surgical strikes
many of you are now familiar what with
what the Special Forces is all about
this is a typical Special Forces soldier
absolute mean machine muscles rippling
over the beard for effect the weapon in
his hands a completely professional guy
right and this is me
back at the National Defense Academy
many many years ago expectation and
reality right expectation and reality so
any similarity or lack of similarity
that you see around here is curtsy your
imagination actually working perfectly
and you have my apologies for that but
I’m going to be talking a little bit
about the special forces the the manner
that they operate and like I mentioned
you would be pretty familiar with that
with the ideology and with the thought
process that constitutes a Special
Forces soldier what happens is that the
Special Forces is as an entity is
strained organized and equipped to be
operating deep behind enemy lines and
because of the nature of their of their
tasks and their orientation it becomes
essential that only a handful of people
are chosen for this kind of task and
therefore there is a very elaborate and
a very stringent and exacting selection
process that goal is to be gone through
for selection of volunteers for the
Special Forces volunteers are actually
drawn from the different branches of the
army and they’re put through this
intense 90-day period what we refer to
as the probation period where mental and
and physical stresses are induced and
your biological clock is just thrown out
of gear just to examine how the
individual performs under those kind of
stresses when operating in very small
teams behind enemy lines right now back
at the NDAA like you would have figured
out from these visuals that I’d put to
you I wasn’t quite the Special Forces
material don’t get me wrong I was I was
no wimp
I was recently ok with my physical
fitness in fact more than decently
organized with my physical fitness but I
was
the quintessential stud as they call it
I never was this bloke who could go for
long runs without any hassles unlimited
reserves of stamina you know what I’m
talking about the stud right I never was
that so when I did volunteer for the
Special Forces many of my batch mates in
in army parlance we call them course
mates they were a little surprised
because I was taking a risk a risk
because if I were not to get through the
probation process it wouldn’t wait
ridicule not only from my peer group but
also from my superiors and my
subordinates and therefore it was a risk
that I was taking but I did go ahead and
volunteer I really didn’t care I I did
volunteer not that I was not troubled by
it but I did volunteer but what I did
was that I prepared for this event I
steeled myself for the for the regatta
of the probation process that would
follow I built myself up physically my
stamina and everything else and I went
ahead with the probation at the end of
90 days I cleared probation and I was
accepted as part of the Special Forces
fraternity I was given the polygon badge
and the maroon beret that we actually
died for literally having moved into the
Special Forces some of my course mates
they were still intrigued and they said
you know what this guy is just plain
lucky and at that point in time looking
back now hand on my heart I quite agreed
with them I thought I was lucky but now
after so many years when in rewind more
when I look back at life I realized no
that’s not quite correct it was not just
about luck it was a fact that I took a
risk I organised myself and I prepared
for it I put in the hard work I put in
the effort and
engineered my luck after a couple of
years we were deployed in Kashmir in a
counter-terrorist operation the entire
unit had moved there and we were going
about our business I was fresh into the
Special Forces and I did not have the
experience of operating in classical
special ops manner there was another
colleague of mine almost a contemporary
appear and both of us we’re eager to go
pushing at the edges wanted him go out
there make an impact and you know all
guns blazing and then there was his
other team commander about a couple of
years senior to me and no names you’re
the gentlemen are still serving but we
just for the purposes of this of this
talk call him the Guru so the Guru he
was nonchalant you know he couldn’t be
really bothered and then since we guys
were biting at the edges we would start
preparing for our operations and the
manner that we would do it is we would
pick up these maps plaster them on the
wall and we would start pouring over the
details on the map going over the
topography studying the landscape
picking up intelligence briefs the
previous firefights that had happened in
that area and all of this and this is in
like I mentioned in Kashmir a place
called the low lob valley a beautiful
really beautiful valley there small
little valley pretty close to the line
of control and what happens there
actually is that the terrorists who
cross over the line of control come into
this small little Bowl in low lab and
that’s the staging area they rest and
recoup their build up their strength
pick up their stuff and once you’re
adequately rested they move into the
main Kashmir ball to do what they do and
so there we were eager to engage these
guys and and make contact with them and
eliminate them
that was our role now so as I was
mentioning me and my contemporary as
young
team leaders fighting at the edge we
would start going over these details to
identify that perfect spot where we
could go and establish an ambush and
enhance our chances of a contact all
this while guru would be sitting on the
sides nursing his drink listening to his
music and not really too bothered about
where he’s going and where how he’s
going and once we did this analysis
inevitably we would find that both of us
would home onto that small little piece
of land in the forest area which to our
assessment would give us the maximum
chances of contact and we would start
arguing over it we would start fighting
over it because two teams can’t go there
it can only be one team at a time and we
would start oppressing for getting the
rights to go there and once we had
decided and agreed upon a certain
compromise guru would walk in and he
would take a look at the map and say
alright you’re going there you’re going
there what’s left is this area fair
enough I’ll go there so the next two or
three days is goes in the planning and
the preparation for this task for this
mission and we’d go about that planning
and the tasks and three days later we
would launch ourselves into the mission
three teams go out and inevitably when
we go out for such missions it always
happens that these missions are for 72
hours or 96 hours self-contained well
once you go out you don’t have any
contact right so you’re self-contained
for everything for ammunition for for
your weapons the food stuff that you
carry and everything else so we would
all head out and 96 hours later when
both of us would be coming back and we
get back to our mess tired and hungry
and exhausted and frustrated because we
didn’t get any success and once we come
in we would notice gurus sitting in the
same chair we left him in right he
doubt along with us but he’s back
already and then when we find out we
realized that guru has had success in
the first 24 hours he got into his place
with his team in 24 hours a group of
militants would miraculously come into
his skilling area he would knock them
down pick up the bodies like Asterix and
Obelix get them back to base and we
would sit there for three days four days
in the cold of Kashmir it becomes
extremely difficult to be sitting there
when you’re in sub-zero temperatures and
not pretty much stuff that you can keep
your yourself warm and this was not a
one-off activity it would happen again
and again and again many many times in a
row right every couple of weeks every
couple of months we would find that we
are coming back with no success and Guru
has got success and it would be
frustrating for us and we would examine
well what the hell is going on what’s
happening here and ultimately we’d come
down to the the concept of luck and just
say that you know what guru is lucky
guru is one lucky beep right
so luck would start it would bother us
because it was hurting a professional
pride right we were taking the effort
and but somehow it wasn’t quite working
out and it bothered us no end but
ultimately as we got on and we started
getting experience and we started
observing what guru was doing which
figured out finally what the hell is
happening what was happening was that
guru used to train and prepare
diligently what he would do is once he
had picked up the place that he was
going to he really was not bothered
about the location that he was going to
but he would come back and with his team
he would start preparing and the manner
of preparation was he would go into
intricate details he would start
identifying the the team members that he
would come along with him for that
mission any smoker
a person with a minor cough a throat
irritation maybe is out the dietary
changes that he would bring in into his
team for the two to three days before
they go in for the operation would be
phenomenal no listen no onions
none of the things that would start
giving out a body order you know what I
mean he would ensure that the stuff that
they would take for that operation the
kind of food that they would take for
the operation the way their weapons were
organized the ammunition was organized
not a single sound would emanate the
entire focus was on creating that
environment that when they went into the
jungle they were one with the jungle it
wasn’t an alien team of people that is
coming in and us on the other hand we
would be all gung-ho we’ve done our
planning on on the map and discussed and
all of that but we would go in with you
know body spray and freshly scrubbed
with shampoo and saw Boone and
everything else and the militants who
were operating within the jungle would
just pick it up like this but since they
didn’t want to establish contact with us
he they would avoid us and in the
process they would be channelized into
where guru was sitting in ambush and he
would just knock them down like flies it
was a beautiful concept and as we got
long we just got into the groove and we
realized what the hell is happening and
and guru being guru he let the shishas
learn instead of pushing it down he let
us pull right and and within a couple of
months probably in about a year year and
a half we had upped our game and we had
reached where possibly guru was and and
that’s how luck is created so
essentially what guru was doing was that
he didn’t bother about the the cards
that were dealt to him he picked up the
cards that were dealt to him but the
amount of diligence the training the
planning the preparation with
intricate details down to the last
bottom point that is what made him
script his success story and it was a
beautiful experience now I am not trying
to stand here and tell you that you know
luck there is nothing called luck of
course there is something called luck
you can script your luck but essentially
the point that I’m trying to make to you
or the case that I’m building a very
strong deliberate argued evidence-based
case that I’m making to you is that if
you develop the ability to take a risk
and have the passion the belief and the
diligence to put it the effort to back
that up you are done you can engineer your luck thank you good luck
talk today is going to be about that
four-letter word you know what I’m
talking about I can see some of you
getting a little anxious decidedly a
couple of you are mildly curious about
what this is but don’t worry it’s not
what you’re thinking I’m going to be
speaking about this element called luck
that four-letter word which is part of
our lives whether we like it or not some
of us are in awe of it some of us are
mildly possibly scared of it but whether
we like it or not luck is a part of our
lives and we just have to internalize it
and accept it for what it is I mean
think about it when they’re trying to
get you married and and right now I’m
talking about those people who either
didn’t have the locker or didn’t have
the efficiency to pick up a boyfriend or
a girlfriend and convinced them to walk
up the altar with them when your your
folks at home your parents they try to
get you hitched and set up a marital
alliance for you they inevitably get
hold of a consultant someone we know
colloquially as a pundit gee now this
gentleman the first port of call for
this gentleman is this document that’s
called
your horoscope you’re all familiar with
that right now when he gets all of this
horoscope he flips through it he
examines it in great detail identifies
planetary alignments and not too sure
what what else happens down there but at
the end of the entire process he gets to
a situation where he takes a call
whether that marital engagement is a go
or a no-go now let’s be clear this is
not just about an odd nutshell agreement
that we’re talking about this pervades
our life it is in its entirety right
from from birth till death and
everything in between what what happens
here is that you pick up anything that
happens in life right a naming ceremony
for your child you’re going on a travel
expedition you want to be sure about
what time you should go the mood for
that the exam that you guys took or you
know sometime in life each of this has
goes to a process of invoking the divine
blessings just your luck
literally acaba gear cauldre and that’s
how it happens in life but so therefore
is there a is there a methodology
involved in identifying that lock in
creating your luck or actually playing
around with your luck or is it just
preordained does it just have to do with
an alignment with the Almighty and an
intermediary in between that’s what
we’re going to be examining for a bit
now I spent about 20 plus years in the
Special Forces regiment of the Indian
Army all of you I’m sure
Curt see the the media blitz creek which
had happened post the surgical strikes
many of you are now familiar what with
what the Special Forces is all about
this is a typical Special Forces soldier
absolute mean machine muscles rippling
over the beard for effect the weapon in
his hands a completely professional guy
right and this is me
back at the National Defense Academy
many many years ago expectation and
reality right expectation and reality so
any similarity or lack of similarity
that you see around here is curtsy your
imagination actually working perfectly
and you have my apologies for that but
I’m going to be talking a little bit
about the special forces the the manner
that they operate and like I mentioned
you would be pretty familiar with that
with the ideology and with the thought
process that constitutes a Special
Forces soldier what happens is that the
Special Forces is as an entity is
strained organized and equipped to be
operating deep behind enemy lines and
because of the nature of their of their
tasks and their orientation it becomes
essential that only a handful of people
are chosen for this kind of task and
therefore there is a very elaborate and
a very stringent and exacting selection
process that goal is to be gone through
for selection of volunteers for the
Special Forces volunteers are actually
drawn from the different branches of the
army and they’re put through this
intense 90-day period what we refer to
as the probation period where mental and
and physical stresses are induced and
your biological clock is just thrown out
of gear just to examine how the
individual performs under those kind of
stresses when operating in very small
teams behind enemy lines right now back
at the NDAA like you would have figured
out from these visuals that I’d put to
you I wasn’t quite the Special Forces
material don’t get me wrong I was I was
no wimp
I was recently ok with my physical
fitness in fact more than decently
organized with my physical fitness but I
was
the quintessential stud as they call it
I never was this bloke who could go for
long runs without any hassles unlimited
reserves of stamina you know what I’m
talking about the stud right I never was
that so when I did volunteer for the
Special Forces many of my batch mates in
in army parlance we call them course
mates they were a little surprised
because I was taking a risk a risk
because if I were not to get through the
probation process it wouldn’t wait
ridicule not only from my peer group but
also from my superiors and my
subordinates and therefore it was a risk
that I was taking but I did go ahead and
volunteer I really didn’t care I I did
volunteer not that I was not troubled by
it but I did volunteer but what I did
was that I prepared for this event I
steeled myself for the for the regatta
of the probation process that would
follow I built myself up physically my
stamina and everything else and I went
ahead with the probation at the end of
90 days I cleared probation and I was
accepted as part of the Special Forces
fraternity I was given the polygon badge
and the maroon beret that we actually
died for literally having moved into the
Special Forces some of my course mates
they were still intrigued and they said
you know what this guy is just plain
lucky and at that point in time looking
back now hand on my heart I quite agreed
with them I thought I was lucky but now
after so many years when in rewind more
when I look back at life I realized no
that’s not quite correct it was not just
about luck it was a fact that I took a
risk I organised myself and I prepared
for it I put in the hard work I put in
the effort and
engineered my luck after a couple of
years we were deployed in Kashmir in a
counter-terrorist operation the entire
unit had moved there and we were going
about our business I was fresh into the
Special Forces and I did not have the
experience of operating in classical
special ops manner there was another
colleague of mine almost a contemporary
appear and both of us we’re eager to go
pushing at the edges wanted him go out
there make an impact and you know all
guns blazing and then there was his
other team commander about a couple of
years senior to me and no names you’re
the gentlemen are still serving but we
just for the purposes of this of this
talk call him the Guru so the Guru he
was nonchalant you know he couldn’t be
really bothered and then since we guys
were biting at the edges we would start
preparing for our operations and the
manner that we would do it is we would
pick up these maps plaster them on the
wall and we would start pouring over the
details on the map going over the
topography studying the landscape
picking up intelligence briefs the
previous firefights that had happened in
that area and all of this and this is in
like I mentioned in Kashmir a place
called the low lob valley a beautiful
really beautiful valley there small
little valley pretty close to the line
of control and what happens there
actually is that the terrorists who
cross over the line of control come into
this small little Bowl in low lab and
that’s the staging area they rest and
recoup their build up their strength
pick up their stuff and once you’re
adequately rested they move into the
main Kashmir ball to do what they do and
so there we were eager to engage these
guys and and make contact with them and
eliminate them
that was our role now so as I was
mentioning me and my contemporary as
young
team leaders fighting at the edge we
would start going over these details to
identify that perfect spot where we
could go and establish an ambush and
enhance our chances of a contact all
this while guru would be sitting on the
sides nursing his drink listening to his
music and not really too bothered about
where he’s going and where how he’s
going and once we did this analysis
inevitably we would find that both of us
would home onto that small little piece
of land in the forest area which to our
assessment would give us the maximum
chances of contact and we would start
arguing over it we would start fighting
over it because two teams can’t go there
it can only be one team at a time and we
would start oppressing for getting the
rights to go there and once we had
decided and agreed upon a certain
compromise guru would walk in and he
would take a look at the map and say
alright you’re going there you’re going
there what’s left is this area fair
enough I’ll go there so the next two or
three days is goes in the planning and
the preparation for this task for this
mission and we’d go about that planning
and the tasks and three days later we
would launch ourselves into the mission
three teams go out and inevitably when
we go out for such missions it always
happens that these missions are for 72
hours or 96 hours self-contained well
once you go out you don’t have any
contact right so you’re self-contained
for everything for ammunition for for
your weapons the food stuff that you
carry and everything else so we would
all head out and 96 hours later when
both of us would be coming back and we
get back to our mess tired and hungry
and exhausted and frustrated because we
didn’t get any success and once we come
in we would notice gurus sitting in the
same chair we left him in right he
doubt along with us but he’s back
already and then when we find out we
realized that guru has had success in
the first 24 hours he got into his place
with his team in 24 hours a group of
militants would miraculously come into
his skilling area he would knock them
down pick up the bodies like Asterix and
Obelix get them back to base and we
would sit there for three days four days
in the cold of Kashmir it becomes
extremely difficult to be sitting there
when you’re in sub-zero temperatures and
not pretty much stuff that you can keep
your yourself warm and this was not a
one-off activity it would happen again
and again and again many many times in a
row right every couple of weeks every
couple of months we would find that we
are coming back with no success and Guru
has got success and it would be
frustrating for us and we would examine
well what the hell is going on what’s
happening here and ultimately we’d come
down to the the concept of luck and just
say that you know what guru is lucky
guru is one lucky beep right
so luck would start it would bother us
because it was hurting a professional
pride right we were taking the effort
and but somehow it wasn’t quite working
out and it bothered us no end but
ultimately as we got on and we started
getting experience and we started
observing what guru was doing which
figured out finally what the hell is
happening what was happening was that
guru used to train and prepare
diligently what he would do is once he
had picked up the place that he was
going to he really was not bothered
about the location that he was going to
but he would come back and with his team
he would start preparing and the manner
of preparation was he would go into
intricate details he would start
identifying the the team members that he
would come along with him for that
mission any smoker
a person with a minor cough a throat
irritation maybe is out the dietary
changes that he would bring in into his
team for the two to three days before
they go in for the operation would be
phenomenal no listen no onions
none of the things that would start
giving out a body order you know what I
mean he would ensure that the stuff that
they would take for that operation the
kind of food that they would take for
the operation the way their weapons were
organized the ammunition was organized
not a single sound would emanate the
entire focus was on creating that
environment that when they went into the
jungle they were one with the jungle it
wasn’t an alien team of people that is
coming in and us on the other hand we
would be all gung-ho we’ve done our
planning on on the map and discussed and
all of that but we would go in with you
know body spray and freshly scrubbed
with shampoo and saw Boone and
everything else and the militants who
were operating within the jungle would
just pick it up like this but since they
didn’t want to establish contact with us
he they would avoid us and in the
process they would be channelized into
where guru was sitting in ambush and he
would just knock them down like flies it
was a beautiful concept and as we got
long we just got into the groove and we
realized what the hell is happening and
and guru being guru he let the shishas
learn instead of pushing it down he let
us pull right and and within a couple of
months probably in about a year year and
a half we had upped our game and we had
reached where possibly guru was and and
that’s how luck is created so
essentially what guru was doing was that
he didn’t bother about the the cards
that were dealt to him he picked up the
cards that were dealt to him but the
amount of diligence the training the
planning the preparation with
intricate details down to the last
bottom point that is what made him
script his success story and it was a
beautiful experience now I am not trying
to stand here and tell you that you know
luck there is nothing called luck of
course there is something called luck
you can script your luck but essentially
the point that I’m trying to make to you
or the case that I’m building a very
strong deliberate argued evidence-based
case that I’m making to you is that if
you develop the ability to take a risk
and have the passion the belief and the
diligence to put it the effort to back
that up you are done you can engineer your luck thank you good luck
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