[Music]
[Applause]
imagine imagine yourself in the heart of
a dense forest thick with undergrowth
and tall soil trees shooting up into the
sky a forest just like this you’re
setting motion sensor camera traps in
order to monitor Tigers and their
behavior in the region when you hear the
sweet melodic chirp of a fly catcher
from the canopy above and you turn your
head upwards in order to catch a glimpse
of the bird when suddenly from the
corner of your eye you see a large gray
form rapidly advancing towards you I
raced blindly through the undergrowth my
temples pounding heart thumping in my
mouth I didn’t have to look back she let
out a deep trumpet that reverberated
through the forest floor making the
ground under my feet quiver and quake
like a thunderstorm I raced however
within seconds she was upon me I threw
my laptop back in an attempt to to decoy
to confuse the elephant but she was a
lot smarter than I anticipated
then she rammed into me and with in an
attempt to goad me and with a deft swing
of a trunk I was propelled through the
thorny thicket and landed belly down in
the mud as she needed and grinded me
into the ground I could hear the sounds
of my bone snapping and getting crushed
under her massive feet I couldn’t feel
my arm in my leg and thought to myself
that this is the textbook example of the
paralysis that we were taught off that’s
it
this is it this is it man I thought to
myself this is it it’s all over this is
how I died
of course I’d used other words then but
I can’t reproduce them here
anyway so you know how all of us here we
dream of winning the lottery and then
finally going up to your boss one day
and telling him that’s it man I’ve quit
I’m out no more well this accident was
that it was that turning point in life
for me that was a life inflection point
as I spent those few months in bed
recuperating which gave me a lot of time
for introspection I realized that I had
won my lottery I knew what I wanted to
do in life and I also learned three
things that I believe are very relevant
to all of us here in the room today and
I’ll share these three things with you
the first is fear so fear is something
that all of us are well-acquainted with
right it is that part of our body’s
defense mechanism that has its roots in
our evolutionary past the
hunter-gatherer that fled the fastest at
the sound of leaves rustling lived to
tell the tale but the one that stopped
to ask the question why or analyze the
situation logically ended up dead in the
jaws of a predator however in today’s
times no more are these super fast
reflexes the sole key to survival rather
the calm questioning thought process and
the logical flow of reason proved to be
the cutting edge and when we let fear
this very natural emotion get the better
of us we actually end up losing control
over a being over the situation because
then we end up focusing not on the what
is but rather on the what-ifs not on the
task before us but on the consequences
of it not getting done in the wild we
have this phrase that encapsulate this
perfectly I think it says it’s better to
make the wrong decision than to make no
decision at all because even a wrong
decision will provide you with the
information of way of laws lay and what
the right path could be whereas no
decision will leave you stagnated and no
less ignorant
and of course if you’re on a chicken
you’re meant to the sandwich right so
being nervous is a critical waste of
energy especially in these trying times
what you ought to do is channelize your
energy
we’re on what can be done or not and not
on what could have been done right so so
however as I was taken to the hospital
when the doctors were fixing up all my
spare parts they couldn’t believe how
narrowly I had escaped I was less than
two centimeters away from certain death
or paralysis I had missed my spinal cord
by a few centimeters less than two and
coming so close to death has changed its
perception in my mind I do not it’s not
as daunting as before the fragility and
impermanence of our lives is visible all
around and how abysmally small an amount
of control do we actually have on our
existence so it brings me to what else I
want to talk about if the truth of life
is that an elephant can strike anytime
and we have no control over when this
elephant can strike but what we do need
to note is we must recognize this
elephant it is not a pink cute cuddly
one but a huge 5000 kilo heavy large one
rippling with muscle that is all out to
kill you and if it does succeed what
will you miss the most before me as I
spent all the time you know figuring out
whether I’ll ever be back on my feet
again I realized another thing how how
fleeting and ephemeral our life on this
planet is how how we must do if we have
to do anything in our life if you want
to do anything in your life it has to be
now right
so the unpredictability of of death the
it’s it’s unpredictable that’s one thing
that we all know the strike of death is
unpredictability and this in
discriminatory in its nature
from you can see this throughout history
look at the people who seem to have had
it all in life from John Lennon to Todai
and come in everyone for who can tell me
with any amount of certainty that they
will live tomorrow it’s not happening in
fact just this morning I was on my way
here and I picked up the newspaper and
this was the headline can n can I think
this epitomizes it perfectly now I share
this story here with you today
because I feel that all of us in our
lives have such an elephant the death of
a loved one failed businesses
relationships school exam and so on the
list is endless and there will always be
these factors that are beyond your realm
of control and they will continue to be
but one thing that is and always will be
in your control and not in the hands of
feet of an F of an elephant is how you
is what you make of it right so I urge
you all find your elephant because I
don’t think that anyone requires an
elephant to kick meaning into their
lives although I won’t deny it it does
help a little bit right so I’m always a
little apprehensive about speaking about
this accident because I believe that it
perpetuates the incorrect notion about
the wild that it’s an unsafe place with
all these wild animals all out to get
you you know in each tree hides a
leopard waiting to pounce on you
behind each boulder is an elephant
waiting to maul you
in each shrub is a perfectly camouflaged
pit viper waiting to strike at you and
all of this is absolutely untrue nothing
could be further from the truth yes of
course one must be aware about the
potential dangers just as much as one
would
B while crossing the road outside for
who can guarantee me with any amount of
certainty that I am NOT going to get run
over by a celebrity or his driver well
huh when I cross the road outside here
so now as I make my way back to the
forest to pick up to continue where I
left off I’m often asked this question
I’m often asked these two questions
actually by my friends family colleagues
no the first one is how are you still
alive man and the other one is are you
not afraid of going back and to both I
can answer only with these three
sanskrit words told to me by a noble
forest guard in Pella beat tiger reserve
it says prakruti rukhsati rakshata
nature protects those who protect her
and i now leave you with the one word
that i began this talk with imagine
[Applause]
[Applause]
imagine imagine yourself in the heart of
a dense forest thick with undergrowth
and tall soil trees shooting up into the
sky a forest just like this you’re
setting motion sensor camera traps in
order to monitor Tigers and their
behavior in the region when you hear the
sweet melodic chirp of a fly catcher
from the canopy above and you turn your
head upwards in order to catch a glimpse
of the bird when suddenly from the
corner of your eye you see a large gray
form rapidly advancing towards you I
raced blindly through the undergrowth my
temples pounding heart thumping in my
mouth I didn’t have to look back she let
out a deep trumpet that reverberated
through the forest floor making the
ground under my feet quiver and quake
like a thunderstorm I raced however
within seconds she was upon me I threw
my laptop back in an attempt to to decoy
to confuse the elephant but she was a
lot smarter than I anticipated
then she rammed into me and with in an
attempt to goad me and with a deft swing
of a trunk I was propelled through the
thorny thicket and landed belly down in
the mud as she needed and grinded me
into the ground I could hear the sounds
of my bone snapping and getting crushed
under her massive feet I couldn’t feel
my arm in my leg and thought to myself
that this is the textbook example of the
paralysis that we were taught off that’s
it
this is it this is it man I thought to
myself this is it it’s all over this is
how I died
of course I’d used other words then but
I can’t reproduce them here
anyway so you know how all of us here we
dream of winning the lottery and then
finally going up to your boss one day
and telling him that’s it man I’ve quit
I’m out no more well this accident was
that it was that turning point in life
for me that was a life inflection point
as I spent those few months in bed
recuperating which gave me a lot of time
for introspection I realized that I had
won my lottery I knew what I wanted to
do in life and I also learned three
things that I believe are very relevant
to all of us here in the room today and
I’ll share these three things with you
the first is fear so fear is something
that all of us are well-acquainted with
right it is that part of our body’s
defense mechanism that has its roots in
our evolutionary past the
hunter-gatherer that fled the fastest at
the sound of leaves rustling lived to
tell the tale but the one that stopped
to ask the question why or analyze the
situation logically ended up dead in the
jaws of a predator however in today’s
times no more are these super fast
reflexes the sole key to survival rather
the calm questioning thought process and
the logical flow of reason proved to be
the cutting edge and when we let fear
this very natural emotion get the better
of us we actually end up losing control
over a being over the situation because
then we end up focusing not on the what
is but rather on the what-ifs not on the
task before us but on the consequences
of it not getting done in the wild we
have this phrase that encapsulate this
perfectly I think it says it’s better to
make the wrong decision than to make no
decision at all because even a wrong
decision will provide you with the
information of way of laws lay and what
the right path could be whereas no
decision will leave you stagnated and no
less ignorant
and of course if you’re on a chicken
you’re meant to the sandwich right so
being nervous is a critical waste of
energy especially in these trying times
what you ought to do is channelize your
energy
we’re on what can be done or not and not
on what could have been done right so so
however as I was taken to the hospital
when the doctors were fixing up all my
spare parts they couldn’t believe how
narrowly I had escaped I was less than
two centimeters away from certain death
or paralysis I had missed my spinal cord
by a few centimeters less than two and
coming so close to death has changed its
perception in my mind I do not it’s not
as daunting as before the fragility and
impermanence of our lives is visible all
around and how abysmally small an amount
of control do we actually have on our
existence so it brings me to what else I
want to talk about if the truth of life
is that an elephant can strike anytime
and we have no control over when this
elephant can strike but what we do need
to note is we must recognize this
elephant it is not a pink cute cuddly
one but a huge 5000 kilo heavy large one
rippling with muscle that is all out to
kill you and if it does succeed what
will you miss the most before me as I
spent all the time you know figuring out
whether I’ll ever be back on my feet
again I realized another thing how how
fleeting and ephemeral our life on this
planet is how how we must do if we have
to do anything in our life if you want
to do anything in your life it has to be
now right
so the unpredictability of of death the
it’s it’s unpredictable that’s one thing
that we all know the strike of death is
unpredictability and this in
discriminatory in its nature
from you can see this throughout history
look at the people who seem to have had
it all in life from John Lennon to Todai
and come in everyone for who can tell me
with any amount of certainty that they
will live tomorrow it’s not happening in
fact just this morning I was on my way
here and I picked up the newspaper and
this was the headline can n can I think
this epitomizes it perfectly now I share
this story here with you today
because I feel that all of us in our
lives have such an elephant the death of
a loved one failed businesses
relationships school exam and so on the
list is endless and there will always be
these factors that are beyond your realm
of control and they will continue to be
but one thing that is and always will be
in your control and not in the hands of
feet of an F of an elephant is how you
is what you make of it right so I urge
you all find your elephant because I
don’t think that anyone requires an
elephant to kick meaning into their
lives although I won’t deny it it does
help a little bit right so I’m always a
little apprehensive about speaking about
this accident because I believe that it
perpetuates the incorrect notion about
the wild that it’s an unsafe place with
all these wild animals all out to get
you you know in each tree hides a
leopard waiting to pounce on you
behind each boulder is an elephant
waiting to maul you
in each shrub is a perfectly camouflaged
pit viper waiting to strike at you and
all of this is absolutely untrue nothing
could be further from the truth yes of
course one must be aware about the
potential dangers just as much as one
would
B while crossing the road outside for
who can guarantee me with any amount of
certainty that I am NOT going to get run
over by a celebrity or his driver well
huh when I cross the road outside here
so now as I make my way back to the
forest to pick up to continue where I
left off I’m often asked this question
I’m often asked these two questions
actually by my friends family colleagues
no the first one is how are you still
alive man and the other one is are you
not afraid of going back and to both I
can answer only with these three
sanskrit words told to me by a noble
forest guard in Pella beat tiger reserve
it says prakruti rukhsati rakshata
nature protects those who protect her
and i now leave you with the one word
that i began this talk with imagine
[Applause]
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