The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Hard work gets 98 per cent, but attitude 100 per cent, says VC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Hard work gets 98 per cent, but attitude 100 per cent, says VC

Swahilya

A farewell seminar to felicitate 16 retiring members of faculty "Any investment option should take into consideration safety, liquidity and yield"

CHENNAI: Academicians and researchers at the Madras University took a day's break to discuss something more fundamental than academics - Living a fulfilled life.

The occasion was a farewell seminar to felicitate 16 retiring members of faculty, including two taking voluntary retirement. The seminar was aptly titled, "Sustained Happiness in Academic Journey."

But it was Vice-Chancellor S.P. Thyagarajan who put it all together in a two-minute presentation. "It is a different kind of numerology. If you give the letters A to Z values of 1 to 26, Hard work gets 98 per cent, knowledge gets 96 per cent, love gets 54 per cent, luck gets 47 per cent, money, 72 per cent, leadership, 89 per cent. But your attitude adds up to 100 per cent," he said finishing off with, "Attitude is everything. You change your attitude and you change your life as well."

K. Aludia Pillai, former Vice-Chancellor of the Madurai Kamaraj University said the 16 persons who would be retiring today are the most blessed souls from tomorrow. "They can do anything in life. The greatest curse of retired life is loneliness, especially in the nuclear family era, but academicians do not have that problem with their books as their intimate companions, he said."

S. Gopalakrishnan, former financial advisor to the Government of India, had the task of bringing the audience to more practical matters of retirement on planning - Investment of Retirement Benefits. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," was his advice. Any investment option should take into consideration the qualities of safety, liquidity and yield. While bank deposits were safe, they took a back seat when it came to yield. The pride of place in this regard went to the Post Office Deposits, especially the senior citizens scheme that had a higher rate of interest.

It was now the turn of Emma Gonsalvez, consulting psychotherapist, to speak on `Quality of Life: Being happy and making others happy.' "Happiness is our birthright," she began tracing the birth of happiness from infancy. Her solution: Happiness is an inside job. "The potential we began with is a piece of God and the end is the manifestation," she said holding the lecture hall of academicians spell bound. The signs of a healthy person she said is one who lives their values, autonomous and makes responsible choices, lives in the now, confident to deal with problems and feels equal to others.

After lunch, the professors got to the happier or rather sadder part of the day, bidding farewell to those who breathed with the University for over three decades.

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