Letter to me

Archiving for 2026
August 22, 2016

It is a joy reading these letters to me by the children of grades 8 and 9 at IWS Gurgaon. Do read and enjoy. We will read again after 10 years when they are 23 or 24 🙂

Satya

Name: Abhishek Boken
Class: 9th

Hello sir,
You are great, I am Abhishek

I think you made a very cool school
I’ll tell you something about the school
A place of peace, a place of respect
We do yoga and meditation

A piece of popcorn, escaped from the pan
Flew in the kitchen, like superman
Just like the students of
Indus world school

A place where you help in any case
If sad, make them happy
If you can’t see it, take a look in our class
The teachers are great, teaching us how to
Study in many ways

Made many drawings and paintings in many ways,
Sir shared his thoughts in a way through drawings.

I will not play a tug of war
I had rather play hug of war

Every one shouts, Instead of some
Everyone wins, every one cuddles,
And every one grins

If someone has a dream to fulfill
They go for it achieving it

Name: Karan Singh Boken
Class: 9th

Dear Sir, I am Karan
To me, Indus means a place where I learn along with my teachers and friends and we have fun. Every day I come here to learn something good so that it helps in my future. Indus is a group of people who all work together.
I learn many good things at Indus. It is a place where we meet our friends every day .So, at last I would like to only say, Indus is a place where we learn many good things for our bright future.

Name: Rajeev Boken
Class: 9th

Dear Satya sir,
Hello sir, I am Rajeev Boken. I have been in Indus for one and a half years and it has been a great experience. For me, Indus is a very good school. Better than the schools to which I had been before.
Indus is a very friendly school. The children are never beaten by teachers here. It is also not a very strict school. For me, school is where I come to study and learn many new things. Indus has these qualities. I like the way the teachers teach us. And I have nothing to say what you can change in this school. Thank you for building this school. It`s a great experience with you all in Indus till now.

Name: Anurag Mishra
Class: 8th

Hello Satya sir,
Hope you are enjoying your time with the students of Indus. We were told to write a letter to sharing “What does Indus mean to me and what more can you add to it?”
For me, Indus is the first place where I have seen no discrimination. I see equality between teachers and students. Here in Indus, children are made to get ready for the future.
Every time you meet us and say “Hello, young man or hello young woman”, it gives the feeling of being an adult and being responsible. Indus has helped me strengthen all my weaknesses and work on it.
Indus is doing everything to make us happy. Sir, to make us happier I request you to make extra-curricular activities a part of curricular activities. Children must even give a test and there must be sports matches throughout the year. Please also make a school musical band. If you can do it, it would be very helpful.

Name: Ishaan Sharma
Class: 9th

Dear Sir,
It has been 2 years since I joined Indus. Indus has many qualities which I wanted in a school and they are now fulfilled. I learnt many new types of sports at Indus which I didn’t even know existed such as handball, base kickball etc. Teachers at Indus are also very friendly and you can speak with them, clear your doubts and in return improves your learning. Sessions like I.K.T., Q.C.T. are also a very good way to get to know ourselves, our peers and our teachers.
You can also share with the teachers what you did not like about their actions and behavior. The annual functions and all the celebrations are uniquely done. Giving names such as Industsav, Indus Olympics, BAL Mela, Language week gives another twist to the celebration and adds excitement.
Some things I didn’t like are- our grade is the senior most and hence I know that it comes with some responsibilities. At times teachers scold us for what we aren’t responsible for. That just keeps on adding bad feelings for the school. All the things are great and if we aren’t scolded that means we haven’t done any mistake. Just because we are the oldest doesn’t mean it’s our mistake. If this problem is solved then our school is great!

Name: Anandita Narayanan
Class: 9th

Indus! A place full of love
Where you can share your feelings
Importance is given to everyone
The strengths and weaknesses shared equally

Indus! A place where we come to learn
To decide our future, prepare ourselves
We share the same thoughts and feelings
Of being together and learning too

Indus! A place where I love to come
To meet my friends and learn
The teachers here are so kind
You would always appreciate them any time

Indus! A place for learning a lot
Not only studies but even about life
We learn what’s right and wrong
We learn now to enjoy while learning!

Indus is a beautiful school
Any child would love to join!

Name: Anushka Shah
Class: 9th

Dear Satya Sir,
Today, you must be wondering why Anushka is writing to me? Is there a complaint about Uma ma’am or a request on behalf of Anandita, No, it’s neither complaint nor a request. It is just a sharing about Indus.
Indus has been my home since 6th April, 2015. I have learnt, played and enjoyed at Indus. This school has been my dream school, where the teachers find new ways to educate the students. Concepts such as birthday celebration, I.K.T., Q.C.T. –these are a great way to understand ourselves, our peers and our teachers. Indus as a school celebrates each child and also celebrates the new ways of teaching.
Since 14th August, CL and Indus are celebrating their 20th birthday. I wanted to share with you how much I enjoy here. Being the senior most, I have some responsibilities. Today, I want to make a promise to you, sir. Being the senior most doesn’t mean that I can misuse the power given to me and I will try not to pin point others’ mistake without seeing mine.
Now, I’m keeping my pen down. I am hoping to hear from you soon. I feel nice after writing down my feelings for Indus. Thank you for building Indus as fun place to learn.

Name: Siri Nasreen
Class: 9th

Dear Satya Sir,
To me, Indus means a place where I am free to learn and share my learning’s with my friends. This place not only teaches me what freedom is but also prepares me for my future. I am very lucky to be at Indus because Indus gives the child opportunities in life and here we can freely discuss what we want to be in life in our lives. This happens in very few schools. The festivals that we celebrate in school also brings along a lot of responsibilities to our class. We always take those responsibilities because we know that these are going to lead us to a better life.
My only request is to have better space management in events where the whole school has to come together. It becomes very stuffy for so many children to sit in a single room. Thank you

Name: Drishti Chitkara
Class: 9th

Dear Satya sir,
It’s been a long time since I have written to you. I’m glad that I have got this opportunity to write to you and share about our school.
To me, Indus means a place where children can actually decide which way to go in future. We come to school, enjoy with our friends and also study. I just love the way the teachers play their roles. They play with children, separately tell the child and explain wherever she/he is stuck in and also they love the way the children are.
Even if I tried hard I wouldn’t find excuses to miss the school.. It is a place full of joy and knowledge. The way it is, it should stay forever!!


Sangam – Hoga! Hoga! Hoga! Institution – Industry Sangam !

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Sangam – Hoga! Hoga! Hoga! Institution – Industry Sangam !

Alak is a progressive Vice Chancellor of Dibrugarh University (Assam) and presides over a network of over 150 affiliated colleges spread and wide & across Upper Assam. On the univ campus too, there are over 4500 students covering engineering, mgmt, social sciences and so on……He anchors the supply side of India’s talent pool. His university is keen and competent to do research in the areas of petrotech, agrotech (Tea Technology) and Pharma/Healthcare.

Kunwar Sachdev is a firstgen entrepreneur who has built India’s largest power system and solartech company in the last two decades. He is a hands-on innovator constantly looking for innovations and innovating youth – on campus or elsewhere. He represents the demand side for the Indian talent.

I feel great enabling this bridge between the supply and demand side of Indian youth in very exciting ways –
1. Sukam is funding 25 research fellowships of 1 Lakh each in all our university campuses in the area of energytech – from solar to tidal to anything renewable. Kunwar wants to rise it to 100 fellowships in the next academic year

2. SuKam has already established an energy lab in Manav Rachna University. They wish to do it in 4 more handpicked universities through the research incubation program with us – CL Educate / Accendere. Each lab costs Rs 10 Lakhs of equipments alone.

3. SuKam will campus recruit any fellow recommended by the Accendere mentorship program and will back any start-up that is recommended by the business incubation mentoring bpRd of CL Educate.

I believe this is the ‘here & now’.. Alak, Prashant, Kunwar represent the leadership that drives the new era of industry – youth partnership (through universities). This has been the secret of success at Stanford, MIT, HK univ, and so on.

We intend bringing 50 corporates, 50 handpicked universities, 30,000 student innovators, 1000 fellowships (2016) going up to 10,000(2017), 3000 published research papers by students, 300 patents filed, 150 companies incubated by this date next year!

Now, You know what I am killing time wth …….. Masterji ki Naukri jaari hai :). Working towards the ‘sangam’ of the institutes and the real world entrepreneurs / industry !

Satya


Congratulations, suggestions & caveats!

It is that time of the year where our bonus is distributed. Bonus for teachers like me in the form of thanksgiving from students who cross the final finishing line into the IIMs, Law schools, IITs etc. This month is the month of IIMs and other B-schools.

Here is an open letter to all the bright students who are converting the calls. My whatsapp, mailbox, FB is full of those beautiful messages of ‘thank you, sir’. It is a very sweet moment. A moment of gratitude too. I do try and reinforce a message or two to the best of my understanding of life. This is just a public sharing of the same.

Dear IIM cracker-
First of all, congratulations. There are very few selection processes that are as solid and holistic as the IIM selection processes. Notwithstanding the I might have, you have cracked one of the toughest set of hurdles and made it to an IIM or top B-school. Congrats!

A chapter of your life ends here. A new one starts. Here are some suggestions. May be, some of these are not as often heard as I would like them to be –

1. Dream. Don’t optimise :
IIM campuses could be heartless and mindless too. Before you realise that you actually belong there, the place could have begun her NLP on you – the neuro-linguistic programming! It has a way of drilling into you that CGPA is the be-all & end-all of life. That placements is the end of the world. That consulting or investment banking (keeps changing every 3 years) is the only way to be seen as smart! That money and salary defines you and not an expression of your choices.

If you need to escape anything at an IIM, it is all the above. Retain your stupidity. Retain your freshness. Retain your dreams. Chase your fantasies. Don’t surrender your license to retain your life around you. Do what exactly your heart and intuition says. Nothing smarter than them In the long run.

2. Make friends and Retain relationships
The good or bad thing about campus life is that every one knows how much of a ‘dhakkan’ you are. Focus on building friendships and deep connects at the expense of a couple of CGPA points. Dont become the RG-King! These are the last set of two years for fun and masti. Make the most of it without hurting yourself on the academic side. Try new courses. New ventures. New kinds of projects. If any, push yourself to learn the most by trying everything that is new!

3. Play to your own likes, strengths, aptitude :
You will shortly meet dozens of people who are way more smarter than you are in the usual areas that IIMs test – quant, taxation, logic, reading, writing, speaking, finance, marketing, and so on. But, life is everything but these. Life is about passion, courage, imagination, intuition, love, humanity, humility, audacity, forgiveness, relationships and so on. You will find them only when your books are shut and put away. Your real radar must be on. She must be allowed to read the book of life that she is eminently capable of!

Yeh jo zindagi ki kitaab hai
Yeh kitaab bhi kaisi kitaab hai !

However, do note the caveat. You will, in all likelihood, end up marginally lower in your CGPA than you are, so-called, capable of! But, life and joy are the true goals of life itself! When you chase them, every one chases you including money and fame! If anyone tells you anything different from this, do connect him to me! I will take care. You focus on your life. Congrats, yet again!

With love,
Satya


Leaders of tomorrow – Watch out, IIMs!

Shweta, Nishita, Aarushi, Aishwarya, Pulina. My confidence in our future as a country come from these youngsters. A Bharatanatyam dancer and 99.82 percentiler, another from the Pataudi rural belt joint family of 21 members where no one went to a college (she has 96 percentile), another – a poet, yet another girl from a modest background from Rajasthan….. All in search of progress, excellence, dreamy eyed! Nothing stops them! Nothing can!

I always find family as the single most important strength and nation builder – of India or our society – the family, the unlettered mother, the less-spoken-about father, the uneducated brother who is supporting his younger sister strongly against the negative social forces. All are singularly focused on enabling the next generation. The repetitiveness with which I see this up-close is a testimony to the power of education in India. How, culturally, valued it is!

These girls (well, many of them) are traversing a vast distance from the lower middle or the bottom of the pyramid to the top of it through their own efforts and by leveraging education. The powerhouse that this society is going to emerge in the next decade or two will be entirely due to the efforts of the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

Give me democracy, give me education and give me the Indian family – we can build the VishwaGuru status for India! And remember, I am deeply conscious of the imperfections in each of these! But these are still the best! U take away any one and we will travel backwards.

Needless to say, I am counting on leadership, policy making, reducing corruption etc., as outcomes of the core causal factors (in my view)! Well! For now, applaud these girls who are on their way to the top schools. Save this post and look up after 20 years. You will have heard and see about them already. I am saying it for having seen the last 20’years from this previleged seat !

All the best, Shweta, Nishita, Aarushi, Aishwarya and Pulina. IIMs would be previleged to have you on campus. If they don’t pick you – go by what Sehwag said when asked about how did he feel when he was not chosen for the Indian Cricket team – “Whose loss was it ?”, he asked in how raw Haryanvi Ishtyle! 🙂

Satya

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Why you should keep learning new things

Why is it important for an entrepreneur to learn new things, you say? Look around you — the world is changing constantly, and at a fast speed. Today’s times for us might be technologically revolutionary, but for our children, it is their reality.

It’s just like the way we never questioned the train or the plane in our days – it was there. In such times, I feel it is a survival strategy to learn new things that are far removed from your work. Here are four reasons:

1. Soil your hands:

When you try something new, you move away from familiar locations — you move away from your comfort zone. Your reputation doesn’t matter anymore, although that can be both scary and liberating.

When I was learning Urdu, my teacher was 25 years old, and I was 40! You have to be a learner all over again and soil your hands. And it is an unimpeachable truth that the next round of gainers will be those who soil their hands today. You have to strip yourself of all your achievements and be ready to make a fool of yourself.

2. Stay rooted:

One of the derivatives of learning something completely new, in an environment where you are shorn of your reputation, makes you more grounded. Far from your tags and designations, achievements and accomplishments, it gives you a better understanding of your core being, something that is crucial for an entrepreneur, but is also something that might get hazy once you become more successful.

Whether it was my learning Urdu, attending a residential program to learn Sanskrit, or volunteering, I make sure I don’t disclose details about myself. This helps me eliminate my reputation as a harbinger of my endeavor. It not only tells me a lot about myself, but also about people.

3. Your nourishment:

There is a great amount of nourishment that comes from non-word engagement. Whether you start preparing yourself to run a marathon, add yoga to your schedule, write songs, or go movie-watching, it nourishes different parts of your personality.

After all, at the end of the day, we are human beings, and we need different kinds of nourishment. Unfortunately, no matter how much you love your work, the workplace reduces this nourishment to mainly an intellectual one.

4. Introspection time:

Starting to learn new things that are far removed from work lets me be with myself. Being with oneself helps in innumerable ways, with getting time for introspection being one of the most important. Introspection restores the wholesome balance of your being.

The work schedules that we have in the modern day get skewed in just one direction. Learning new things while being with yourself can help restore balance to your central being.

Story featured in Entrepreneur India click here