Noble Prize Acceptance Speech - Bob Dylan: Lesson Summary

Bob Dylan expressed his warm greetings to the members of the Swedish Academy and all the distinguished guests present. He apologised for not being there in person but said he was honoured to be receiving such a prestigious prize. He expressed that it was something he had never imagined or seen coming. He mentioned that from an early age, he was familiar with the works of great authors such as Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus and Hemingway, who were deemed worthy of such a distinction and that joining their names on such a list was truly beyond words.

Bob Dylan said that he believed anyone writing a book, poem or play anywhere in the world could have a secret dream about receiving the Nobel Prize, though they may not even know it is there. He expressed his surprise at being chosen for the award, as he considered his chances to be as good as standing on the moon. Furthermore, he noted that when he was born, no one was deemed worthy of the Nobel Prize. He thus remarked that he knew he was in very rare company.

Bob Dylan said that when he received the surprising news about the Nobel Prize, it took him some time to take it in and he started thinking about William Shakespeare, whom he thought of as a dramatist and not a literary figure, as the words were written for the stage and meant to be spoken, not read. He continued by saying that when Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, he was likely thinking of things such as which actors to cast, how to stage it, and if he wanted to set it in Denmark, and also of more mundane matters such as the financing, the seating arrangements and where to get a human skull. Dylan concluded that the last thing on Shakespeare's mind would have been whether what he was writing was literature or not.

Bob Dylan admitted that when he was a teenager, he only hoped that his songs would be heard in coffee houses or bars and perhaps later in places like Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium. He confessed that if he was dreaming big, he imagined getting to make a record and hearing his songs on the radio. He revealed that this was the biggest prize he had in mind. He acknowledged that this meant that he was reaching a big audience and would be able to do what he had set out to do.

He mentioned that he had been doing what he set out to do for a long time. He noted that he had made several records and performed numerous concerts around the world. He implied that his songs were at the centre of almost everything he does. He pointed out that his songs had found a place in the lives of many people in various cultures, for which he was thankful.

 Bob Dylan said he had performed for both 50,000 people and 50 people. He observed that playing for a smaller crowd was harder than playing for a large one. He commented that the audience of 50,000 had a singular persona. He communicated that individuals in a smaller audience had a world of their own. He remarked that playing for 50 people tested one's honesty and the depth of their talent. It was more challenging due to the individual identities present and were able to perceive things more clearly. He expressed that the small size of the Nobel committee was not lost on him.

Bob Dylan like Shakespeare was occupied with pursuing his creative endeavours and dealing with life's mundane matters, such as asking who the best musicians are for his songs if he was recording in the right studio and if the songs were in the right key. He noted that some things never change, even after 400 years. Bob Dylan has never taken the time to question whether his songs are considered literature but is thankful to the Swedish Academy for taking the time to consider it and for giving a great answer. He finally extends his best wishes to all.

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Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's Spech: Message to Women: Lesson Summary

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar expressed his happiness at being given the opportunity of addressing the audience. He believed that there could no greater happiness for anyone who was interested in the progress of the Depressed Classes than to witness such a large gathering of women. He was amazed to see so many women gathered in one place. He remarked that it would have been unimaginable ten years ago that almost 20,000 to 25,000, would assemble. He stated that he was a great believer in women's organization. He stated his own experience of the great services they had rendered in the eradication of social evils if they were convinced. He also mentioned that since he had started working with the Depressed Classes, he had made it a priority to involve women, which was why his conferences were always mixed one.

Dr.B.R.Ambedkar stated that he measured the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women had achieved. After seeing the assembly, he was both convinced and happy to observe the progress. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar advised the women to stay clean and free from all vices, give education to their children and to instill ambition in them, removing all inferiority complex. He also suggested not to marry in a hurry and not to have too many children as it is a crime. He further, said that marriage should not be imposed upon their children unless they are financially able to meet the liabilities arising from it.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar said that parents should give their children a better start than the one they had. He also advised that every married woman should stand up for her rights, be her husband's friend and equal and not be a slave to him. He expressed his confidence in the women of the Depressed Classes to bring honour and glory to themselves.

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Narayan Murthy's Speech at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management: Lesson Summary

In his speech at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Narayana Murthy expressed his happiness to be there and described Lal Bahadur Shastri as a man with strong values who embodied simple life. He also acknowledged his role in nation-building as a freedom fighter and innovative administrator. His appreciation for receiving the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for Public Administration & Management Sciences was extended to the jury.
The significance of Western values in contemporary Indian culture, according to Narayana Murthy, is a very significant issue that he had been considering for many years when he received the invitation to speak there. He continued by saying that the topic was extremely important to him because his organisation was built on strong values. He said that some of the lessons he had learned were relevant to the backdrop of the country. In reality, valves are what promote development and determine the societal quality of life.
According to Narayana Murthy, the Latin words com ("with" or "with") and unus ("one") are combined to form the term community. Hence, a community is both one and many. It is not just a group of people; it is a united multitude. According to the Vedas, although man is capable of living individually, he can only survive collectively. To create a progressive community, it is necessary to strike a balance between individual and societal interests. To solve this, we must create a value system where people are willing to make little sacrifices for the benefit of everybody.
Narayana Murthy queries What exactly is a value system? The community's members' commitment, trust, and confidence are all enhanced by the protocol for behaviour. It concerns decent and desirable behaviour, which extends beyond the domain of legality. It also includes prioritising the needs of the community before your own. Thus, sound valves are the foundation for our collective survival and progress.
According to Narayana Murthy, the two pillars of the cultural valve system are loyalty to family and loyalty to the community. None should be valued apart from the other since successful societies successfully blend these values. He further said that in that context, he would talk about the role of western values in Indian society.
Narayana Murthy said that some of the people present might think that he was going to discuss Indian values from the old ages and not Western values. He clarified that he lives in the present, and has seen these values primarily practised in the West, hence the title of the topic. He added that he was happy as long as these values were practised, and as an Indian, he was proud to be part of a culture which has deep-rooted family values. He gave an example that parents make enormous sacrifices for their children, and on the other hand, children consider it their duty to take care of their aged parents.
Narayana Murthy said that they believed that mother was God and father was God and that brothers and sisters sacrificed for each other, with the eldest being respected by all the others. He further said that marriage was a sacred union between husband and wife, usually for life, and that in joint families, the whole family worked together for its welfare, full of love and affection.
Narayana Murthy stated that Indian values were an important strength and that families acted as a critical support mechanism for them. He further added that the credit of Infosys' success credit went to the founders and their families to support them during difficult times. He lamented that in India, the attitude towards family life was not reflected in the attitude towards community behaviour. He highlighted that in countries like the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, individuals were responsible towards their communities.
Narayana Murthy said that the primary difference between the West and India is that people in the West have a better societal orientation and care more for society than India does. He further added that they usually sacrifice more for society than Indians do, and therefore the quality of life is enhanced. He suggested that India should learn from the West in this regard.
Narayana Murthy said that Indians can learn some lessons from the West, such as respect for the public good. He gave examples of parks free of litter, clean streets and public toilets free of graffiti. He contrasted this with the fact that in India, people keep their houses clean, and water their gardens every day, but do not think twice before littering a park.
Narayana Murthy said that corruption in India is an example of putting one's own and their family's interests above society. He further said that in the west, it is difficult to bribe a police officer to avoid a speeding ticket because of the people's responsible behaviour towards the community. He added that in India, corruption, tax evasion, cheating and bribery have become major issues and even contractors bribe officials for constructing low-quality roads and bridges. He said that this behaviour is condoned by almost everyone and has resulted in society losing out in terms of substandard defence equipment and infrastructure.
Narayana Murthy pointed out that apathy in solving community matters was hindering progress, which was otherwise within reach. He mentioned that people do not try to solve serious problems around them and act as if they do not exist or are somebody else's responsibility. He added that in the West, people take proactive steps to solve societal problems. He also gave the example of the problem of drought in India as an example of an apathetic attitude.
Dr.K.L.Rao, an irrigation expert, suggested over 40 years ago that we create a water grid connecting all the rivers in North and South India to solve the problem, but nothing has been done. In 1983, a decision to build a thermal power plant to meet Bangalore's power requirements was taken, but it has still not been started. Moreover, the Milan subway in Bombay has been in a deplorable state for the last 40 years, but no action has been taken.
Narayana Murthy had suggested five years ago to have a 240-page passport to avoid frequent visits to the passport office and even offered to pay for it, but he had not heard from the Ministry of External Affairs yet. He quoted Thomas Hunter's words that "Idleness travels very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes it" and explained that Indians have been ruled by foreigners for over a thousand years, which led them to believe that public issues belonged to some foreign ruler and they had no role in solving them.
Narayana Murthy said that Indians had lost the will to solve their problems and were just used to executing someone else’s orders. He quoted Aristotle, saying that people become what they repeatedly do and that the decision-makers in their society were not trained to solve problems and looked to someone else to make decisions. He said that this was a tragedy, as there was nobody to look up to.
Narayana Murthy suggested that India's intellectual arrogance has not helped its society. Narayana Murthy has travelled widely and hasn't seen a society as contemptuous of others as ours, despite little progress. He cautioned that arrogance breeds hypocrisy. No other society boasts about the past as much, with so little current success.
Narayana Murthy said Indians have had this trait for at least a thousand years. He gave an example of Al Barouni, a 10th-century Arabic logician and traveller. Indian pundits considered it below their dignity to argue with him. On rare occasions when one did, he asked which Indian pundit taught Barouni. Murthy said a progressive society respects those who have accomplished more, but our leaders make us believe others don't know anything. He cited Thomas Carlyle's words, saying that the greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.
We must change our attitude to progress. We can learn from those who have done better than us, like Infosys. We often rationalize our failures. We have mastered this practice. This is an excuse for incompetence, corruption, and apathy. Sir Josiah Stamp said we cannot escape our responsibilities and the consequences of doing so. In the West, people are held accountable for their actions, regardless of their position. In India, those in higher positions are often not answerable for their actions. For example, a senior politician once "forgot" to file tax returns for 10 years yet got away with it. There are over 100 loss-making public sector units in India, however, no action has been taken against top managers for their poor performance.
Narayana Murthy said that the dignity of labour is important in the Western value system. People in the West take pride in their hard work. In India, however, we tend to not value those who do not have professional jobs. We have a mindset that only values intellectual work. Narayana Murthy said that many engineers fresh from college want to do cutting-edge work but not work of relevance to business and the country. He stressed that in an organization or society, different people have different roles and for success, everyone from the CEO to the person who serves tea is important and should be respected for their honest work. He encouraged a mindset that respects those who work hard.
Narayana Murthy said Indians become intimate without being friendly. He gave an example of when he was travelling and a fellow traveller asked for a favour after only 5 minutes of conversation.  This fellow traveller asked him to speak to his MD about removing him from the bottom 10% list in his company. Rudyard Kipling once said that westerners are friendly without being intimate while easterners are intimate without being friendly. He then said that people in the West prioritize the common good more than personal relationships and don't let it interfere with their professional dealings. They don't hesitate to punish a colleague, even if he is a personal friend, for incompetent work.
Narayana Murthy said that Indians tend to view work interactions from a personal perspective. He also said that Indians are the most 'thin-skinned' society in the world, as they often see insults where none is meant. He believes this may be because India was not free for most of the last thousand years. Narayana commented that Indians do not seem to respect other people's time, and lack professionalism in terms of punctuality. Narayana Murthy said that Indian Standard Time is usually late and deadlines are not met. Many public projects are not completed on time and this has become the norm rather than the exception. He said the West showed professionalism by embracing meritocracy. He said Western parents teach their children to be independent thinkers and in India, people are still stuck with feudal thinking. To succeed globally, this attitude needs to be overcome.
Narayana Murthy said that the Western value system emphasizes respecting contractual obligations and that these are rarely broken. He also said that enforcing legal rights and contracts is essential for increasing the credibility of our people and nation. Narayana Murthy said that marriage vows in India are considered sacred and people are willing to make sacrifices to uphold them. However, this same respect for personal commitments does not extend to the public domain. For example, India had an unfavourable contract with Enron and instead of punishing those responsible for the agreement, the contract was disregarded before any information about illegal activities at Enron was known.
Narayana Murthy said he had recommended various students for a national scholarship to pursue higher studies in US universities. However, most of them did not return to India after their degree, despite being contractually obliged to spend five years in India. Narayana Murthy said that the maximum default rate for student loans is among Indians, who have made it difficult for other students from India to obtain loans. He said that Indians do not display intellectual honesty and political leaders use mobile phones while saying they do not believe in technology. He said that to make progress, hypocrisy must be stopped. He then said that citizens must acknowledge their duty to the community as much as their duty to their families. He quoted Dwight Eisenhower saying that those who value their privileges over their principles will soon lose both.
Narayana Murthy said we should commit to the common good. To quote Henry Beecher, culture helps us work for the betterment of all. We should incorporate Western values into our culture for a better society. Most of our behaviour comes from greed, lack of self-confidence, and lack of respect. Gandhi said there is enough for everyone's needs, but not enough for everyone's greed. We should be responsible citizens to make our country great. Churchill said responsibility is the price of greatness. We should extend our family values beyond our homes. Narayana Murthy finally said that we should work towards the welfare of the maximum people. He also said that we should conduct ourselves as great citizens rather than just good people, to set a good example for the younger generation.

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Lesson Summary and Notes: Harvard Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech - J K Rowling

J. K. Rowling, in her speech, greeted President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, pleased parents, and, above all, graduates, and then said that the weeks of fear and sickness she felt at giving the commencement address had made her lose weight, which she said had been a "win-win situation." Then, she continued, all she had to do was take deep breaths, concentrate on the red banners, and remind herself that she was at the greatest Gryffindor reunion in the world. 
J. K. Rowling expressed hope that the "gay wizard" joke would stick in people's minds, elevating her above Baroness Mary Warnock. She added that setting attainable goals was the first step towards self-improvement. In her speech, J.K. Rowling stated she had struggled to find the correct phrases to speak to them that day. In her speech, J.K. Rowling stated that she wanted to discuss the advantages of failure as well as the value of imagination and how it is sometimes referred to as "real life" on this lovely day honouring academic success. Although it might appear like an impossible or paradoxical decision, she pleaded for them to be patient. 
She also remarked how it was somewhat uncomfortable for the 42-year-old she had become to look back at her 21-year-old self at graduation. She was attempting to strike a balance between her ambition and the expectations of people close to her half a lifetime ago. J.K. Rowling claimed that she had always been certain that she wanted to be a novelist but that her parents, who were both from poor families and had not attended college, believed that her vivid imagination was just a funny peculiarity of her personality and would not help her support herself. The irony of this, she added, was now clearly evident.
J.K. Rowling stated that even though her parents had hoped she would study for a vocational degree, she preferred to study English literature. She claimed that a compromise was made that, in reality, satisfied no one and that she then moved ahead to study modern languages. She continued by stating that she dropped German and fled down the Classics corridor just as her parents' car turned the corner at the end of the road.
J.K. Rowling said in her address that she could not recall telling her parents that she was studying Classics and that they might have learned for the first time on graduation day. She said that it would have been difficult to think of any topic that was less beneficial than Greek mythology to get the keys to an executive bathroom. In her address, J.K. Rowling made it plain that she did not blame her parents for their point of view and that there was a time limit on blaming one's parents for leading one in the wrong route because, once one was old enough to drive, the duty was theirs.
J.K. Rowling said in her speech that she could not blame her parents for wanting her to never experience poverty because they had been poor and she had also experienced poverty, which was not a pleasant experience as it resulted in fear, stress, and depression as well as a myriad of minor embarrassments and hardships. She also said that while overcoming poverty was something to be proud of, poverty itself was only idealised by fools.
J.K. Rowling stated that, at the same age as her audience, she feared failure more than poverty. She continued by saying that despite spending more time at the coffee shop writing stories than attending lectures, she had a knack for passing exams, which had served as the standard of success for her and her peers.
J.K. Rowling claimed that she wasn't foolish enough to believe that the young, talented, and educated people in attendance hadn't experienced hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence have never been able to protect anyone from the whims of the Fates. She doesn't for a minute believe that everyone in this audience has lived a life of unhindered privilege and contentment. She noted that the fact that they were graduating from Harvard suggested that they were not particularly accustomed to failure and that, given how far they had come, their definition of failure was probably similar to that of success for the ordinary person.
According to J.K. Rowling, one must determine for themselves what failure looks like, but if one permits it, the world is prepared to offer the criteria. She added that she had failed by all conventional measures seven years after her graduation day, with an exceptionally short-lived marriage which had failed, leaving her jobless, a lone parent and as poor as one could be without being homeless. She continued by saying that she was the biggest failure she knew and that both her parents and her concerns for her had come true. She agreed not to tell them that failing was fun and that the time in her life had been gloomy. The light at the end of the tunnel was merely a hope, not a reality, she continued, adding she had no idea how far it went.
J. K. Rowling discussed the advantages of failure because it allowed her to concentrate on the only work that mattered to her. She continued by saying that if she had been successful in something else, she might not have had the motivation to be successful in the one field she felt she belonged. She said that although her worst fear had come true; she was still alive, still loved her daughter, still had an ancient typewriter, and still had a big idea. She then stated that she had rebuilt her life on a solid foundation after hitting rock bottom.
J. K. Rowling stated that failure is inevitable in life and that it is impossible to live without failing at something. She added that failure gave the inner security that she had never attained by passing examinations and also that she had discovered that she had a strong will and more discipline than she had suspected, as well as finding out that she had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
According to J. K. Rowling, knowing that adversity has made them wiser and stronger gives them confidence in their capacity to survive. Even though it was achieved through hard work, she claimed that this knowledge is more of a gift than a qualification. She said that if she could go back in time, she would advise her 21-year-old self that humility is the key to overcoming the challenges of life, and that genuine pleasure comes from understanding that life is not a checklist of accomplishments.
J. K. Rowling said that she selected her second topic, the value of imagination, not only because of the role it played in helping her reconstruct her life but also because she had grown to respect imagination in a far broader sense. As per her, imagination not only gave humanity the ability to imagine the impossible, which is the source of all invention and creativity, but it also offered them the capability to sympathise with others whose experiences they had never encountered.
In her address, J. K. Rowling revealed that one of her earliest day jobs, which she had taken in her early 20s to help pay the rent, had been one of her most formative experiences. This realisation inspired much of what she had later written in the Harry Potter novels, even though she had been sliding off to write tales during her lunch hours at Amnesty International's headquarters in London, she added.
In her address, J. K. Rowling remarked she has read letters quickly written and smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by individuals who would face jail to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. She also saw photographs sent to Amnesty by loved ones and friends of those who had disappeared completely. She even heard the testimonies of torture victims, saw pictures of their injuries, and read handwritten eyewitness stories of rapes, kidnappings, and summary killings.
J. K. Rowling described how many of her coworkers were ex-political prisoners, those who had been displaced from their homes or fled into exile because they spoke out against their governments. Visitors to their offices, she said, were those looking for information or to find out what had happened to those they had left behind. She also remembered a young African torture victim, no older than she was at the time, who had become mentally ill upon seeing atrocities in his homeland, and how he had trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera. She added he was a foot taller than her and looked as weak as a child, that she had been assigned guiding him back to the Underground Station, and that he had held her hand with exquisite courtesy and wished her future happiness.
In her remarks, J. K. Rowling recalls going along an empty corridor and then hearing a cry of pain and horror coming from behind a locked door. When the door opened, she said, the researcher poked her head out and told her to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting beside her, because the researcher had just had to tell him that his mother had been seized and executed in retaliation for his outspokenness against his country's regime.
J. K. Rowling stated that every day of her working week in her early twenties reminded her of how fortunate she was to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where everyone had the right to legal counsel and a public trial. She said that she had seen proof of the atrocities that humans would inflict on one another to get or keep power. This had given her nightmares about some things she had seen, heard, and read. However, she said that she had learned more about human kindness at Amnesty International than she had previously known.
In her address, J. K. Rowling claimed Amnesty organised thousands of people to take action on behalf of individuals who had been tortured or imprisoned for their views and that the strength of human empathy, leading to collective action, saving lives and releasing prisoners. She also noted how common people, whose own safety and well-being are guaranteed, band together in large numbers to save strangers and people they will never meet, and how her modest role in that process was one of the most humbling and motivating experiences of her life.
J. K. Rowling in her speech said that humans can learn and understand without having experienced, which is a power like her brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. She also mentioned that many prefer not to exercise their imaginations, and they choose to remain in their own experiences, not paying attention to the suffering that doesn't affect them directly, and they can even refuse to know.
She said that she would resist the urge to be envious of those who live in narrow spaces since doing so might cause a particular type of mental agoraphobia, which has terrible side effects. She believed that those who lack imagination see more monsters and are often more afraid. She believed that those who lack empathy empower genuine monsters as, without trying to do so, they join with evil through their apathy.
In her address, J.K. Rowling said she had learned from the Greek author Plutarch that whatever they accomplished inside would impact the external world, which, she said, had been demonstrated a thousand times each day of our lives. She continued by telling the Harvard graduates of 2008 that because of their intelligence, capacity for hard work, education, and nationality, they had a special status and obligations. She also said that because of how they voted, lived, protested, and applied pressure on their government, this was both a privilege and a responsibility.
According to J.K. Rowling, due to their brilliance, ability for hard work, education attained and received, and membership in the world's sole surviving superpower, the Harvard graduates of 2008 are likely to have a bigger effect on other people's lives than the majority of people. She said that this gave people a special position and obligations and that it was both a privilege and a burden since it affected how they voted, lived, protested, and pressured their government outside of their boundaries. She urged the audience to stand up for those who had no voice, to connect with the weak, and to envision themselves living the lives of those without their privileges. She believed that the ability to imagine was needed to transform the world, not magic.
J.K. Rowling declared that she was almost done and that she still had hope for them, a hope she had at age 21. She continued by saying that the pals she had sat next to on graduation day were her lifelong companions and her children's godparents; they were individuals she could turn to in difficult situations and who had been gracious enough not to sue her when she used their identities as Death Eaters. She said that during their graduation, they were united by a great deal of love, the awareness that they shared a moment in time that would never happen again, and the understanding that they had specific photographic proof that would be quite valuable if any of them ran for prime minister.
J.K. Rowling wanted nothing more in her address than such friendships and expressed the hope that even if they failed to retain a single word, she said, they would remember Seneca's. She then went on to wish them all a very wonderful life before saying "thank you." She then reminded them that it wasn't how long their lives were, but how good they were that counted.

Never Give In -Winston S Churchill: Lesson Summary

Churchill came to the Head Master's invitation almost a year ago to sing some of their songs and cheer himself and his friends. During that time, catastrophic events, difficulties, and misfortunes occurred in the world. He recalled that when he was last there, they were alone and desperate with little arms. But now they were better armed and had suffered the enemy's air attack. He expected them to be impatient about the long pause, with nothing happening.

Churchill mentioned that both quickness and decisiveness, as well as slowness and resoluteness, were important to learn. He further stated that the British were usually better at the latter. He said that they should not expect to constantly move from one crisis to another. However, when they make up their minds to do something, they will, even if it takes a long time. Lastly, he pointed out that we should not let appearances deceive us and should treat triumph and disaster equally.

Churchill  went on to say that one could not judge by appearances. He stated that imagination could make things seem worse, but without it, not much could be done. He thought that those with imagination saw more dangers, but they also needed courage. He proposed to never give in, except in cases of honour and good sense, and never yield to the enemy.

Churchill  informed a year ago that Britain had been alone and assumed their account was closed. He further said that people thought their traditions, songs, and school history had been destroyed. However, he opined the mood was now much different, as Britain had not given up but had stood in the gap and persevered. He cited they had sung a school song, and he wanted to alter one line in it which was: "Not less we praise in darker days". Churchill asked to change "darker" to "sterner". Because he thought that these were not dark days, but great days and the greatest days the country had ever lived. Finally, he said they should be thankful for the chance to make these days memorable.