Speech at the felicitation ceremony for the Young Alumni Achievers' Award at IIM Ahmedabad
I am the writer among the awardees, and so, over the last few days and nights, I have put myself under not a small amount of pressure to find the right words for this occasion. I’m not afraid to fail, though. Not because failure at this stage might not have consequences today. But because success and failure are often all a mishmash inside my head. I live a writer’s life, a life full of daily failures of expression at the desk, the kind of failures that are private and therefore hurt the most. Consequently, a writer’s life is also full of rising up again and trying, again and again, till one is satisfied or till one reaches a limit and can do no more. My engagement with the processes of writing establishes a distance from their outcome; it gives them the nature of play. This speech, this address, this collegiate communication, is a wish that you, all of you, can find an area of pure play, where you are engaged as if consumed. This area of pure play may not always be the one that makes
