Doing Good to the World : Conversations with Lord Vishnu

As the year is about to end, I knew that Lord Vishnu would be appearing soon to check me out. This has been his practice over the past several years. These conversations are basically to do an annual review of my progress and to know about the achievements I made that I would like to be proud of. He would always say at the end of our conversations that I have yet to understand what the term “progress” exactly meant. And I knew that my understanding of progress was often limited to the boundaries of this material world.

It was a Sunday and I was sitting in my balcony having a cup of tea. Lord Vishnu appeared like a gentle breeze carrying a fragrance of Jasmin (or Parijata as we call in Sanskrit). When I said that I was just expecting him, he smiled and with all the compassion asked, “ How are doing Dr Modak?”.

Well I had nothing to complain about really. My health was getting better. Work was getting more exciting. And I was in a good company of friends. My children were doing reasonably well and were happily discovering their lives. And more importantly, I was learning how to enjoy the sunset phase of my life. So I answered as “all good Lord”. Indeed, Lord Vishnu was expecting such a kind of happy answer.

Lord Vishnu then spoke a bit about his perception about the world, signaling about the times to come avoiding the term sustainability. I recounted for his benefit some of the important events of 2023 that included the global democratic recession, heating up of the space race, pleasures and pains of Artificial intelligence, sad happenings in  Ukraine and Gaza and finally the most recently held COP28.

Lord Vishnu smiled. I was surprised that he didn’t want to discuss COP28.

“I understand all this Dr Modak but let us discuss this year’s progress first”. Lord reminded me the purpose of annual review meetings. I promptly opened my laptop and showed him my updated CV.

Lord Vishnu took a good look on my CV like a score card. To ensure his full understanding, I had described my educational qualifications, teaching and research experience, an impressive list of clients and projects and the books I published. I had also listed the memberships and awards that were bestowed on me, countries I visited for work and even a statement of languages I could speak, write and understand and such sundry stuff. I also used most relevant template MS Word template that had the right layout for senior CVs and the font.

I saw that Lord Vishnu was not impressed.

“Dr Modak, this is not really how one should write a CV”, Lord said. “You are still so conventional”. I clearly saw a disappointment on his face.

For a while I thought that I was that warrior Arjuna in Mahabharata who was confused whether to fight with the Kauravas. But this time it was not the war of Mahabharata but the war of life. I asked for guidance as I knew that the Lord was always kind to me.

“Well, Dr Modak, as a first step, write down what you achieved in each month of this year. And think carefully when I say what you achieved, not for yourself but list anything you did as good to this world. I don’t care much about the qualifications, clients, memberships and such mundane details,” said the Lord.

I realized that I had never asked such a question to myself all these years.

I started recounting my work life starting from January 2023. I think I bagged three important assignments; one for a Ministry and one for a Corporate and one for a Financing Institution; but when I looked back, all I had produced were impressive reports, that certainly aspired to do good to world, but today these reports are perhaps mummified. Neither me nor my clients had the passion, perseverance and power to take the recommendations ahead. I had done my job and so they did. We simply tick marked, and everything continued as “business as usual”.

This year, I was invited to be a member of three prestigious committees that my colleagues felt envious of. Honestly, nothing much happened in these committees; meetings were occasions of having a pale tea with peppered cashews and passive conversations. I should have resigned from such perfunctory committees right away but instead I continued to stay on as being on these committees elated me. If I had been more vocal or forthcoming, I could have influenced a good many decisions that could have benefited many.

A hard look at everything I did in 2023 made me realize that although I had an impressive update in my CV, year on year, I had done little good to the world, despite my potential. I had never scaled up that little good. I understood then why Lord Vishnu was disappointed with my CV.

Seeing me a bit depressed, Lord Vishnu got up and patted me on my back and said, “Dr Modak don’t be overly self-critical, sometimes realization of truth itself is a sign of good progress, See you next year”.  His words had all the compassion. He then disappeared once again like a breeze.

I remembered CV of the Chinese Professor who taught me at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. He was 77 years old then with a PhD from the University of Iowa on Flood Routing completed in 1939. He wrote his CV much differently. All the CV had was a year and one liner of what good he did to the world. When he circulated his CV to us (as he believed that students must know enough about the teacher), we saw years on the left column and what he achieved (to do good to the world) in the right column in just one line. That just one line for each year was enough to see his achievements.

There were years where the right columns were blank. When asked, the Professor smiled, “Modak, those were the years when I was learning, and sometimes even confused and needed a “pause”. I thought the CV was kind of a polite confession. I have still kept a copy of this CV. I wonder why I did not follow his style of writing the CV. Perhaps, Lord Vishnu was looking for such one liner CV for my work life of the past 40 years.

On December 6, 2023, Indian International Conference on Air Quality Management (IICAQM) bestowed on me a Life Time Achievement Award. The event was held at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The citation read as below.

“In recognition of his outstanding contributions and a distinguished career devoted to environmental stewardship. His pivotal role in establishing the Environmental Management Centre in 1996 and founding the not for profit Ekonnect Knowledge Foundation in 2012 underscores a commitment and passion to mainstream sustainability. His global impact is evident in collaborating with key UN bodies and Development Financing Institutions, advising governments, and contributing to landmark publications. Throughout his illustrious career, he was instrumental in capacity building of students, academicians, government officials, and practitioners on frontier topics in sustainability. His career that blends academia and professional practice has served as an inspiration to many in India and across the world. The award acknowledges his significant contributions to environmental policy, circular economy initiatives, and sustainable development, solidifying his legacy as a leader in the field”

While I warmly accepted this award that was a mark of love and appreciation from my friends and colleagues I worked with over the last 40 years, I knew that this award was possible only because Lord Vishnu was not a member of the Jury. If he was, then the citation could have been differently written  saying that we are honoring Dr Modak for his new understanding towards life that doing maximum good to the world is the real life time achievement.

Readers, my very best wishes for 2024.

Let us all do good to this World.

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