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CHNENNAI: It was a convocation address
sans the clich?d think big’ advices. It had mere reflections of an eminent
senior citizen, peppered with loads of subtle satire in the right proportion.
And the learned audience eagerly lapped it up.

Former West Bengal
governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi chose to drive home his point on values in life and
the task ahead for young engineers in a simple language while delivering the
47th convocation address at the Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) on
Friday.

Pointing out that life after college meant cut-throat
competition amidst cunningness overarched by money power; Gandhi said “Money is
an instrument which has its uses and its abuses. It is a measure of values and
has to be used in the right proportion for the right thing. Our classical
language, Tamil has a classical word alavu’ (measure). You will see people hunt
after money beyond alavu’, seek it beyond alavu’, use it, flaunt it, worship it,
hoard it, hide it, launder it, squander it.”

He added “As engineers
and technologists, you know there is an alavu’ to size. To go beyond that
measure, that proportion, whether in size, scale or shape is to offend alavu’.”

Conveying this on a contemporary note, the ex-diplomat quipped “I
belong to a generation when IT meant Income Tax and IPL could have only meant
India Petrochemicals Ltd and cricket was in my time a five-day sport played by
22 men in white&Not the one day affair with 20 or more cheerleaders who
cannot tell an over from an innings. Cricket meant cricket. Today cricket means
cricket plus money. We could call it Mocket or Croney.”

Deploring the
over-exploitation of natural resources, he said: “We are good at playing Brahma,
the creator. And great at playing Siva, the destroyer& The Brahma and Siva
in us are active 24×7. We have forgotten the third in the Trinity. Or has He
forgotten us? The Vishnu in us, the preserver, is in repose
anata-sayanam.’”

Perhaps, mocking at the publicity-driven corporate
social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and lamenting on the failed culture of
conservation, Gandhi quipped “In our country it (heritage and conservation) is
an orphan that looks wistfully for foster parents in the shape of corporate
sponsorships and official recognition.”

While the IITs and IIMs have
given cutting edge technology, “when it comes to maintenance, we are in the
kindergarten of learning. We are in fact, in pre-school. We need institutes for
maintenance education, not as a technology but as an ethic.”

He
called upon the IITians to work on tapping solar energy on an economic scale,
create technology for desalination of brackish and seawater and finding a use
for used plastic.

IIT Madras chairman R Chidambaram and director M S
Ananth participated.