Batliwala Khurshed - Ready, study, go!: smart ways to learn

Ready,
Study, Go!

Smart Ways to Learn

KHURSHED BATLIWALA
AND DINESH GHODKE

Illustrated by

Dr Deepa Chettiar, Susha, Rupal, Zubin and
Gowrishankar

HarperCollins Publishers India

Contents

T he first time I failed came as an absolute shock to me.

Not seeing your roll number on the list of graduating students is a truly terrible feeling. There are people whooping with joy all around you, and all you feel is that terrible sinking sensation in your stomach and a constricting heaviness in your chest as you begin to accept the horrific reality of failure and how you are going to face the world from then on.

I had been a fairly good student throughout my life, scoring in the upper sixties at the very least, sometimes even hitting the nineties. This time, however, I had not prepared enough. These were my final year exams for a bachelors degree in mathematics and I had relied on clearing one of the papers by copying from a friend. It didnt quite work out, and I lost a year by seven marks.

It was quite a jolt, and after I finished punishing myself no music, no friends, no TV, no computer games, etc., for about a month I pulled myself together and decided to really study.

The next time I gave the exam, in October, I missed first class by seven marks. To prove a point to myself, I retook the exam the following year in May, this time becoming the college topper. I also helped two friends clear the exam, one who had failed five consecutive attempts and the other who was giving it for the first time. Both got first class.

After that, I dabbled around for a bit until a good friend of mine took me to meet his buddy, who was studying at IIT Bombay. Until that point, I had never ever even considered applying to IIT because I had thought that studying there required a very different mental make-up from the one I had.

When I did meet a few people studying at IIT, I found them to be normal (or very near it) I suddenly found myself thinking that if those guys could manage to get to the hallowed halls of Indias most prestigious technical institution, I should be able to do it too!

It was too late for me to give the JEE and do a B.Tech., but a masters degree seemed well within my reach.

The entrance exam was such that absolutely anything could be asked. Right from school to B.Sc. levels and so I set about mastering my subject with determination. I had just a few weeks to accomplish the task, but managed pretty well, ranking fifteen in a group of more than 2,000 people who took the entrance exam.

My troubles began after the first few lectures I attended. It turned out that IIT was not much different from any other educational institution. You were supposed to make notes of what the professor wrote on the board and vomit it on to the answer sheet during exam time. Accurate vomiting got better grades.

It was not all bad, however. There were glimmers of wonder in the otherwise pedestrian teaching at IIT-B and some brilliant teachers rekindled the love for learning that the others systematically tried to extinguish.

To be able to get good grades in almost every subject notwithstanding the brilliance (or lack of) of the teacher teaching it was a formidable challenge. I managed to flunk yet again, but by the time I finished my masters degree, I had a few professors encouraging me to do a PhD with them and a few others saying that I should go to the US and that they would give me glowing recommendations for the same.

I had also through bitter experience learnt how to learn. I had learnt the art of studying.

This book contains my secrets.

All the very best!

Jai Gurudeva!

Bawa

I loved school. Every single year I would get the award in school for not missing a single day. I used to enjoy learning. Learning new things gave me kicks even before I experienced alcohol or meditation.

In Grade 12, I missed getting into IIT where my elder brother was already studying. I dropped a year, didnt take admission anywhere and studied exclusively for the IIT JEE. It made family members and sundry relatives extremely unhappy and nervous at the idea of losing a year, but I stuck to my decision. IIT JEE was one of the toughest exams in the world where more than 3,00,000 students appeared and just around 3,000 were selected. The coming year I managed to get through by sheer hard work.

IIT hit me hard. I had always been in the top ten of my class and in IIT I was somewhere near the bottom. I got pitted against the best of the best. I did manage to get in, but I got the extremely unglamorous metallurgy and material science specialization. I challenge anyone to find a more boring thing to study.

I took keen interest in sports and extracurricular activities. I volunteered with the Art of Living Foundation. I remained an average student and managed to get through and graduated. Amazingly though, I landed the most coveted job through our campus placements which was paying me more monthly than what my dad earned in a year and way ahead of my batch mates or my brother who had done MS and started working in the US. I could ascribe that to the life skills I learnt from being mentored by Bawa and volunteering for Art of Living.

I didnt take that job, as it would mean I would have to leave India and I was too much in love with my country to consider that. I really wanted to contribute to India and first make a difference to the people around me.

I worked with Infosys for a little more than a year before I became a full-time faculty with the Art of Living.

From dropping a year to getting the best job on campus to becoming Art of Livings youngest teacher was quite a journey. More than a decade later, Bawa and I, under the guidance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, created the YES!+ course Youth Empowerment and Skills for young people above the age of eighteen. It is Art of Livings flagship programme for youth and is offered in more than 100 countries worldwide.

We used to have one constant question from students almost everywhere. How do I concentrate on my studies?!

I must confess, I didnt have the answer to that, but Bawa did. He agreed to write a book about it but only if I helped. Though we started with the idea of answering just that one question, we quickly realized, through our own experiences and discussions, that effective studying could never be an isolated activity. There was so much that surrounded it fitness, the ability to work in groups, handling relationships, dealing with failure, leading teams the list is long.

The result was this book.

You are holding in your hands the distilled knowledge of what we learnt through our victories and our failures over the last twenty-five years.

We had a fabulous time. Now its your turn.

Ready, Study, GO!

Jai Gurudeva!

Dinesh

W e exist on seven levels. These are the Body, Breath, Mind, Memory, Intellect, Ego and Self.

We usually club the mind, memory and intellect into one unit and call it the mind. For many people, studying seems to be a function of just this mind (the mind-memory-intellect combo). They are quite wrong. Effective studying happens only when all seven levels of our existence are being nourished properly. Just as a good building is not simply the roof, floors and walls but is a fantastic combination of those and many other elements such as the slope of the land, the climate, and the materials being used truly effective studying happens only when all seven levels are taken care of.