A very happy new year to all of you.

I started by reading a beautiful poem quoted in a Book by Osho (सबद भया उजियाला - गोरख-वाणी):

ज्योति के पायल बजे, जागो प्रभात

फूल की मुस्कान पर संगीत सा जुटने लगा

सब कहीं कुमकुम पवन की सांस पर लुटने लगा।

आ रही है भैरवी की ध्वनि गगन के छोर से,

आज धरती से तिमिर का राज लो उठने लगा ।

तुम अभी सोये, उषा आई लिये सौगात,

ज्योति के पायल बजे, जागो प्रभात

How beautiful.  What a way to start the new year!  

Last year started with a wonderful piece of news.  The students of the K J Somaiya Institute of Technology had succeeded in putting a satellite in space.  What a beginning to the year!!  My compliments to the faculty and students who imagined, dreamt and made it happen.  Here's to more such initiatives and successes.

At our Foundation Day that we celebrated in December 2024, I mentioned that earlier in November, I had met an architect in London - Carlos DuBlanc, who mentioned that education institutions should be places where Memory meets Fantasy.  A place where students can dream, and their possibilities be enabled.  The video is below

Possibilities also have their roots in memory.  Since we have to know our past, be alive in our present, and dream of our future.

And that got me thinking about how I have always remembered my grandfather permitting me to go study in the USA at Cornell, only because I told him it was one of the world's best.  And he simply said, go study, and when you return, make our institution like the one you so want to attend.  

I returned after my education, and always dreamt that I have to make his dream my dream, and make that come true.  But then also the fantasy - can we make it better?  Once again history  (memory) and the future (fantasy).

My father had been a member of the Willingdon Club in Mumbai.  Membership is almost impossible to get.  I 'inherited' it.  I dreamt of a sports facility that is better than the best in Mumbai.  And that our students have access to.  And so we have the Somaiya Sports Academy at the Vidyavihar Campus - at Ekalavya now.  With a name like Ekalavya - to make it available to all our students.  And our students have been representing us all over the State, the country and the world.  Four (out of six) of our Squash playing students represented India at the FISU championship in South Africa and India won the Bronze medal!!

In the next few emails, I will write about this theme - on where Memory meets Fantasy.  And work we did in the past one year.  In all these cases, the dream is to put my grandfather's ideal of

न मानुषात् परो धर्म (There is no religion greater than service to humanity)

in front. That we must strive to create a better world.  For all of us. Again it is a memory of a saying he liked and then to imagine how to put it into practice. 

As an example:

K J Somaiya's first initiative in education was the establishment of a school in 1942 at Sakarwadi followed by a school at Lakshmiwadi.  These were created to provide education to the area surrounding the area where he had set up his company The Godavari Sugar Mills in 1939.

Lakshmiwadi closed in the 1980s due to the co-operatization movement.  So did the sugar mill at Sakarwadi.  My father had always told me that although we may not be producing sugar in Maharashtra anymore, our presence in the area where his father (our Founder and my grandfather) started his journey should remain.  And so, at Sakarwadi our sugar mill has been transformed into a Bio-refinery - making chemicals from renewable feedstocks and our products are sold all over the world.  

At Lakshmiwadi - inspired by the success of our students at Sakarwadi and at the Somaiya Sports Academy in Mumbai, I imagined converting the closed Sugar mill into a branch of the Somaiya Sports Academy.  The picture below shows the dilapidated factory building. 

In May 2024, we converted one of those warehouses into 4 Badminton courts.  

And now, we are working to convert another of the warehouses into a Squash facility.  We will do this in phases.  Maybe a little bit every year.  Much like the way the Somaiya Vidyavihar campus was built.  A way to expand opportunity to our students for the area with access to world class facilities.

Our Badminton Coach - Rupali (who incidentally is an ex-student of our Sakarwadi school) told me that many of the students from our Lakshmiwadi school who are coming for training had until then never even held a Badminton racquet.  And now a whole new world had opened up for them.  

Memory (an old warehouse that used to once store sugar) and Fantasy (where students will dream of becoming champions).

To all our dreams and to make them happen.  For a better world.

Once again - A happy new year.