Rains are coming

The water cycle is an interesting phenomenon. The water is evaporated from the sea, becomes cloud, is mobilized by the wind and then, the rains come somewhere to oblige the lands. Each of the soft, tiny, wet, round droplet comes down by the force of gravity and the smell of it falling on the soil leaves the message loud and clear – “Aah, it’s started raining!!”.

                Cometh the rain, cometh the beauty. Rains bring with it a lovely romantic weather, the temptation of the onion pakoras, the smell of the aromatic tea and of-course, the excitement of packing your travel bags. So far, so good.

                The beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. For a lot of people, the above description of the rain makes all the sense. Let’s think about a few more contexts and how we can describe the rains. For a flood-hit area, the rains can only mean adding salt to the injury; for a farmer, rains mean livelihood; for all of us, rains should mean drinking water and probably, for a drought hit, rains can mean nothing less than magic.

                As a person, it is important to understand that each person has a different background, a different thought process, different mindset, different perspective, different compulsions, different abilities, different aspirations, just like the meaning of the rains to different people is different. It might appear odd to see a person dance with joy when it rains; probably it isn’t, the person might be just longing for the water post a drought. We should strive to understand the different perspectives and see if it makes sense. We might appreciate what we see if we understand it; it is a difficult proposition when it comes to real life, but it is definitely possible.

                As a leader, it is quite complex and even more difficult. Not only a leader is required to understand and appreciate the perspectives, but also address and cultivate the view-points. The real skill of a leader is to fructify the different perspectives in their entirety, to something worthy, something useful, something sensible and if possible, something spectacular. India is an embodiment of “Unity in diversity” with an equal share of accompanied challenges but at the same time beautiful. When it starts raining, a leader should not only think about the floods, drought, weather and of course onion pakoras but should also expect the mesmerizing rainbow across the horizon.