Difference is about Compliance – Puzzled? Then read on…

Difference is about Compliance – Puzzled?

When I was a young boy of around 10 Years, playing football was one of the hobbies that I had, and I used to play reasonably well. By the way, that’s was the only thing my mother allowed me to do outside of our home compound. So, as usual, on a summer evening after the school hours I and my neighbor friend Bappu were looking for the ‘ball’ to do the daily maintenance before the play starts. The ball, we are talking about is made up of a bunch of newspaper pieces (which we bought vegetables from nearby shops) filled into polythene sheets and are neatly woven into a smooth football like structure using semi-dry plantain leaves perfectly coiled into a smooth silken thread. On luxury, you may get an old umbrella cloth to cover it up, helping it to last long. Those days, the District players (Read as national players; if you can play for the Malappuram District, you will be able to play for the national team, as per statistics) used an Indian leather Ball. There were two types of balls; the Russian Ball and Indian Ball; The Russian ball had an automatic neck that allowed the air-valve to be closed as soon as the air-pump is lifted; but the Indian one had to be manually tied on the neck to keep the air in. As a young football enthusiast, I enjoyed looking at the Russian Ball from a distance, when teams played against each other in local matches that took place during summer in the paddy fields, immediately after the harvesting. Often I stood behind the goal post to get a closer look at the ball and in anticipation to get to kick the ball back to the court.

Around 5.30PM, the play starts, four to five of us team up and starts playing on the rough land outside my home compound. One of my immediate neighbors - Bappu, 2 years younger to me was one of the finest footballers of our time - until he died of cancer at the age of 12. Perhaps a player who had the potential to become a national player.

As the play progressed - we assumed to be in the likes of Sudip Chatterjee’s, Babu Mani’s and Shabir Ali’s Of Indian football. Bappu is an exceptionally talented player and as he is nearing to the goal post, I get the first call. “Jaleel, come home, enough for the day, it’s time for the prayer”. The regular standard terms that my mother uses. Just before the Maghreb prayer, my mother would call me from her Kitchen- where she is busy preparing the Dinner in earthern-firewood stove. I resist, why should I only come, when others are playing? We are different – comes the reply, quicker than the thought. Though it never occurred to me that I was anyway different from others around me, but I learnt to be different. I learnt to keep the fundamental disciplines my mother taught me from the very beginning of my life. The same Disciplined Mind that Howard Gardner talks about. But this word ‘different’ was something that kept me thinking later on in my life. On several occasions, I have recalled this memory of mine and had listened to my inner voice of creating a difference to my life and the people around.

So, to speak, creating a difference is not about growing market propositions or NASDAQ, Dewjones Index. Neither it’s about creating a blue ocean strategy. It’s about keeping the fundamental values intact while interacting with the ecosystem around you – immaterial of which ocean you have immersed your leg into – blue or red. It’s about compliance to values and not about deviating from it. Throughout my life, I have tried my level best to keep that fundamental values uncompromised and therefore creating a difference to my life and to a whole set of people around me. So to me, difference is about compliance - Compliance to human values as a whole.