Rise and fall of body and soul.

My falls during Paragliding and Motorbiking

When I was on my first ever long motorbike ride (https://nsmcyberdude-thoughts.blogspot.com/2025/01/my-first-long-motorbike-ride.html), I came across Mr.Anil Nair. He was our “Lead” and the captain of the group. On almost the last evening of the ride, he mentioned that he had written and published a book called  License to fall. 

I had read something on similar lines but with a different approach to the subject from my friend, literary guru and a prolific writer, Dr. D V Guruprasad. I.P.S 

 B.Sc. fail, I.P.S. Pass.

I remember telling someone that I hadn’t come across a person who learnt how to ride a bicycle without falling even once. That got me thinking.

I myself have fallen literally and metaphorically many a time and have always got up, dusted myself and moved on. Somehow I have cultivated an attitude that falling, getting up, correcting myself and moving on, is a part of life. Neither is falling an embarrassment, nor is the lack of effort to get up and start moving ahead.

I have tried to go out of my zone of comfort, challenge myself and have met with failure and  success. 

I thought of remembering some of those occasions to put into this blog. These are a collection of such falls and failures of mine and my attempts to move ahead.

1. Emotional falls 

1.1 Failed in engineering.

I have never been a very academic or particularly “intelligent” student in the during my Engineering days (the focus was more on my involvement in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh - RSS and, to a certain extent, involvement in the political turmoil of those days).

However, I had my own favourite subjects in Engineering, like “Strength of Materials” and “Theory of Machines.” I had read multiple reference books and compiled my own notes, which were in moderate demand among my classmates.

The exams came, and it wasn’t a tough question paper for me, and I thought that I had done reasonably well.

The results came out, and to my dismay, I had failed! I just could not believe it (and neither could many of my classmates).

Crestfallen, I came home with trepidation and told my mother. She knew that I had put in my efforts. She comforted me by saying that it is was okay and I should study hard again.

I took my exams again and to my horror I failed again! Till this date, I have no explanation as to why I failed not once, but twice in those subjects that I thought I was good at.

This was an acid test for me, as any further failures would mean no “carry forward,” and I would have to sit out for a year. More importantly, I would be loosing losing my annual merit scholarship (Govt. of India-awarded “National Merit Scholarship” or NMS).

Perhaps with some sort of a divine intervention, I cleared it on my third attempt and retained my momentum—both financially and academically.

This also resulted in me ending up as a “Second class graduate” from Bangalore University.

As providence had destined, I got through a campus interview and got into Motor Industries Co. Ltd. (MICO), and that was my first inflection point. I made the best of it, moved up the ranks, and became a reasonable success. I still pride myself as being a reasonably good engineer and think from first principles even now (forty years after passing out of engineering in 1985).

This was a failure that I couldn’t explain and neither can I explain the fact that a prestigious organisation like MICO / Bosch selected me through a campus interview.

1.2 Level of incompetence!

The fall…

This happened when I was in MICO and in the finance control department. I had a tough and an extremely intelligent boss (who was also my benefactor in my later MICO years). Let’s call him “B”. 

With all his positives, he had a notoriety of being very sarcastic at times.

There was one occasion where we had to come out with a solution to financially justify an activity to get funding for a project.

We were a bunch of professionals around a round table (at various levels in the organisation - General managers, divisional managers and the sort. I was the junior-most in that pecking order at the table). 

The topic came up and B looked around and queried if we had thought of a solution, a financial model to justify the project. None were forthcoming and I, with all my enthusiasm and foolhardiness, blurted out that I had an idea.

He turned his entire body to face me squarely, folded his hands across his chest and asked me to proceed and explain. I started to elaborate and in between (I thought he was encouraging) he would nod his head with a brief “and….?”. Being encouraged thus, I completed my theoretical exposition.

After I completed, he politely enquired if I had finished and when I smiled triumphantly and said yes, he coolly turned the revolving chair back into the normal position, started to shake his head and said (what is still fresh in my mind as though it happened yesterday) “Mohan, I marvel at your level of incompetence. I am a fool to be so patiently listening to you.”, with that simple statement, he proceeded on with the meeting and onto the next point on the agenda. 

I was devastated, did not know what hit me. I could almost see some of my senior colleagues either smirking or looking at me sympathetically. 

No words to describe my emotions at that time.

The rise…

I was shell shocked. I quickly recovered and ran the entire proceedings though my mind and could not find a flaw in what I had said. Bravely or foolishly, I interrupted Mr. B and said, “Sorry, sir. I’m not on the next point yet because I’m still trying to understand where I made a mistake. I cannot move on until I realize my folly.”
I asked him point out the error. He again turned around and said, “Oh! Perhaps we have not understood you correctly and you haven’t made any mistake. Why don’t you repeat it all over again”. My heart sank into my boots. Apparently I had made a mistake in the first place, I had foolishly asked him to point out my mistake and now I was being asked to dig my own grave to greater depth. I had no choice. Faithfully, I repeated the same process elaborated earlier. He did not interrupt me even once. I completed and sheepishly looked at him. He turned away from me and addressed others: “That’s a wonderful idea from Mohan! Why did we miss it in the first place? Why did you guys miss it too?”. All around there was a deathly silence and everyone thought that this is the lull before a storm from B.

No, he was genuinely appreciating me! Later he went on to elaborate the theory that I had proposed and explained it to the audience and appreciated my persistence. It was “Phew” moment for me. I never looked back and this episode put a lot of confidence into me and to think from the basics to attack a problem. I also learnt to stand the ground and be prepared to correct myself and ask for that feedback.

1.3 The failure and success 

Failure
I was working as a managing director and plant manager in a company in Thailand. We were having two major product launches. One for an existing and another for a new customer.

Naturally, I focused on the new customer as we could not afford to fail with them (earlier launches of a similar program in Spain and in the US were not successful launches. Hence all eyes were on the Thailand team and on how we handle the launch to regain the customers confidence globally).
In the process, I neglected the existing customer’s refresh launch and it turned out to be a disaster. This was further complicated by my prolonged absence at the  plant due to a medical emergency (had to undergo Appendectomy). We had a protracted union negotiations and disruptions at the plant due militancy of the union. All these culminated in the disaster with the existing customer’s refresh launch, while we were commended for the flawless launch with the new one.

This episode left me scarred and lowered my self confidence. I wasn’t sure of myself anymore and was wondering if I was slipping up. To make it more complex the situation became more toxic for me and I had to make plans to exit from that situation. 

This remains to be my biggest failure in my professional life and it was tough to extricate myself out of this failure. 

Success

I decided to change the job after that and turn an entrepreneur and whilst I was at it, I got an offer to set up a greenfield project in Coimbatore to manufacture gear boxes for wind turbines. I decided to take that opportunity and started all over again. 

I had to battle the demon of recent failure and exude confidence to myself and to the team I was leading now. I knew that this was much more challenging one. I had a set of very fine professionals around me, but we weren’t a team. I  focused on forging a team and delivered the project successfully and on time. 

Till date, that remains to be my best performance in my professional life (not counting the current assignment).

It is not failure that counts, but what we learn from it and how we refuse to let it haunt us.

2. Physical falls

While with the emotional falls, the scars that they leave are deep and unseen, physical falls are something that gets reminded, when we see those scars. 

Meniscus tear, mountain climbing, Paragliding & motorbiking

In the year 2008, I had a sports injury when I was playing Shuttle badminton (right after having played Squash) in Belgium. It was diagnosed as Lateral meniscus tear and I had an arthroscopic surgery done. After some intense physiotherapy, I was able to bounce back to scale Uhru peak at Kilimanjaro and climb through the Salkantay pass at Machupichu. 

I decided to start motorbiking at the age of 57 and have fallen many a time from my bike while doing some off-roading. This did end up in some minor injuries, but every time, I learnt from it and got onto my bike again.

2.1 The Paragliding fall

It was fresh after my CABG (Open heart Surgery) and we decided to take a break. We went to Shimla with friends. Wanted to do river rafting and a long time dream of Anita to do paragliding (she has done skydiving in Germany and has been more adventurous than me, in that sense).
I don’t know if I was nervous or people around me like my friend Sumant Shetty. 
We decided to brave it. Anita and her three friends took to the skies pretty easily and that gave me confidence. The harness was snapped on and I got ready for a tandem paraglide. As my luck would have it, I pulled my leg up before the full take off, fell down and rolled a bit on the severe slope. I’m sure that Sumant’s heart had popped into his mouth on seeing this. 

With a sense of bravado I got up, nonchalantly told others that I’m fine and we will start all over again! Despite protests around, I decided to overcome my fear and literally took to skies, much to my childish delight. 

2.2 Off-road training fall

I decided to enrol myself for training to ride adventure bike at a place called The big rock dirt park

 Big rock Dirt Park

As is normal to these adventure sports, I fell and my leg got trapped underneath the bike. 250 kilo bike was lifted off me and I dusted myself to get onto the bike and ride on the trail later.

Training @ Bigrock dirt park
The lesson that I learnt was I had to get myself more robust riding boots and that I did.

Conclusion 

I endorse reading both the books that I have mentioned in the beginning. 
Move out of your comfort zones, try something challenging, don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t fail to pick yourself up and move on.
Happy risk taking and wish you success.

I quote from one of my earlier poems written in Kannada and from the philosopher, thinker Sri DV Gundappa. 

ಬಿದ್ದು ಎದ್ದಿಹ, ಎದ್ದು ಬಿದ್ದಿಹ

ಮೈಯ ಕೋಡವಿ ನಕ್ಕು ನಡೆದಿಹ।

ಗಾಯಗಳಿಹವು ಹಲವು ಮೈಮನ

ಕುರುಹು ಅವಿತಿದೆ ಮುಸುಕಿ ಹುದುಗಿದೆ

ತೋರಲಾರನು ಅವನೆಲ್ಲರೆದುರಿಗೆ॥

ಹೂತು ಅವಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ತಾನು

ನಗೆಯ ಮುಖದ ಗೋರಿ ಕಟ್ಟಿಹ।

ಚರಮ ಶ್ಲೋಕ ಬರೆದು  ಹಾಡಿದ

ಹೂವ ಗಿಡವನು ಮೇಲೆ ನೆಟ್ಟಿಹ

ಹೂವ ನೋಡಿ ಇಂದು ನಲಿದಿಹ॥

Poem Yuvaka

Sri DVG

ಎಡವದೆಯೆ ಮೈಗಾಯವಡೆಯದೆಯೆ ಮಗುವಾರು ।

ನಡೆಯ ಕಲಿತವನು ಮತಿನೀತಿಗತಿಯಂತು ।।

ತಡವರಿಸಿ ಮುಗ್ಗರಿಸಿ ಬಿದ್ದು ಮತ್ತೆದ್ದು ಮೈ- ।

ದಡವಿಕೊಳುವವರೆಲ್ಲ ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ ।।

Is there a child that has learnt to walk

without having falling down?

This is how the mind learns wisdom is gained.

To slip, to fall, dust oneself and get up again, 

Isn’t this what everyone does? –Mankuthimma