The key qualification to be a speaker at a unique conclave recently held in Dehradun was that you ought to have failed at least once in your life.
Featuring the motto, “Failures open the door to success”, the ‘Failures Conclave’ was aimed at helping school and college-going students come face-to-face with individuals, including three Padma Shri awardees, who had encountered and overcome failures in their careers.
“Failure is not the end,” said Avdhash Kaushal, an academic and Padma Shri winner who heads the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, which had organised the conclave.
Instead, it “should be used as a motivation to achieve your goals,” said Mr. Kaushal, who had failed while at school.
Recipe for success
Addressing an audience of school and college-going students from Bhutan, Punjab and local schools, Padma Shri awardee and ayurvedic physician Vaidya Balendu Prakash stressed that hard work, discipline, dedication, the right friends and an eye on the goal were all that one needed to succeed.
“Failure keeps you in check when you stray from this path,” said Mr. Prakash, sharing that he had struggled through school and college.
“Nobody is programmed to fail but this fall can be the blueprint for success given the right opportunity and goal,” he added.
Yogesh Chandra, a retired physics professor, revealed that physics was a subject that he had failed in as a student. “Those who fail in conventional academic work are mostly those who do not adhere to the norm and have taken a path that nobody dared before,” said Dr. Chandra. “From them come inventors and people who see things differently. Toppers take discoveries and inventions made by these people forward,” he added.
Mr. Kaushal said the prime motivation for the conference was the high suicide rate among schoolchildren, who are often overwhelmed by the fear of academic failure.
“With this as the background, we Padma Shri awardees have got together for this conclave to give a peek into our failures and how we turned it around for ourselves and proved to be valuable resource to society,” added Mr. Kaushal.
Renowned writer and Padma Shri winner Leeladhar Jagudi maintained that good company was vital.
“Make good friends to be successful in life. Bad company can ruin good people,” he said.
“Failure is not the end of life,” said Dhan Singh Rawat, Uttarakhand’s Minister of Higher Education.
“Learning from our failures and not giving up is the secret to success.”
