When in India, I think it’s next to impossible not to reflect on life and our shared world.  I, too, have spent a lot of my time reflecting on my life and my environment.  Below is a small speech I have at a dinner hosted by Tata Consultancy Services and it aptly describes my sentiments:

People ask me all the time why I’m doing this Fellowship and my answer is simple and stems from a speech that Mr. Ramadorai gave a few months ago. And that is to cause a disruption.  Disruption is not necessarily an idea that corporate attorneys like myself embrace, however, it is from this very idea of disruption and innovation that great things happen.  Often people think of a disruption as an impediment standing in the way of their goal. However, a disruption can be, and should be, viewed as a catalyst for change. Creating disruptions, whether they be in, thoughts, policies or processes, and moving away from how things have always been done is the best way to bring about change that will affect large populations.  It is in this vein that I pursued this Fellowship.  I created a disruption within myself and my environment by leaving my familiar life in the US and coming to India to work towards creating change for 10 months.  Through this disruption I’ve gone through, and will continue to go through, a period of immense personal growth. 

While in India, I hope to create a disruption through my professional work with the Office of the Advisor to the Prime Minister on National Skills Development.  …  There are many other programs such as these going on simultaneously, but they all have one thing in common, each program has a unique twist to it, we’ve strayed from the way things are normally done and provided a solution which is both revolutionary and feasible.  After all skilling so many people in 10 years requires novel ideas and nonlinear solutions.  India and its problems are unlike any other, therefore, the solutions we provide must also be unlike anything we’ve seen before.  

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I want to leave you all with this parting thought: create a disruption in your life and see where the change will take you.

The more I think about this idea of disruption the more energized I become.  Great ideas and great advances have come from creating disruptions, so why are we so afraid at times to create disruptions?  We may be creatures of habit but habit does not create the kind of change we need, either at a micro or macro level, to create a more equal society.  So why not be different, be bold and create a disruption in some part of your life.