New Beginning

The following is an edited version of a speech I delivered this morning to an assembly of about 2000 students.

We are at the threshold of a new academic session. A new beginning. Life is full of new beginnings and old endings. Every day is a new beginning which ends with an old sunset. Today, however, is a special day. This day marks the beginning of a new session that will last a whole year.

Every new beginning comes with a whole lot of promises. Every new beginning comes with an offer of magic, of magical transformations. You are all potential magicians. You love magic and you would love to be magicians too. The fact is that each one of you is a potential magician.

Magic is a way of looking at life, a different way of looking at things. Perspective, that’s what it is. Perspective is a way of seeing reality. I’m sure some of you are familiar with the famous saying about the two men who looked out from the same window. Two men looked out from the same window. One saw mud and the other saw stars. One looked at the soil below; the other looked at the sky above. Both looked out from the same window but saw different things. That’s the difference made by perspective. Perspective is the magic of life. Perspective makes the entire difference to your life.

Many of you are Harry Potter fans. Let me paraphrase Harry’s teacher Dumbledore. “It’s not your ability that matters, Harry, as much as your perspective.” It’s not your ability that matters as much as your perspective. It doesn’t mean your ability is not important. It means how you use your abilities creates the magic.

You possess the magic within you. Go ahead and unfold that magic. Be the wizard. Be the winner. Every marvel from the Taj Mahal to the Karakoram Highway, all those skyscrapers and flyovers are all creations of individuals like you and me. But with one difference. Those individuals chose to discover the magic within them. Discover the magic within you. Create all the marvels you can dream of.  I wish you a year full of magic ahead.