Lesson in Breathing, TaeguTec, and InfoSys

I don’t want to turn this into a health blog, but it has dominated my days recently. And, it has been a learning experience. It is amazing how much we take for granted. We think little about numerous daily activities unless the flow is disrupted. So, after feeling much better during the afternoon yesterday, I was forced to realize the importance of the simple act of breathing through my nose. As I lay down to sleep, I found that my nose was so completely clogged that I couldn’t breathe one bit out of my nose. This posed a bit of a problem because breathing only through the mouth is not that easy when trying to sleep. Plus every three breaths resulted in a hacking cough. I tried everything – sleeping in the chair, piling pillows at the head of the bed and trying a semi-prone sleep, trying to sleep on my side, etc. But nothing worked. This went on for a while and I finally must have fallen asleep at some point as the next thing I remember is the alarm going off and waking up, breathing through my left nostril! It was interesting to realize how important nose-breathing is to sleeping. Something so simple and basic can disrupt processes significantly when out of whack. The shower was scalding hot for a change and so I took a LONG extra hot shower to try and clear out my sinuses. It did make me feel a little better and ready to face the day with a slightly clear head. However, the more I think about my situation, I think it would be crazy to go on the all-day sight-seeing excursions planned for the weekend. Since the sigh-seeing visits are optional for everyone, that may be good for me to miss and use the time to visit a doctor here or in Bangalore.

The morning’s speaker was Mr. L. Krishnan, Managing Director of TaeguTec India. TaeguTec is a Korean company in the cutting tools industry. He provided some background of his industry and then spent an hour or so answering questions from the group. He was very impressive in terms of the breadth of his knowledge and expertise. TaeguTec is also 80% owned by Berkshire Hathaway and was, in fact, the first foreign company owned by Warren Buffett’s group.

The visit to InfoSys in the afternoon was breathtaking. Here was an entire mini-city built on a grand scale. The “Global Learning Center” looks like a massive Roman coliseum. The “Leadership Institute” has a façade resembling the Parthenon with massive columns rising over a broad marble staircase with flowing waterfalls on each side. The campus is surrounded by lush green lawns, water fountains, and massive, elaborate buildings. We were given a tour of the campus that included luxurious villas for faculty accommodations, a 4-screen multiplex theater, a shopping mall, a huge recreation center that included a bowling alley, huge halls for table tennis, badminton, snooker, and more. All in all it was breathtaking, but also a little bit unnerving. It is clear that they are not hurting for money. Some of the students seemed to sense a little arrogance from the speaker, but I think that may just be because the surroundings were all on such a large and garish scale.

The evening was extraordinary. We went to the institute in the evening for a “small and informal” talent show to be put on jointly by the SDM-IMD students and our students. It started late and turned out to be an elaborate cultural show with full costumes, spectacular dances and music. We were overwhelmed. We had little to no talent to share – as was clear when the best we could do was get me up on stage to do some “impromptu lecturing” to the group on some silly topics. Only in India will such a “talent” be appreciated. It was embarrassing but a fun and enjoyable evening.