CK - The gentle giant moves on

Posted on April 17, 2010 
Filed Under Blog

 

Ever since I recall,  I had a strange wish to maintain a diary of well-known / known people who have passed away after touching my life. This is particularly true of the people with positive influences on the world around them – the corridors they walked through, the people they touched, the rooms in which they spoke and so on.   I also carry a mental list of these names and unfortunately (yet true to life), I have found myself adding a few names to it every year. The mental picture that I carry ends on the day when I will have moved on.  Some one might just add a name to his / her list!

 CK – The affable Giant :

Professor CK Prahalad, the Guru whose life can best be summarized by two broad bodies of work – “Core Competence” and “BOP” (Bottom of the pyramid), has moved on. Another giant has moved into the pantheon of ‘do-gooders’ as per my list. It sounds clichéd but I do find myself at a loss for words – ‘Shocking’, ‘devastated’, ‘sorrowful’ etc, etc,…..none come anywhere close to what I feel.  Quite simply put, I feel a sense of deep personal loss.

 

CK’s work did not stop at deep insights that have become street argot in the world of management education, corporate boardrooms as well as in entrepreneurship, at large. His invention (‘Core competence’ and ‘BOP’) have become much more than jargons over the past decades. CK converted them into practiced processes and mantras for whoever was willing to learn and implement. More than a dozen companies in every country would vouch for the mantra in their own successful journeys as organizations.

 

CK’s work, in fact, began after he gave these inventions of his to the world. CK was a tireless evangelist of his work. He believed in going across the globe and sell his ideas with as much passion and research as possible for a human being.

 Much more than his body of work :

I have always experienced CK and his thought-leadership as much broader and deeper than what he was most well-known for.  CK was also a tireless crusader for a few things that are much less known or published in the media. The themes such as – India and her potential, Entrepreneurship, Sanskrit (as a language) are some of the themes that can take him to the far corners of the globe without his batting an eyelid. He was passionate when he spoke about any of these. His allocation of time and efforts for these themes spoke even louder about his commitment to these causes. And, I am quite certain that I knew only a few aspects of this proud son of India.

 CK – The family man :

In over a decade that I have known CK, I have almost seen CK and Gayatri inseparable even in his grueling travel schedules. Running into them at an airport, spending a quiet conversation time on the sidelines of TIE Summits – I have seen CK more often than not in Gayatri’s company.  I have always felt very comfortable in the joint conversations of this affable pair of ‘CK Mama-mami’, as we address in the south of Vindhyas.

  

CK also was a very proud parent and the quintessential family man. And, those who knew CK well would know a great deal about Deepa, Murali, Ashwin even without ever meeting them in their lives. He would share the few things about his children/family that he felt very nice and proud about. 

 

I feel fortunate to have known this gentle intellectual giant of our era who surely made us proud as Indians.  I also feel personally rich for the little windows of time that we spent together in various parts of the world – whether the jovial never-ending and anecdote ridden conversations about Nobel prizes at Kaula Lumpur or a meagre meal when he came for the inauguration of our first school (IWS) at Hyderabad or the lovely time ‘CK thatha and ammamai’ spent with Nandu, Uma and me at the Khimsar resort in Rajasthan.

 

With silent and sincere prayers

 

Affectionately,
Satya

Comments

2 Responses to “CK - The gentle giant moves on”

  1. Gopal on April 20th, 2010 8:23 am

    Satya,

    For one so uninitiated on management gurus, CK was a late discovery for me. He was the wondrous man who made a mark on the world stage with his ideas, and at a closer level, whose photos I saw in the inaugural function of IWS Hyderabad. It was only last year that i read about him and his hypothesis of the Fortune at the BOP.
    A glimpse of the Giant that he was!
    May he rest in peace.

    Gopal

  2. IG on April 20th, 2010 12:21 pm

    Loved reading your heartfelt angst and gratitude. CKP to me was a revelation when I first read his work some eight years back. I did not know at that time that he was a much sought after management guru of our times. I will always remember him as someone with a lot of clarity in thought and someone who was capable of articulating the obscure which in the course of time would look obvious to every one. His BOP model was a stroke of genius. A few memories about CKP is from the evening when we met him during the launch of IWS-Hyd. Him going to a Corporation school, stealing eggs from nests, his concern when it came to addressing very young children and their parents and him pondering over what he could wear for such an occasion. I still cherish the key chain he gave away as a gift for answering something. I don’t remember what it was. How could CKP go, I am still reading his article in Forbes……

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