SPEED

Yesterday recorded two years since the passing away of Goa’s most doted poets, Dr Manoharrai L Sardessai. He was a gifted communicator, not just as a writer, but as a speaker as well. In oratory as well as in everyday speech, his words would conjure up the finest of poetry, prose or philosophy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his quotes over a month could fill up a decent quotation book.

Dr Manoharrai’s family, friends and colleagues were fortunate to be the recipients of such fine gifts of wisdom on a daily basis. One such privileged person is Mukesh Thaly who worked with him on the compilation of the Konkani Encyclopedia. He has many interesting inspirations to recall. One such incident was mentioned by him at a program, held on 2 July 2006, to pay homage to the great poet.

The Himalayan task of putting together the entries for the Konkani Encyclopedia was always running against time. The dedicated team was giving it its all. Everyone was in full gear. The urgency was turning the working environment into a pressure cooker. All that changed with a subtle quote by Dr Manoharrai, “Do not sacrifice accuracy at the altar of speed!” The paradigms changed with the clarification of the vision that the assignment demanded nothing less than accuracy.

In a highly competitive world where things move at furious speed, it is necessary to ensure that efficiency is not a victim to the test of deadlines. Too often in the urgency to finish the task at hand, we ignore the fine details and end up with a below par result. Surely it is not enough to do tasks in time; we need to be better at doing them well as well.

Hey, don’t rush such that efficiency goes for a toss…
Pace yourself to BE BETTER and deny eventual loss!

- Pravin-da