It
is a great pleasure as well as a tremendous honor for me to
accept this nomination to serve Rotary International as
president in the Rotary year of 2011-12. I am truly overwhelmed
by the confidence you have reposed in me, and I thank you from
the depth of my heart for this incredible opportunity to serve
the world's most outstanding service organization.
On an occasion like this, please permit me to
look back a bit. Truth to tell, I had wanted to be a president
in Rotary for a long, long time. But it was presiding over a
Rotary club that I had originally in my mind. As a student in
school aged about 10 or 11, I would sometimes accompany my
uncle, who was then the president of the Rotary Club of
Batanagar in District 3290 in Bengal in India, where I was born.
I loved the way the Rotarians — only men, then — seemed to enjoy
meeting friends and enthusing about complicated community
service projects to benefit hundreds of people. I decided then
that I must be a Rotarian as soon as I could make it. So, when
Vapi — the newly developing industrial hub in Gujarat, close to
Mumbai — started a club back in 1971, I waited for an
opportunity to follow my Rotary dream and join. The invitation
followed six months later, and then one thing led to another.
And so, here we are today, my wife, Binota, and I, absolutely
overcome as we stand before you at this convention.
In India, Rotary is a movement that is growing
larger, more active, and more influential with every passing
year. As I have seen more and more Indians choose to become
Rotarians, and I have seen what those Rotarians have achieved,
it has become clear to me that India and Rotary International
are part of a symbiotic relationship: Each is making the other
stronger.
Through the projects of individual clubs,
through our international service projects, and above all,
through PolioPlus, Rotary has become well regarded throughout
India. For there, and indeed throughout the world, we are known
as an organization of people who are honest and caring, who have
both the desire and the capacity to help build a better future.
At our best, we are living up to the ideal of
Mahatma Gandhi when he said, "You be the change you wish to see
in the world."
In a way, some parts of India still exemplify a
developing country, and this gives me, perhaps, a different
perspective on Rotary’s international service. I have seen the
impact that our simplest projects can have. I have seen
firsthand our work in literacy, in health, in hunger, in
providing safe water — and I have seen the difference it makes
to each village, each family, each individual human life.
In Rotary, every human life is equally precious.
We strive through our service to elevate those lives, to give of
ourselves, to share our resources and our talents to improve the
lot of others less fortunate. We do this because we believe in
the ideal of Service Above Self, and because we believe that
dignifying the lives of others dignifies us all.
In every one of the world’s religions, there is
one common idea that when we give of ourselves, we receive our
own reward — perhaps not materially but in the form of spiritual
satisfaction and joy.
Through service, we are able to look within
ourselves, to find reserves of generosity, of grace, and of care
and concern, and to seek a deeper meaning to our daily lives. We
discover what it means to help a human being and, in so doing,
become more fully human ourselves.
As India’s Nobel Laureate [in Literature], the
poet Rabindranath Tagore, wrote: "I slept and dreamt life was
joy. I awoke and saw life was service. I acted and behold,
service was joy."
And so, I stand before you today in all humility
as I thank you for the honor of this nomination, and I pray that
I can serve Rotary to the best of my ability in the months and
years to come.
Thank you.
