Students seek spiritual guidance from Dalai Lama

Emerging from their last lecture on Thursday, Shamal Warlikar and her friends couldn’t stop talking about their appointment on Friday. Bhavya Dore reports.

Emerging from their last lecture on Thursday, Shamal Warlikar and her friends couldn’t stop talking about their appointment on Friday.

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They are among a group of 60 students from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies who will get an opportunity to hear Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama speak at Mumbai University’s Fort campus on Friday and possibly ask him some questions as well.

“We’re very excited, it’s the first time we will get to hear someone of that stature speak,” said Warlikar, a first year student of masters of management studies. “We plan to ask him some questions on how we can bring spirituality into management education and how India’s problems can be approached from the bottom of the pyramid. We thought it would be better to ask philosophical instead of political questions.”

Around 400 students from the university’s affiliated undergraduate colleges, management institutions and post-graduate departments will be attending. The Dalai Lama will speak for 45 minutes on “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Thought” following which students will get to ask him questions for about an hour.

“I want to ask him what he thinks is the greatest virtue Indians have,” said Chinchu Phankachan, a BCom student of St Andrew’s College in Bandra (West).

The programme will last for two hours. “Students have submitted different questions on religion, philosophy, the environment, none of them are political in nature,” said Ajinkya V Navare, a member of the coordinating committee of the Mumbai University.

Some, such as Rupali Joshi, a student of Sathaye College, were informed on Thursday they would be attending. “We have not prepared any questions,” said Joshi, a BA student.