Rahul Dravid's Speech as a Chief guest at BITS Pilani Convocation 2013, Goa

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS Pilani) is one of the well known deemed institutions in India. The institution has its campuses at Hyderabad, Goa, Pilani and in Dubai. This institute is said to be fully residential and it was started in 2004 and was officially inaugurated in 2006. The first ever convocation of the institute in Goa campus was said to be held in 2011. And the convocation for the year 2013 was held on 11th of this month(11-Aug-2013). The highlight of the convocation ceremony was the presence of Mr.Consistency 'Rahul Dravid' :) Just imagine how lucky were those 2013 batch graduates of BITS !!!!!

It is obvious that every graduate would be delighted about his/her convocation day, but that day at BITS with Rahul Dravid as chief guest would have been a double delight for everyone there. To have such an inspiring person who has earned respect both on and off the field , is really a remarkable and memorable moment for all those who aspire to succeed in life.

Here I'm sharing his speech which lasted only about 12 mins, but he has conveyed his message eloquently in that short time.

Rahul Dravid's inspiring speech at the Sharada Mandir School, Goa

Hi all. Today I would like to share one of the wonderful speech of Dravid at the Sharada Mandir school at Goa last year. Rahul Dravid has been invited for distributing the Annual awards to the students of Sharada Mandir School on August 4th,2012. There during his speech, he shared three most important factors with the students that has helped him in his career and life.

Image Source : My collections from the Web


Here's the link of his entire speech : http://oheraldo.in/News
Source : Herald, Goa

Amidst that entire speech, my favorite part is where Dravid shared his own experience. Since Dravid is already known for his on-field patience, here's an incident where he felt and learnt about patience off the field as well.

Dravid said "My wife and I have built a new home with a lovely garden which houses lovely bamboo trees. I got reading on the Chinese bamboo and learned that the tree takes 5 years, 3 months to grow to its whole height of 80 feet. Yet, for the first 5 years, you can only see a tiny green shoot, but in the next 90 days, it grows into a full-fledged tree. But in those first 60 months, it is growing its strong network of roots underground, to support the tree. In an era of instant gratification, we settle for shorter trees, but remember patience has its reward. These are your years of growing that strong network of roots but be sure when you finally achieve your success, people will call it 'overnight success'. If only they knew of the Chinese     bamboo!"

I hope this particular part of his speech would have been very motivating and inspiring not just for those school children but also for all. This one added some more hope to practice 'Patience'.

Sir Don Bradman Oration by Rahul Dravid

Sir Donald Bradman(1908-2001), one among the greatest Aussie players who is well known for his highest batting average of 99.94 in the Test cricket has almost played two decades of cricket in the era of 1928-1948. During his cricketing era he has scored 29 centuries of them 10 went on to double centuries and 2 went on to triple centuries. He is one of most respected batsman of all time who has earned a huge number of fans even in India. It won't be a surprise for us, as we all know that our Indian fans always respects the spirit and the quality of the game despite whatever team is playing.

Click here for Don Bradman's India connection (Source : Rediff)


Cricket Australia have started an event named 'Sir Donald Bradman Oration' in the year 2000 to honour the contributions of Sir Don Bradman to this game. The inaugural oration was delivered by John Howard the Honourable Prime Minister of Australia. Then the 9th Oration was delivered by none other than our 'Mr.Dependable- Rahul Dravid' . He became the first non-Australian player and the first ever Indian cricketer to deliver the Sir Don Bradman Oration on 14th December,2011 at the Australian war memorial, Canberra. In his terrific and admirable speech he has mentioned the values of Sir Don Bradman, the bond between India and Australia, the tradition and background of Indian cricket and some of his views on the future of the game.