Losers eh?

I second Abhi's thoughts in his post "....and we are called losers".
This was the 'advice' I got from one of my 'Well wishers':
But, first the prelude :
I've just completed my PUC, more commonly known as 12th Standard. I've cracked most exams (I wish I'm able to do that now!). I've pocketed a great percentage in my board exams (which I least heeded, except for the entrance to BITS. Hey, I almost forgot, I actually didn't do well enough to get a good percentage initially... I had to go through a trying period waiting for my revalued marks!) and a good rank in Karnataka CET, and an unanticipated great rank in IIT-JEE. This gentleman is at my home, wanting tips for his son. It was really good that he wanted his son to do well etc. but this is what he had in store for me:

"Son, Congrats on your great performance! You've done us all proud...
Do well in your future at IIT. Don't stay here. This system won't allow bright people to come up. Go for further studies in some good US university and get settled there. Get married, have children and return to India only when your children come to school-going age. But, make sure you come back before they start going to school, because their culture isn't clean...."

Though the advice is typically Indian, I had no answer to this at that time. I had a hunch that it wasn't right, but I stopped myself from questioning him because my thoughts were premature then...
However, I now see that it would be narcissistic on my part to shun the Indian society because of its blemishes. I'd rather challenge the discrepencies in my own way and try to set things right.
But again, the questions posed by Abhi about the Indian society prop up, paining us incessantly...

How it all began...

The birth of this blog is kind of rare, a post giving birth to a blog!
This is how it happened -

Abhi blogs:
"Where you are, it doesnt matter. All that matters is whether, you are contributing either directly or indirectly to the growth of India to the maximum possible extent. Here I would vehemently avow that it is not a sin on one's part to cross the seas and settle there. It becomes
a cardinal sin, if one forgets to even contemplate over one's home country's state."

I comment:
"I disagree... This is wat i construed the movie as : I'll start with an analogy. Consider your family, your mom, dad and bro. What would they best like from you? Is it the money you earn, the comforts you can buy? Or is it your contribution to the family staying elsewhere in whatever way it is? I think its none of these... its your presence that matters most, ... The time you spend with them (There may be things like getting yourself a good name etc, which can be achieved anywhere). I don't say you have to stay back while studying.. No, in this time, anyone's aim must be to get the best education possible. So, you may have to stay away from your family. But, I think when it comes 2 staying away when not studying and contributing to your family, there's a big void you've left... The same applies to your motherland. I think you can do more by staying here and doing your part than doing your best from elsewhere... It doesn't work out..."

Abhi:
"First of all great to listen to a new perspective. Makes a lot of sense to me. But I am in partial agreement with it. I am in total agreement with your analogy. But, I am of the opinion that it would be hegemony on our part to tell the youth "Dont you ever go to any other country and work......work in India" and in a sense it is illogical too. What if I have a startup based in B'lore and I plan to expand to California where I can beat the bigwigs at their own game. Then I go to Cal to run my biz. Is that bad? What if I am a big gun in the American/European Biz market....big enough to influence political decisions and I use my ccontacts for the betterment of India? What if I go to Canada, setup a chain of Indian restaraunts with Indian ambience and change the perception of Canadians about India, thus increasing no. of Canadian tourists to India? Am I not helping in the progress of India? Some might say that I would be better off starting a meal service for destitute Indians....but then it is one's way of life. Each one of us have to be true to our own selves and work in our own ways for the betterment of India. Some might stay here and work towards it, some might not. But what is important is to do it. I may sound like I am catching the next flight to NY, no way!!!!!! I was just trying to justify my statement..."

Me:
"OK, I misinterpreted you in a way/ you misinterpreted me... Let me explain. First of all, when I said you must stay here, I had none of the start-ups you are talking in mind - Since it was Swades I had in mind, I thought you are saying that there's no problem if someone goes abroad and works there for some company unrelated to India (like SRK @ nasa in Swades). If this is the case, I'm sure he/she won't be able to do any big thing for India. But, if you say 'An ocean arises from droplets of water', I'll say, "I know YOU don't want to contribute just 1 drop of water!" If you are talking about starting up here and branching out, I back it. That's great! But, at the same time, I would persuade people to startup here and expand later, i.e. a Narayan Murthy is better than a Vinod Khosla/Gururaj Deshpande coz. your investment and employment generation is more important here and now's the time for it. You can always expand... I'm kind of against starting up abroad and expandin into India at a later stage. (But again, that depends on your biz... ) OK, I also would persuade one to stay here even if his/her biz has expanded abroad. You can stay there for some time, but make sure you are always an Indian citizen. I believe that its only if you stay here, that you'll be able to identify the problems in the society and help in a big way. Again, this is coz. I believe that an entrepreneur now has a bigger role than just being one who ensures smooth running of his biz... He must better the society... I'll cite an obvious eg to justify my stand: Infy : Narayan Murthy's biz is definitely better than Vinod Khosla's biz from India's perspective. I don't know about the present contribution to GDP, but it was Infy which catapulted India as an IT giant and not Sun (I agree that it was a collective effort, but, Infy led the way in India). Again, Infy (through Infy fiundation -http://www.infosys.com/infosys_foundation/about.html) has played a better role than Sun in view of betterment of society. I think this was primarily coz. Sudha Murty stayed here. She could identify the problems. I feel it wouldn't be as effective as it is if she was doing the same from abroad..."

Abhi :
"Ialso agree with you, that an entrepreneur should startup in India and then expand abroad, coz it makes much more sense this way to put in some value-addition to the society. Man, after being part of a soceity I feel, it is a moral obligation on everyone to give back something concrete and worthwile back to it. That's what we've got to tell people. To rise above the ordinary. And Infy has done much more good than Sun etc coz it has given India what it needed desperately in that time - thoda sa lift. Hey! Have got this great idea !! How about both of us co-authoring a blog on "Entrepreneurs & India". It would be cool ! What say ?"

Me:
So, we agree about everything! great! I got pissed off when a senior in my hostel said that he's not going to return to India... Man, he's a real ****** *******!
Yup! Blogs a great idea!

Abhi :
Cool! Let's start a Blog.... Suggest a title

And so began this blog...
We met on Yahoo a couple of days after this discussion and decided on the title...

....and we are called losers

I remember blogging last month in my blog about the paradox of being Indian . As the dust-laden loo (hold it! i meant the summer winds which are also called 'loo') of Pilani blows through the narrow creak in my door, I reponder about the same thought. How conducive is the Indian society for people who want to take the untreaded path? Maybe mavericks like us might not give a damn to what the society says, but then we have a family to answer to, we have a society to which my family in answerable to.

Let me put things on a clearer plane. First off, lets assume that I am just done with college. I have undergone 4 years of totally useless technical education, because I am as clueless as I was 4 years ago. But now, I feel an urge to give back to my country, my society that has made me the man that I am now. But, what had my family expected of me? Simple.

• Slog and make into the best engg./medical college
  
• Once, I make it there, burn the midnight oil again for good grades
  
• Make it to the best paid S/W job in some company, preferably the ones like Infy or Wipro, so that the neighbors are envious.
  
• Work there for a couple of years, and then marry the chosen girl.
  
• Keep working (day) and (nite as well ;) ) sire a couple of children
  
• And live a life happily ever after.
  

I am so elated that my family doesnt even come close to this. But then, this is how the Indian family system is. If I follow the above regime, I would end up being just another guy in the billion that already exist in this country. NO. This is not how I want to be. This is not how I want anybody to be.

• Making it to the best engg./medical college equips one to a certain extent, but if one doesnt make it, that isn't the end of the world.
  
• Good grades.....For Heaven's sake, give me a break! Now, I know the importance (or should I say mundane worthlessness) of grades.
  
• Just making a job in yet another company. Probably the first step in becoming a ciphers among a billion ciphers.
  
• Marrying the chosen girl, raising a family and living happily ever after. This is fine as long as this happens while one is doing something bigger in life. Something that is worth pointing out and commenting - "Look, thats what I call an effort", "Man! That guy is a 'man' ".
  

The Indian family system rarely gives children the liberty to go against the tide, to become mavericks, to become the chhange that they want to see in the world. Most parents are happy as long as their kids follow the first regime as they grow up. The eternal complacency of Indians, the inability to call a spade 'a spade', the viewpoint that those who dont make it into Infy are losers - a heady concoction to disaster.

Say, if I go ahead and startup right after college not giving a year to what the family says, what the society says and I am somehow mending ways to make a living for a couplle of years building my company. And then Murphy's Law come into play, and my company sinks, it is liquidated. I am bankrupt. The society turns at me and mockingly laughs - "Son, I told you. You should have just made it into Infy and led a happy and easy life". And I am called a loser. When I have the experience of being in a company that died, I know what went wrong. I have the recipe for the antidote to any such imminent disaster in any other company. My antidote is in reality priceless. But here my experience is considered worthless. All they know is that I flunked my studies, didnt make into a job, and hence tried making some small money by starting a company of my own which ended in cold water. Irony! When all I tried was to make this society a better place to live in.

So, the questions raised here are -

• Does the Indian system curb freedom and hence the thought process?
  
• Why are failures seen as outcasts in the society
  
• Why is entrepreneurship seen as a means of making small money to sustain lib\ving and not as an avenue for value-addition to the society?
  

As the sands of time blow across, I pray that these do change and I pray that I am alive to see that India I have always dreamt of.

Dawn of a long day...

I was rather late to notice the parallelisms between Abhilash and myself. Though we were classmates for 5 long years, I realised that our brains resonated perfectly in unison only after coming here, to Chennai. It was probably because of the infinite number of new faces I came across, and the absence of people who think alike. Though I have many friends now, who share some of my views, no one has come close to matching the degree of chirality between Abhi and me.
It was one incident that influnced me in a drastic way, so as to change my long term vision - a lecture by N R Narayana Murhty, on "How to be a good citizen?", which was aimed at sowing a seed of entrepreneurship in the minds of the youth, and it hit the nail on the head. I decided that Entrepreneurship was for me to embrace. The same night, I concluded that if I talked to someone on this, it had to be Abhi. I was so indulged in thinking about all these things that I could hardly sleep, and ended up going 15 minutes late to the test I had the next day!
So, what followed in december, as Abhi has elaborated, was on top priority in the list of Do's for the winter vacation.
However, this blog is a new concept, not actually planned. Born out of a discussion on "Takeaways from Swades", blogged by Abhi, which both of us enjoyed.
We believe we can achieve the goal set by Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam by 2020. We hope to bring out various issues related to Entrepreneurship and be cogent enough to convince people to join us in the path less travelled...

On the banks of the Karanji

To cut a long story short, me and Aravind were classmates for 5 years. Treasured moments for both of us. Now, we live in two extremes of India - me in Pilani and he in Chennai. But then the inspiration behind this blog was a long chat we had this winter while walking on the banks of the Karanji lake in Mysore, our hoometown. A lot of common threads pass through us - be it Technology, Entrepreneurship, an unflinching passion to do something for India, F1, blogging ...the list goes on. This blog is just another vent for mavericks like us dying to change the way the world is. At the end of the day, we will take the path less taken, and exhort you to take the same.