Wangdu's Wisdom...

Dear World,

Now, this was a deliberate beginning to my letter. Not “Hey ssup” or “Wazzaaa” or “Howdy” like 98.37% of other people my age would have begun. I preferred to begin with the traditional salutation, not because my 4th grade English teacher taught me that is how it should be done, but out of my own sheer preference for the way I felt all the readers of this letter should be addressed.

Anyway, I just want to share with you my views on this really nice movie I saw lately. I also learn that it has gone on to become the highest grossing bollywood movie of all time cashing in 2.4 Billion Rupees or USD 51 Million and counting. Right since the time I saw “3i” or “3 Idiots”, there have been these thoughts in my mind about the true message that the movie conveys. Actually, not really what the movie conveys, rather what should I actually be making of it. What’s my takeaway? Is being Chatur, foolishness? Can all of us really be Phunsukh Wangdu? How really does the youth of this country think? Do we think at all?

The movie is a beautiful take on defying convention, on the art of friendship, on heeding to your heart’s call, on prioritization in life, on prioritizing life over escapist measures like a suicide. The movie is a brilliantly non preachy take on the pressures faced by the youth in India. But it also states that this pressure is self created. It suggests some rather cheesy, but outrageously workable methods of crisis management. It also makes a much deserved mockery of our educational systems which propagate the herd mentality, discourage out of the box thinking, I wonder if they really want us to think at all or just blindly follow. Imagine even the dean of the college looking up the thick encyclopedias for the meanings to the terms “Farhanitrate” and “Prerajulization”!!!!!!

It also peeps into the heart of aspirational India. An India which is not shining, neither is it incredible, bur still savors an ambition of social upward mobility and considers the dysfunctional education system a catalyst in its pursuit. The movie wonderfully pampers a rebel. It encourages change. It seeks to incubate innovation. It shatters the premise of social conformity to the systems and conventions. And while doing all of this, it also teaches us a thing or two about the sheer non materialistic nature of true love.

Having said all this, my most important takeaway from the movie still remains the fact that the movie appreciates “being different”. All through my growing up years, I’ve never been able to confine myself to one set of ideas, people, behaviours or interests. I love being MYSELF. And most of our youth today, as I see it, is trying to FIT IN to the social definitions of what’s COOL… rather than creating a niche for themselves and taking real pride in who they are! It is more important to people of my age to think, act and behave according to what everyone else thinks will be cool.

We want to do things, not because we like doing them, but because if we did them, our friends would think a certain way about us. We are too concerned in trying to please almost everyone apart from ourselves. We use social networking to connect with hundreds of our friends, but I think our generation has miserably failed in connecting with themselves. Anything “different” is usually questioned, looked down upon and sometimes even humiliated rather than being appreciated for its talent and interests.

Imagine telling your friends that you hate the concept of partying on Saturday Night and would rather enjoy an Indian classical music recital by Kishori Amonkar. Imagine you don’t want to go out drinking and dancing away on X - Mas eve but you wish to spend the day with the kids at the orphanage or go for the midnight mass at the Church. Imagine the reaction of your friends when you’d tell them that you’re going hiking to welcome the New Year or attend a poetry reading of the works of Kabir on 31st night rather than welcoming the New Year with a hangover. I’m sure each one of us can gauge the response our peers are likely to throw at us.

For me the greatest takeaway was the confidence that Rancho had, to reclaim his identity as Phunsukh Wangdu and make it sought after enough for a Silicon Valley dude to come to India chasing him all the way upto Ladakh. The bright spot of the movie really is the confidence with which Wangdu signs the “Declaration of Defeat” fully knowing that he’s the real winner. 3i tells you to pursue your passions, so that success will eventually have to follow you. (Khud hi ko kar buland itna… ke har taqdeer se pehle… khuda bande se khud pooche, bataa, teri raza kya hai?) It gives you the courage to be the schoolteacher Wangdu, rather than being “Chatur” a man in a mad rush to pursue material pleasures of a well paid job and the luxuries of life. Untill we realise these things… “All is well”!!!

Best regards,

Himanshu Kapadia

An Idea for India….

15th August, 2008: Instead of the regular and almost ritualistic wake up trance on the Independence Day morning of watching the PM’s address from the Red Fort, this time I did something rather different.. Or indifferent I must say. It was a Friday and yes, today I would get my copy of the Economic Times, *(I don’t subscribe to it on weekends due to affordability issue – it costs Rs. 9 on Sundays). So cherishing the great opportunity of browsing through the ET early morning, I came across this masterpiece compilation in the “Corporate Dossier” supplement of the ET. 9 of India’s CEO’s had volunteered to write for the special publication. It was truly a special issue which indeed brought out the varied opinions of these CEO’s on nation building, articulating their ideas for India’s future. It was truly insightful. I’m just attempting to summarize what I gathered from their opinions with my own inputs here. Let’s see if An IDEA can change our lives….

Henry Luce, the legendary founder of TIME, called business, an instinctive exercise in foresight. So is nation building, said the learned CEOs. Let us acknowledge the fact that in the history of this world, nations sometimes find themselves on the threshold of opportunity, it is then that their adopted actions & policies that determine how successful these nations emerge as global powers. There are various such opportunities that time has given to the world. Be it the World War, Cold War, Humans going into space, birth of atomic & nuclear warfare, or the more recent global economic slowdowns. The series of events have always thrown up opportunities in times of adversities.

India is today faced with the great paradox of population. Where today every 6th person in the world is an Indian, where do we see our country going ahead into the future? We as the people of this country must decide how we want India to be positioned at the turn of the next decade. We have some inherent strength in the form of our young populations, a pervasive & strong democracy and the naturally entrepreneurial spirit of our people, but is it enough to make us a superpower in times to come? Certainly not…

Despite having one of the best democracies in the world, ironically Indian polity faces the chronic disease of opportunism & petty shortsightedness. Most of all, it is the sheer distorted priorities of leadership in this country which has posed a most ghastly scare to the nation’s progress. Just to sight an example, the CM of Maharashtra offering a Rs. 10 lakh reward to Abhinav Bindra, the millionaire shooter Kid of a millionaire father. This is not to undermine Abhinav’s magnanimous achievement in bagging an individual Gold for India, but just goes to show the completely distorted priorities of our leadership. Does Abhinav actually need that money? What does Maharashtra specifically have to do with Abhinav, who is actually a resident of Chandigarh? And then they complain that farmers are committing suicide in Vidarbha!

With the inflation at its peak, and the world facing a financial slowdown, the Government is busy making its point by proving its majority on the floor of the house, just because a handful of old fashioned red obsessed Bongo Malyali comrades thought that the Nuclear Deal is not in India’s national interest. Also if all this drama wasn’t enough, our old protagonists at nationalistic drama, the saffron brigade pull out a sensationalism & wannabe’ishness personified cash for vote sting, which was nothing short of Rakhi Sawant antics thrown in the media just to get undue attention. The Hon. Speaker of the house of Lok Sabha is suspended from his own party and bundles of notes thrown in front of the parliament. Multiple bomb blasts across Gujarat & other cities across the country are only few of the examples of the high handedness with which this country is Governed.

Nandan Nilekani, the Co Chairman of Infosys in his article (which I could relate to the most) writes that Policy Makers need to recognise that free markets and reforms in themselves can be pro poor. We do not need the glam high but brittle promises of thousands of crores of farm loan waivers. He wonderfully describes India as “Limited Access” state. The rapid growth that India witnessed over the last 2 decades is fuelling new hopes amongst Indians, for better lives, incomes and employment. But there is too much that still barricades the way. And the reason that so many Indians remain cut off from the economy is that we have yet to fully embrace what ought to be the core idea behind reforms – expanding access.

Air Deccan, a wonderful model of expanding flying experience access to marginalized people has been dumped because of the taxation policies of the Govt on Surcharge & taxes on Air Fuel & Airport development. The lack of capital means, average Indian finds it difficult to take loans to start up his business. A weak subsidy system means that poorer Indians lack any kind of safety net to take big life risks, such as attempt higher education or migrate for better jobs. Only 15% of our farmers have bank credit. With our Government run schools in dismal state and almost 90% of our populations still languishing in the underpaid, underdeveloped unorganized sector we sure have a reason to regroup and rework our strategies.

If we have to match upto the “Great American Dream” of the 1950’s and the 1960’s or walk head to head with the Chinese Great Leap of the 1970’s and 1980’s we need to expand access of basic resources to the most poorest of the poor. We need many more “Lead India” & “Teach India” campaigns. Many of us will find this goal a struggle. But then, most of our past triumphs have come after a great struggle. All our battles that we have won have been hard fought. We are seen as a country which exemplifies struggle. Now, we must ensure that the world wakes up and takes notice of the sheer power of the hopes and aspirations of 1.1 Billion people. After all, it is said, that a single idea can change your life…

Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost......

Oh, it’s another one of those Sunday evenings… Family is out at a neighbor’s engagement and I am giving myself some pleasurable company.

Where do I find myself… my favourite playground… my terrace! It’s my temple of introspection. It’s my favourite hangout when I’m with myself… It’s my space… which again for the sheer sake of emphasis …. Is MINE!

That’s a space… which generates ideas, thoughts, and inspiration. Something like what a temple does to a devotee who’s disheartened. The sheer power to bring hope to someone is I think God’s biggest USP! That’s what my time with myself at my terrace does to me. It springs hope, positivity and the sheer optimism which keeps me alive and kicking.

When I entered the terrace, I was disheartened, resentful about a particular series of events that have occurred in my life in the recent past. I just got an SMS from her. It’s in fact been a volley of the most idiotic way of communication I know (SMS), exchanged between us today after a prolonged sabbatical of recognition of each others existence.

Disheartened I was, regretting what had been, comparing it to what could have been. Sometimes, you never get logical answers to why people say a few things, feel the way they do, and more ironically express how they feel, the way they do. After all, I thought womankind was meant to be the more sensitive sex!! And everything and everyone deserves a second chance was the age old biblical adage.

But irrespective of all that, I was more disheartened to see, what had been built over almost four years of pure unconditional love, being blown away by something which was partially inexplicable. Almost like a sand castle painstakingly made by a child, being washed away by a ruthless surge of an almost maniac tide.

After all not everything goes your way. People change. People’s preferences change. And most importantly Perceptions change. The latter being the most important I guess.

Believe me, there are times when you just sit back and wonder, what is that one defining moment of your life?? You seek answers…. Sometimes you get them… sometimes you don’t. I just think sometimes it’s good not to seek those answers at all. Let just life take its own course. You just need to be a spectator and let the show go on. Perhaps that’s why they call life a stage… well… on my stage… It’s an interval now… You’ll definitely see a new protagonist soon!!