BW Communities

Down The Rabbit Hole of Success

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Anirbaan squinted as he tried to make sense of what Raghav had just said: You need those cracks in your life to enter a great new world. A lot like Alice and the little door and the Pick Me Up and the Eat Me... If she had thought of herself as big and the door as small, Lewis Carroll would not have a story to tell. "What did you say?" he at last asked Raghav, his co-traveller on a train from Pune to Mumbai. To recap: Anirbaan Chowdary, Gemmet India's ex-CFO, had confronted his MD for siphoning out money. In a stunning coup, the MD framed him, and had him fired. Anirbaan shares this with Raghav, who is on his way home after a reunion with his six college buddies from 30 years ago. Raghav recounts to Anirbaan each friend's path, the promise that their hopes had held in college and how life had panned out for them finally. Raghav: Do you recall Alice in Wonderland? She followed the hare down the rabbit hole and was soon surprised by the turn of events. But once there, she chose to deal with the goings on with amusement and a certain resignation… Anirbaan: Now that is a fairy tale, please! Raghav: Aren't ours too? Leave the debates and the doubts. When she saw the little garden door and how big she herself was, she did not ignore the ‘Eat Me', nor the ‘Drink Me'. She decided to play along, and allowed things to take their course! You too should, Anirbaan! Anirbaan: So, now you are saying, success cannot be planned; that what has to happen will happen; that there is no correlation between what I plan and what turns out? Isn't that what your stories point to? Every one of your friends tried to plan his success and goofed, rather life goofed up on them. That is exactly what happened to me too, see? I was a gold medal chartered accountant, much sought after. Then I start working for India's leading business house where the last thing you expect is hanky panky... and the MD frames me! I did nothing wrong, nothing at all. Where did it all go? So apart from ‘don't plan', you are also unloading on me the Indian fatalistic destiny theory! Raghav: I doubt if it is destiny. And even if it is, what's to prevent us from coming to terms with what is unfolding and enjoying that which is, rather than hunger for that which is not? If we accept that all this is weird, like Alice did, why not choose to be amused with what there is? Anirbaan: So I must tell my children, ‘Take what comes, do what is possible,' hanh? Will I be aiding success or failure? Isn't success by design? Isn't that what your Steve Jobs and Gates and Jack Welch tell you? Isn't there a role for a parent to play in child's success? Or should I teach them to let things be? Raghav: No, we must continue working as opposed to ‘chasing success'; because we are chasing a prototype of success, aren't we? We want that MBA to result in a multi-million salary, a Hugo Boss blazer and a Hyundai i-20. Is that what education must perform? Think, Anirbaan. Did you do a CA to be buried under a tomb built by a crusty old MD with a limited view of life? Therefore, do not ‘educate' your children. Lead them to knowledge. And do not make the neighbour's kids your benchmark. My life — and those of my friends — has taught me one simple fact: a lamp can light the way, but it can't get rid of its own shadow. The lamp must come to terms with that constant darkness which is its own shadow. Raghav's words washed over him like a tumble of words out of a dictionary. He heard again, The lamp must…, and then he went deeper into his own silence as the sentence followed him. What was this man saying? That some parts of life are a given and you just pole vault from there? Or that you make your darkness your best friend... Hello darkness, my old friend... "Explain that for me?" he asked simply and Raghav said, "We will always have things in our life to fear, to avoid, to wish to forget. Our wisdom does not allow us to get rid of every fear, anxiety, dark thought. That is because as we look ahead in the light of what we have learnt, we become more aware that there are things that we could not learn, could not come to terms with, could not solve... Anirbaan: And those we must bear? Raghav: And those we must bear. The station loomed ahead and the train made appropriate hooting sounds. "Bahut jaldi station aa gaya," said someone, and Anirbaan remarked, "How can the station come? We came to it, no Raghav? My grammar teacher might have called it ‘transferred epithet', but I am wondering, is this how we design our destination: arrive at it, and then call it destiny? Blame it for coming without being called?" break-page-break Raghav laughed his signature laughter, many small notes of neatly formed ha ha and ha-s. Not one was longer or differently pitched than the other. He shook Anirbaan's hand and said, "Travel in hope, always. That way you never arrive in despair." And then, 5 km before the station, the train came to a grinding halt. There was a signal failure that annoyed everyone, including Anirbaan, "Just when we thought we have arrived!" he said, adding the traditional, "Tchah!" Raghav: That does not mean we will not arrive. Question is, how important is arriving? Anirbaan: I wonder about you. A lot that you say I like... Anyway, you may as well now tell me about the seventh fellow. Raghav: That's me. By definition, a classic failure. I studied economics. My six friends studied literature. By a twist of fate, I found myself working for a newspaper to make a living. Ever since I haven't stopped writing for a living. Quite by accident, I became the editor of the publication I had joined as a junior writer. I  didn't want to be the editor, but having worked there 12 years, I had no choice but to run it. It was the burden of knowing the publication's history, of knowing the people who supported it, of having shaped the publication for 12 years. This experience got me a book contract and I became a published author, quite by accident! But over the years, the kind of writing I have done has changed. I do it professionally for a variety of global companies in the complex and changing area of technology. Don't ask me how I got here. I just don't know. Anirbaan: Oh? You don't know? You wrote because you experienced a calling. Or maybe you didn't know that you were good at writing and maybe studied economics because your father was an economist? Anyway, I find it fascinating that you were an economics student while your friends were from the literature stream. How did you select friends from outside your stream? Raghav: I am not sure. Maybe it was because we hung around a guy called Zak Punchoo who used to sing and play the guitar. I love music. Zak wrote protest songs... you can imagine how attractive that sounded at 19. But I had friends in economics as well! There was Ernest Pinto, a senior associate at the Reese Movement for Peace. Pinto specialised in international security after he left college and was on assignment with the US Department of State as a senior advisor. He was a very high flying officer with the US government. There was Tillotimma Shastri, who almost ran for Senator in Nebraska. That's the kind of class I was with. Even in college I felt I could be as good as these guys. I guess I was lucky to have such wonderful people around. Anirbaan: That other friend of yours, the chap who did the fancy teaching course? Correct, Arthur. How did he plan to study something as weird as educational instruction design? Can you imagine his poor father having spent all his provident fund and the son comes back with an education that can't even mend shoes? Raghav: Wow, you are interesting. Arthur actually was at one point planning to handcraft shoes. His mom used to work at Auroville in Pondy; he is half-French. But never mind that. Arthur's father did not have a salary, so technically he could not have a PF, hahaha. He was a music teacher; students paid him Rs 125 a month or some such inane amount those days. Anirbaan: Achha? And yet the boy chose to dream so big? Raghav: That is the point, Anirbaan, that is the point. If we draw every step for the child to take, he will only walk as shown. But once he knows how to stand, we must allow him to run. Arthur's dad allowed him choice. Anirbaan: Arre, but he picks up a dreamy subject which had no use in India! Raghav: There can be various perspectives on this. Do we learn directly from what we study or indirectly from it too? My cousin studied to be a systems analyst, worked as one for 12 years, then suddenly gave it up to write stories for children. He says six years of studying and 12 years of working as a systems analyst helped create a terrific software in his head about approaching a story. Today he is a celebrated author. Yet take Arthur's wife, Zah's education; it was perfectly fitted to the times, then and now. But 25 years ago, only an NGO would hire her, not any state-run water development project. She had to wait for US-based Kent's Clear to enter India to employ her knowledge and skills. What does that say? We believe what we study must improve the quality of India. And here we are not talking toothpaste but a fundamental need, potable water, which, we still don't have. Anirbaan: Yet you studied economics! It can't even cut hair! What did you use it for? Raghav: For nothing. I just let it drift away. I came to peace with the idea I would not be an economist. Maybe I was lucky I found my calling in writing. Maybe I was lucky I stayed behind at the publication long enough to become its editor. Maybe I was lucky I had no other option but to work there for over a decade. Maybe I was lucky the book publisher found me. I'll tell you this: for sure, I had no idea I had a book in me! But that is only the good part I am talking about. Anirbaan: Luck? There is no such thing as luck. There is only what you get... that is all. If all is about luck, then why put in the effort? Luck as a concept is difficult to accept. Raghav: You tell me. I failed to become what I wanted to be: an economist. As a writer, I don't think I ever could write well, but just about adequately to save my skin. The publication I became the editor of, shut down; three others rejected me. I could go on narrating a litany of misfortune, but so much luck also shone over me. My writing had nothing to do with my training, my education, or the lack of it. I studied one thing, didn't know what to do with it, found myself working at something totally out of the box — I was a victim of luck. Pure luck. Anirbaan: You are a crazy guy. You have such an accomplished bunch of friends… Even now, you are working for such amazing organisations. You are not some stationery supplier; you are rubbing shoulders with the big daddies, you are presenting their work to the world, you stand on global forums and talk about big stuff. And you tell me all this is luck? You say you are not successful? I also know you are not being modest, but I see you are not even happy with all this! Raghav: I might say success is being able to do what you want to do; failure is not being able to do what you love doing. These things you listed, just happen to me and around me. I gained from them. Today, I am not successful. But I am happy. You need to let luck play a role in your life. Why question it? Enjoy its role, invite it, dance the tango... Anirbaan: So you are a product of luck? Is that how simply you summarise your work, your success? Your self? Raghav: Semantics. Your life was going well, you were a gold medallist and then the MD frames you. How come? You too had good friends in good places. You were CFO, not some minion. So then what was it? How about you got just a bit unlucky? You said, "What use was my planning my life?" You perhaps said that because luck did not favour you. break-page-break Anirbaan: No, I do not buy this luck nonsense. It is a lot like magic men and their beads. I left those visions far far away. I believe you have hands, legs and effective speech. You use them or abuse them, that is your call... Luck and all is bunkum. Brings a tear and all that, but you know the truth. Raghav (smiling): Incidentally, my father was a satellite engineer. If he could, he would have made me an engineer too. But I loved economics. That is why I decided to study it. I was good at it. But not good enough. I did not run for Nebraska, or head an endowment fund or make a policy for Africa's hunger. All these my other economics friends got to do. I was lucky I found writing as a way to make a livelihood. Anirbaan: You did not study engineering despite your dad being one. You say you must do what you like and enjoy, so you stubbornly studied economics. Yet I do not see economics in anything you do! What do you do? Raghav (laughing): I told you, I write. But I am not an author or columnist. I write what people want to say but do not know how to say it. Like they may have employees or consumers or vendors to whom they wish to say something that will strengthen their relationship, but they do not know how to say it. Then I am called. Anirbaan: But why do you say you are not successful? Raghav: Because the kind of writing I am doing is not employing my creativity. Anirbaan: And you don't enjoy that? It is a damn job; we do jobs, damn it, we don't ‘enjoy' them! <img src="/businessworld/system/files/case-study_2_200x200.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 10px;" width="200" height="200">Raghav (laughing): I do! I mean, I don't, heck. I meet some great people and I enjoy watching them. But 80 per cent of the content I write is not my original thought. They are already happening, as acts, as events, as creations, as inventions. I research them out... stuff like that. Anirbaan: Arre! But you are still working, still relevant, still in the area core to your expertise. But say, why did you study economics apart from simply liking it? Is that any reason to study a subject? Why didn't your dad compel you to be an engineer? See, this is what I mean. Parents must guide their children to build their careers. That boy Anay (Aparna's son), his mom must put her foot down. I am tough on my son; at 17-18, they know nothing. Yes, one could leave them to make choices if the schools were dependable. But most teachers don't enjoy teaching. So I cannot trust them to help my son make choices! You don't think you would have been a success if you had listened to your father? Raghav: Maybe, but not happy. People must do what they are good at. Otherwise, it does not matter what you do, you are doomed to failure. You may end up doing everything well, but you will remain dissatisfied. Let's say you were good with money and the ability came naturally to you, but decided to do rain water harvesting because it does good for the environment. You may even do it well — but you will remain dissatisfied. HR folks do not recognise this. They look at certificates to judge you. That is not a mistake, but it is not adequate. They have to see what you are good at. And you have to admit what you are good at. Which is why students must study what they like, not what their parents like. It helps to satisfy one's personality. So why did I study economics? Because I love it. I am a happy satisfied human being. Look at this differently. An enterprise often asks employees to raise their hand for a number of activities that have no relationship to their job descriptions. For example, an auto manufacturing plant asks its employees, how many can go to a disaster hit area to help out with medical evacuations. A dozen people raise their hand and they are flown out on the next aircraft. Why did the company agree to let them go when they do not have a certificate in para-medical services? What made the company believe these employees were not going for a Disaster Vacation on Company Time? What made the company believe that these employees would be asset in the task and not a liability? Did not the HR department go without the guidance of a certificate? Their CVs don't say "Experienced in medical evacuation". Yet they are compelled to enlist! My point is: let go. Use native common sense. Learn to trust your judgement. It is far more powerful a tool than all certificates put together. I know this sounds nearly right, but not quite like a legitimate, proven theory. What is the training Neil Armstrong got to walk on the moon? Which certificate did he show NASA to get the job? It surely was not a master's degree in astronomy. It was training, self-belief, good judgement and ultimately luck. Luck is back in the equation, eh? How, you ask. Prior to the Apollo missions, it was the pilot who always left the space craft on the Gemini missions for a space walk. Remember, Armstrong was not the pilot; he was the commander of the Apollo mission. But it was physically more difficult for the pilot to manoeuvre out of the Apollo's Eagle landing module. The Apollo 11 missions had two pilots, Eldrin and Collins. The odds were against Armstrong, literally. But it was easier for the commander to get out and so Armstrong was chosen to step on to the moon first. Dame Luck, I say. So what you study and what you do can be quite different. You study for the soul. You work for the body. There it ends! Classroom Discussion Is the opposite of success, failure? All the missed opportunities are your failure quotient. casestudymeera(at)gmail(dot)com (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 05-12-2011)