In dreamers' paradise

Essence of Life

India has always been a fertile land for those who have dared to dream.  And our people have always possessed imagination and hope to go after their dreams, asserts Shreekumar Varma

No apologies here to those whose dreams lost out. They’ll dream again. What happens to your dream lies as much in you as in your dream itself. Without you, there’s no dream. Without your sweat, the dream is doomed.

The earliest bedtime story I heard of a doomed dream was that of a starving Brahmin couple on the verge of suicide. They were dirt poor, bereft of family, and not inclined to hard work. In a last moment of sanity, the wife tells the man: “Why don’t you go and see the King? He’ll help. After all, you’re a Brahmin.”

So the husband leaves for the palace. From the dregs of despair, the woman rises in slow stages, dreaming of what the King would give, how their lives would change, how those nasty neighbours would goggle with envy, and how she and her husband would look back to scoff at their ill-advised suicide plan.

As the dream blossomed rabidly, she looked around at her wretched home and decided nothing in it should remain once the money came in. So she threw out all their old furniture, their pots and pans, and just about everything else. Her eyes fell on their shabby clothes hanging on a peg, and her lip curled in scorn. She struck up a fire and set about burning them.

Everything must be new, she whispered to herself, hurling even the clothes she wore into the burning heap. That was that. She waited, in naked triumph, for a wonderful transformation. Her husband returned home with bad news!

The moral of the story: Build on what you have or what you’ll make, rather than burning your bridges and waiting for someone else to build you a new world. In short, push your dream.

We live in a dreamer’s paradise. India is fertile soil for the rooted dreamer. Our people have always possessed imagination and hope, which is why our religion survived, our culture soared, our leaders remained emperors, and our film stars sowed dreams. Even in the midst of drudgery, we see stars. Not the painful ones, the hopeful kind.

Pause to ask why The Beatles came here, drawn by the magic of Ravi Shankar’s strings, and stayed on to meditate. Or why our poverty and untouchable exoticism soon gave way to a surprising doability in the eyes of the progressive West. An uncle told me of how he visited Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Switzerland, and actually saw a white man levitating when a door briefly opened. India has that effect on the world!

Contrasting experiences

In the West, youngsters always had a ready-made, time-tested departure gate. Remember the biodata of great writers, how they left home, worked in cargo holds of ships, became lumberjacks, waiters, farm boys. Experience shows up. Like a bird rising from the bogs, spreading its muddied wings and soaring into the air, a dream takes you higher, fuelled by the memory of dirt and deprivation, even as you leave all that behind. What doesn’t bog you down can lift you up.

In India, you have to swim against patriarchal protection and emotional comfort. You have to struggle to stray! Still, talent will tell, if it’s pushed by perseverance. Years ago, a boy fled home on a trivial pretext, wandering about, even singing on trains for food. His sole support was his own courage and talent. Today, he’s counted among the legends of Hindustani music, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

Things are changing. We too have our legitimate vagrants. The difference between the dreams of the wealthy West and “indigent” India is slowly fading. India is freeing up, making it easier than ever for the dreamer. Financial facilitators like Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, dream-weavers like Kalam and Modi, and even our new-age gurus, both spiritual and motivational, have laid out a practical patchwork of possibility. Now, it’s left to us. So, are we ready?

Let’s look at the happy happenings of today. The start-ups, and their reverberant ripples. Meet Sonam Wangchuk, founder of Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh. It’s an alternative school that exposes students to real-life skills, encouraging them to find their own path. The students run the school! You’ll remember Wangchuk was played by Aamir Khan in 3 Idiots.

Or the three college friends who started Bookchor.com. Their own difficulty in getting second-hand books propelled them to a career that’s made it easier for later students. Those who convert their own challenges into easier paths for others have an additional advantage: emotional connect. Bookchor has a customer base of 57,000 across 27 states. And they only started in October 2015.

The ideas are endless: car-sharing (Revv), healthy bacteria in food (Prana Foods), a balm to ease the pain of ‘customer service’ (Aino), a host of self-publishing helpers, and even a start-up to launder dirty linen in hostels. This last, called Digital Dhobi, is the brainchild of a 21-year-old whose practical problem ended in a brainwave.

“More than 90% of start-ups die,” says Bikash Barai in his TEDx talk. “To make a great hero, you need a great villain.” He says, when you get a great idea, see if it will solve a great problem. Sounds rational, when you think of demand and supply, and the fact that most of the start-ups I mentioned began with a deeply felt personal problem that was also a universal problem. “Stop looking for ideas, and start looking for great problems!” says Bikash.

Interesting discoveries

Staying with TED Talks, Bill Gross studied the reasons behind the success and failure of select companies. He discovered contributory factors for the difference between success and failure in this order: 1. Timing, 2. The Team and Execution, 3. The Idea, 4. The Business Model, and finally, 5. Funding.

He gives the example of Airbnb, which was passed over by several funders because they thought it was stupid to expect people to open out their homes to strangers. But the timing was right. The idea came at a time of recession. People didn’t have money to book into fancy hotels. And the home-owners could use that extra bit of cash. The idea caught fire. Its flames are still bright and prevalent.

I would say the time is ripe in this country for fresh ideas. For dreams to take wing. For making that emotional connect. Because India is fertile ground, as always. And, as we all know, people will be people.