I started my journey as an entrepreneur sometime mid 1972. Just a
few months previous I had enrolled for my M.Sc. degree in Physics
at the Banaras Hindu University - BHU as is commonly known. After
my graduation in Physics - B.Sc., end 1969, I and my friends
discussed at length our possible goals. We were a bunch of guys
still at 19, with no clue what life was out there. What little we
knew was from our seniors who were whiling away their time after
their degree doing precious nothing as no jobs were forth coming.
Calcutta particularly was in turmoil owing to a radical communist
group indulging in violence of all kinds. Our goal looked pretty
obvious, a post graduate degree and hopefully a tenure ship at some
community college. Looking back after 43 years I find four in the
bunch of five went into teaching and/or research. I refused to tow
that line. It not only sounded cliche, I was never cut out to be a
teacher. But before I venture into what I did, let me share a
secret. One in the group Subir was an excellent student and a
skilled person in electronics. I spent hours with him planning and
dreaming about projects and devices we were competent to fabricate
and sell. Now he too is a teacher at a University near Frankfurt,
Germany. I am extremely disappointed. Not because he became a
teacher and is fairly happy. But what an opportunity both of us let
go by. Would his life been better and happier as an entrepreneur? I
will never know the answer. After some 40 odd years as an
entrepreneur, I needed to tell my side of the story. Every
non-fiction author does that. Therefore mine was no different. But
there is a difference. That was when I put pen to paper trying to
get across to this segment of the people who are somewhat muddled
in their thought process. My narration takes one back to 1972.
However, India has economically opened up to the global markets
from 1996, though the government policies were liberalized from
1992. Therefore the first 24 years were sort of the 'dark ages'
that I speak of in my book. Post 1996 we happen to see a number of
knowledge industries blooming - Information Technology,
Bio-Technology, Hospitality, Retail Trade etc. The newer industries
have created enormous employment opportunity for the educated
youth. That is surely the silver lining. The dark clouds have
suddenly become darker sometime in 2006/7 when associations of
business and industries made public that majority of the technology
graduates were un-employable. This statement also brought forth the
stark reality that large sections of the population - focusing on
the youth - who are not technical graduates have no skill of their
own to make them employable. The 70% of the 1.20b people that
inhabit India are those below the age of 35. For the political
parties it raised a number of red flags. The government scrambled
to correct the situation through measures like National Skill
Development Programs. Skills are not taught in classrooms. It takes
years to inculcate skills in any trade and needs exposure to BEST
PRACTICE. I remember a V.P. of a global BPO referring to attitudes
of their employees. Yes, the employees were reasonably good in
English as a language. But when one customer defaulted in payments,
the conversation went something like this - 'Ma'am, your payments
are overdue'. Customer, 'Sorry I had a miscarriage and was
hospitalized'. Call center, 'That's not our problem.' I too was
shocked as it was narrated verbatim. Can we set things right in the
next few years for the youth that number 840m? Do you think it is
doable? My book tries to walk you through the various hurdles in
our country. It will be simplistic to conclude that with new
policies of the government, issues on the ground are far better
now. That is for you to DECIDE. All I say 'Look before you Leap'
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