So here it goes..

When the Harvard Business Review (HBR) came out with a survey of 188 MNCs worldwide, in one of its recent editions, on personal capabilities that contribute in the making of a successful leader, I could not help but go back 12,000 years in time to the age of the Ramayana. You might find it rather queer; after all what connection could an article in HBR have with a mythological epic? Before I begin to put that in context, let me state what the aforementioned survey, conducted by Goldman, found.

It said that leaders by their very nature are of six types:

Coercive — meaning ones who compel team members to follow their decisions

Authoritative — the ‘come with me’ type

Affiliating—ones who work through close association

Democratic — those who believe in building consensus

Pace-setting — the ‘I will jump and you will follow’ type

Coaching — the ones who believe in mentoring

The survey found out that with regards to the faculties that go towards making a successful leader, there are three primary ones: Technical skills, cognitive and analytical skills, and emotional intelligence (EI). In their interactions with hundreds of leaders worldwide, the surveyors found EI to be twice as important as the other two attributes. In fact, the importance of EI, which is an embodiment of motivation, empathy, and social skills, increases as one goes up the management chain. It is in this importance of EI that I recognize a similarity with Ramayana. And how!

In the mythical Ramayana, the battle leading to the climax was being played out. Would the exiled Rama edge out the evil Ravana, rescue his wife Sita whom the latter had abducted, and return home to reclaim kingship, or would he face defeat at the hands of Ravana’s massive army?

Rama’s motley group of men and monkeys were no match for the evil Ravana’s forces and weaponry. Or so thought Vibhishan, Ravana’s brother who had defected to Rama’s side. Unable to contain his concerns, he questioned Rama: How will you defeat this huge army with your limited resources? The reply that Rama gave stands out as a great lesson in leadership, more on the role and importance of EI as one can ever come across.

As a charioteer, he told Vibhishan who listened with rapt attention; you have to make sure you have a clear vision, and a cause worth fighting for. In the case of Ramayana, the cause was to rescue his beloved Sita and the vision was to defeat the evil forces.

Many prominent industry leaders today opine that you need not necessarily have a vision; rather, taking one step at a time could be much more practical way of going about, but I think that unless you have a vision, you will never be able to follow a trajectory. In the words of the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, “the world steps aside to a person who knows where he or she is going.” In that parlance, unless you know where you are going, how will the world step aside and aid you in your pursuit?

Coming back to the battlefield of Ramayana, Rama narrated to Vibhishan, that the four wheels of the chariot are character, courage, ethics, and valor. Character is the most fundamental thing for a leader. As a leader, you must know who you are and what you stand for and communicate the same to your people through actions rather than words. It is essential for a leader to walk the talk; leadership doesn’t come from a business card, nor does respect. It is the ethics, the value system you embody that does the needful. Courage in this scenario would be the ability to take unpopular decisions, while valor is the courage to defend those very decisions. In the event of an unpopular decision, and such decisions are a part and parcel of a leader’s life since leadership begins where logic ends, it surely gets lonely out there, but you show the valor, walk the talk and your teammates are sure to follow you.

Rama continued to enumerate what the horses drawing the chariot stood for. They are, he said with gusto, strength, energy, and passion. In a battle, you must have the strength to discriminate between the right and wrong, and the zeal and perseverance to keep working towards your goal.

The four reins of a horse, he went on to say, are forgiveness, compassion, consistency, and equanimity. It is essential to touch the hearts before you ask for the hand. Touching heart needs compassion and forgiveness. Consistency and equanimity are hallmark of character which creates trust with the followers.

The chariot’s wheels, the horses, and their reins are among the most important of a warrior’s (and therefore a leader’s) repertoire: The weaponry: knowledge, strategy, intelligence, skills, commitment, and a restraint of ego—these are the weapons that will help us win this mammoth battle, proclaimed Rama to his army and Vibhishan before leading them into the epic struggle. “Arm yourself with these and no war will be lost,” he told them. After a spirited battle, his army—the motley group of men and monkeys defeated the heavily equipped Ravana and his forces.

The way the Ramayana portrays the essential attributes of a leader is a revelation. Many of today’s thinkers analyze too much and thus lose the charm of simplicity. You need not analyze and complicate things; what the HBR and the statement of Rama in the Ramayana say are one and the same; that EI, an embodiment of all these things mentioned above, is what makes victory possible against any opposition.

You might wonder as to how one person can possess all these qualities. Well, one need not master all of them. No great leader has been exceptional in all of them. They, like each one of us, were strong in a few of the attributes mentioned above, which provided core strength to their leadership.

You need to be consistent in your approach to different people, no matter who they are and where they are coming from. Leadership calls for consistency, one of the reins of the horse, as the Ramayana so beautifully enumerates. Keep the words of the charioteer in mind and results are sure to follow. As leaders, you might be doing 200 things, from inspiring to coaching to strategizing but nothing will be accounted for if you don’t produce results. And the best way to produce results, my friends, is the ability to motivate yourself and inspire your team to achieve your goal. That’s what leadership, as well as the essence of Rama’s words, is all about.

Avi Basu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Connectiva Systems has a reason to be pleased as the looming concerns of revenue leakage in the telecom industry have opened up many opportunities for his New York based company. Founded in 2001, the company develops revenue management software that enables telecom operators reduce revenue leakage, minimize fraud, improve operational effectiveness, and increase over-all profitability. With its award winning multi-application analytics platform, Connectiva has helped save more than half a billion dollars in revenue for some of the leading telecom operators in the world. These include large telcos like Zain, Bharti, T-Mobile, Videotron, and Idea.

The Bee in the Bonnet

The typical revenue cycle of a telecommunications operator involves a complex and intricate set of systems that work with each other. A minimum of 15 different systems collaborate and process all the data related to the user from the moment a customer walks into a retail outlet for new activation to post-activation usage activities such as making calls, downloading content, using wireless applications to reviewing and paying the monthly bill.

Due to various types of disconnects between systems and inadequate process and data integration, ‘leakage’ may occur. Uncharged traffic, inconsistent rating, fraudulent activities, and erroneous billing are some of the several possible causes of leakage. Furthermore, errors in order management and provisioning systems allow subscribers use the services without being charged or generate inconsistent customer records that can create long-term customer satisfaction issues. An efficient revenue assurance program is therefore required to keep track of the entire revenue stream and ensure the integrity of the process.

Also, observes Ari Banerjee, Vice President, Next Generation Software Systems, Yankee Group, “Operators lose billions in revenue leakage every year. The last five years in particular have seen a proliferation of new billing relationships, including royalty management and partner settlement, developing between the carriers and virtual operators, commercial distributors, content providers, and advertisers. This is a daunting scenario as traditional carriers have not typically been strong in areas that require managing a diverse third party ecosystem, bleeding edge IT innovations, and business process transformation to support business models.”

For instance, when a telco or cable operator offers a plan that includes five movies for free but actually gives away seven movies, the company is leaking revenue without even knowing it. The extent of revenue leakage ranges between three and five percent in North America and Europe and to more than 25 percent in Africa. In a research study conducted by Connectiva in 2008, it was estimated that Indian telcos alone lose more than $900 million every year and this continues to be a major headache at the board level.

To address this challenge, Connectiva has developed a unique technology with a holistic and elegant solution approach. Built in a modular way, the solution provides a way for providers to collect and manage data across a wide variety of telecom data sources and also leverages advanced analytics to instantly identify discrepancies and outliers. In addition to reactively auditing usage data, Connectiva can also simulate how a call record is generated, captured, rated, and billed before the telecom carrier officially launches a service plan. This would help proactively identify revenue value chain disconnects and save millions of dollars in future revenue.

This is the value proposition with which Basu started the company in the early part of this decade and found immediate takers in Wataniya, a telecom carrier based in Kuwait and Zain, one of the largest operators in the Middle East.

Key Turning Points

Initially, Connectiva developed its solution as a joint development project with its early customers including Wataniya and Zain. But, Basu always knew in the back of his mind that he did not want to create a consulting company. His vision was to create a generic world-class product, which could meet the revenue management needs of global providers. He believed that the packaged software business was a high margin one, while consulting was not, so he set up a product development center in Kolkata and brought in the best talents from the IITs and the ISI (Indian Statistical Institute).

Connectiva’s deals with Zain and Wataniya proved to be very successful, and in 2005, the company won a major deal with Bharti. In a highly competitive market with major players such as Subex in India and Wedo in Portugal, IBM and Bharti chose Connectiva after a detailed and exhaustive study of the offerings from various vendors. It was the turning point for Basu; and for Connectiva this was a landmark deal.

After Bharti, a deal with T-Mobile in Germany catapulted Connectiva to the next level. In a very competitive sales cycle that lasted more than 18 months, T-Mobile put Connectiva and other vendors to the test and presented them incredibly tough real world problems to solve. “We did a very successful POC (proof of concept) for T-Mobile and over the course of this pilot, the client had the opportunity to look under the hood, kick the tires, and validate the product capabilities in the context of their most complex leakage scenarios. The POC helped them appreciate the flexibility of our application and visualize how it can be deployed in their landscape,” says Anandan Jayaraman (AJ), Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Connectiva.

The grind Basu and his team experienced, however, ultimately proved fruitful. T-Mobile selected Connectiva to manage its revenue assurance processes in a pan European deal.

Increasing Customer Traction

Connectiva also won its first U.S. customer last year and believes that it is very well positioned to expand its presence in North America.

“While North America was the earliest adopter of revenue assurance and fraud management solutions compared to the rest of the world, most telcos invested in solutions that were either custom built or based on legacy technology. The replacement cycle for these deployments has started, however, and we are currently being evaluated by some of the largest carriers in the U.S. and Canada to replace their current systems with our next generation analytics-based solution stack,” says AJ.

In addition, North America still remains a post-paid market, paying bills at the end of the month compared to emerging markets that are dominated by prepaid systems where charging and rating happen in realtime. “We see huge potential in fast growing emerging markets such as Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, China, and South East Asia. The mobile revolution is transforming these economies, but at the same time they have high levels of revenue losses and continue to be hampered by internal and external fraud,” explains AJ.

Basu also has an eagle’s eye over India. After success with Bharti, several operators have noticed Connectiva. Today, Connectiva dominates the Indian market and names top-level customers such as Bharti and Idea as well as a number of Greenfield providers, mobile value chain enablers, and financial settlement operators among its customers. In addition, Connectiva is also the leading vendor in the Middle East and African markets. The firm has won several new deals in South East Asia and is in the process of finalizing one in China.

In the past four years, Connectiva has taken giant strides. Starting as a small company with single digit revenue, Connectiva has become a dynamic global company with over 40 customers worldwide. A counter in the Kolkata office keeps a meticulous record of how much value the company has generated for its customers to date. Connectiva is aiming to recover at least a billion dollars by the end of 2011.

Changing Business Focus

Earlier in the decade, revenue assurance was all about stopping money from ‘leaking’ or ensuring that customers were not under or overbilled. In today’s complex web of communications systems, telecom operators require more. They need to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) through targeted upselling and cross selling and decrease churn by providing a better customer experience. In this context, telcos have been clamoring for revenue assurance to evolve from their current state to help achieve a broader set of revenue optimization goals.

“Our customers now ask questions such as ‘how do I optimize the customer life time value, how can we reduce time between recharges and how to effectively increase adoption of new value added services. They want us to do more than just identifying leakage. They are asking us to analyze their data to solve several adjunct problems,” says AJ.

As a result, Connectiva now focuses on three dimensions of their customers’ revenue management challenges including realization (identifying leakage and fraud), retention (providing a better customer experience), and maximization (increasing ARPU).

The company continues to invest heavily in R&D and is planning to launch several new products shortly. “We are no longer just a revenue assurance or fraud management player; we are a key player in the broader telecom analytics market. Our goal is to help our customers derive insight from data and rapidly turn this insight into action,” says AJ.

The Challenge

While Connectiva plans to double the cost savings it achieves for its customers, the company must also adapt its offerings to the changing business model of its customers and to specific geographic market demands.

Operators are seeking to grow new revenue streams in data, content, and other value added services to compensate for the commoditization of voice. As a result, revenue assurance and fraud management platforms must evolve to meet the challenges of new types of revenue value chains, interface with next generation systems for content delivery, and deal with diverse industries such as financial services, retail, consumer products, and travel that are participating in the mobile digital economy.

While in the developed markets operators are primarily concerned about ensuring a positive user experience, emerging markets in a high growth acquisition mode are looking to increase level of usage, reduce dormant behavior, and boost adoption of newer services.

Basu is excited and views these challenges as opportunities. “We want to learn and stay ahead of the curve by quickly adapting to customer needs and providing the innovation and support they need,” he says.

Key Differentiators

Though Connectiva is in the process of emerging as the top vendor in its category, it has several fierce competitors that are betting hard to slowdown its quick climb up the ladder. What are the key differentiators that will help the company continue to win deals and stand out from the crowd?

Connectiva’s strength lies in the core technology –it offers an end-to-end analytics stack that serves as a foundation for all its products such as revenue assurance, fraud detection, and more; whereas its competitors have built separate solutions for every kind of problem and they do not talk to each other. “We have taken the approach of building a generic framework that can address an entire class of problems and can be easily extended vs. hard-coding applications that are limited to a specific domain,” says AJ.

Another key aspect that differentiates Connectiva is the unyielding focus on delivering business outcomes for its customers. The DNA of Connectiva lies in helping customers realize value that is measurable. According to Basu, a customer should always be able to calculate his ROI, and for him delivering value is not just a sales pitch, but also an obsession.

Basu comes from the old school of business ethics, which emphasize on companies cultivating deep partnerships with their customers. He believes in walking with the customer but also in exploring new ways to work together. Several customers of Connectiva have outsourced their revenue management and analysis functions to them to improve costs and productivity. “We have transformed ourselves from being a technology vendor to a business partner who seamlessly blends business consulting, technology, implementation services, and operational outsourcing to deliver the business outcomes our clients are looking for,” says AJ.

Connectiva also understands that it needs to constantly change and embrace future opportunities. Until last year, Basu and his original team were the sole force behind Connectiva’s global growth. Today, the team has expanded and it includes the best in the business including several executives from SAP, Convergys, and IBM. Connectiva’s service delivery team is also growing rapidly and includes top talent from consulting firms such as Accenture, IBM, and Deloitte.

What is Next?

With 40 plus customers, global presence, and significant market traction, Connectiva is on the cusp of a growth wave. With its flexible analytics framework, it is also seeking to pursue opportunities in new verticals outside telecom. “What we are best at doing is finding a needle in a haystack, and there are specific problems in several industries where such technology and expertise can create a huge amount of value. We are actively engaged with a number of new markets,” says AJ. Though the company has set up a team that focuses on new verticals, its main area of focus will continue to be telecom where it has established significant credibility.

Last year had been great for the company, for it won a successful funding of $17 million, expanded senior management, and doubled its strength to 400 plus employees worldwide. “I am confident that Connectiva is well placed to take the revenue management market by storm. Their clear focus on revenue assurance, fraud detection, and customer experience are exactly what the communications service providers are looking for from their vendors,” says Banerjee.

As for Basu what is more important is to see a billion dollar smile in the face of every customer.

“Slightly better is not a good term,” says Patel, the CEO of Isilon Systems and a pioneer in the clustered storage space. “For a technology to be adopted in an existing market, you really need to have a technology that is substantially better — 10 (times) better than what is in the marketplace today,” adds Patel. “It has to be so much better that it is overwhelming for people who buy that product and service.” When Patel says so, he is not being merely theoretical. The unsatiated desire to bring out the best led this 35 year old entrepreneur to steer his company successfully, in a market space, which was crowded by biggies like EMC and NetApp; not to mention the 250 odd startups in the storage space.

Patel founded Isilon at the age of 26. Prior to this, Patel spent his initial career days at Real Networks. As an engineer, Patel used to solve some of Real Networks’ most complex back-end operational challenges. That experience gave him the insight for a new type of solution, a type of virtualized storage optimized for media. His experience gave him the insight to a real customer need, and his deep technical knowledge gave him the ability to spot a solution.

“I saw that customers couldn’t keep up with the storage demand,” explains Patel. “I realized that initially it would be mostly media, post production and special effects companies that would buy into unstructured data, but knew that in 10 years time, it was going to spread to most of the enterprise. This year has been the crossover year for unstructured data.” Isilon began by selling into the digital content, media, film, entertainment, and then web industries, and then expanded from there into life sciences, engineering, and to the enterprise space in general.

But wasn’t 26 too early an age? Not for Patel. His enthusiasm, passion and determination covered his lack of experience. “I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and do things on my own; create things that could have a wide impact. And I did not want to wait 10-15 years, treading cautiously at every step before taking the plunge. So when I got the chance to found Isilon, I jumped at the opportunity,” beams Patel.

That’s also a reason which led venture capitalists to take this 26 year old lad seriously. A few months after Patel founded Isilon in 2001, the NASDAQ came down crashing, bringing the ‘Dot Com Burst’. The venture capital market was in disarray. With the existing companies dropping their revenues, there was not much hope for new companies to find potential investment. To make matters worse, there were about 250 other startups in the storage space. Patel was undeterred. Sure about his ideas, he approached close to 40 venture capitalists, and with perseverance, eventually he managed to gain their confidence. Five months after the company’s beginning, Patel had managed to raise $8.4 million venture capital in what was one of the toughest markets to raise money.

But all was not rosy yet. The road ahead proved to be more challenging than raising the funds. The next three years were spent in building the products. Developing the company’s IP not only took a tremendous amount of money, but also ate in to the time to get into the market. By the time the product was ready to debut in the markets in 2003, the company’s debt was near $20 million.

Still undeterred, Patel knew that once the company began to generate revenue; it was hardly a matter of a few months before the company would eliminate the debt and grow. In the next three years, the company continued its steep climb, eventually going public in December 2006.

Cruising over Obstacles
Not only confident and unshakable, Patel is also a man of clear vision, with no illusions about his capabilities. At 26, as the Founder of the company, he served as the CEO for the initial three years. But he knew that, if he wanted to make Isilon the next big thing in storage space, he needed someone who knew the dynamics of running a large organization. He promptly stepped down and appointed as a new CEO, who knew what it takes to grow into the larger league. “I floated the company but knew my limitations in the business front. We had three products ready to debut in the market and if we wanted then to succeed, we needed an expert who knew the right strings to pull,” says Patel. His focus and timely decisions were fruitful in the subsequent years when Isilon was on a dream run, literally growing at 200 percent year-on-year. By the time the company went public, it was a $60 million company.

But Isilon’s splendid growth was cut short when calamity struck the markets again in 2007. Though the company had been growing exponentially, it was not able to scale to the next level of growth, and when recession took over, Isilon’s growth figures dropped drastically from 200 to 40 percent.. Dark clouds were beginning to loom ahead as the market conditions and the board, investors, shareholders and customers started raising a doubtful eye over the leadership. It was time to make new decisions and Patel decided to reinstate his position as the CEO without much hesitation.

“My goal was to see Isilon become a $100 million company by 2007 and become a player to be reckoned in the $4 billion global storage market for its technology. And we were still $40 million short. I knew that despite the economic instability, the company I had founded had great potential if one could maximize it,” says Patel.

Patel has never been known to take a conventional path in his life. He is also a man, who does not bother about others opinion about him. This is exactly what he did when he took over as the CEO.

To start with, he re-structured the entire organization, replacing every executive in the management, including CTO, CFO, Head of engineering, Head of operations and others. Such an action is quite unheard of, especially immediately after a company had gone public.

After replacing significant portions of the senior leadership team, Patel brought on board executives, who had significant experience in growing companies and had incredible track record of success. “To my disappointment, I saw the entire team had just been the same since I had started the company and over the years they became too comfortable in their roles. If the company had to grow, it needed people who had the zeal and a fire in their belly to achieve the next,” he explains.

Next, Patel began revamping the business strategy by reaching out to the broader enterprise segments. It was not easy. The segment he wanted to target comprised of Fortune 50 companies who did not have much expectation from a startup like Isilon. With the organizational re-structuring, he completely overhauled the company’s services and products to meet the expectations of the large enterprise customers. Eventually, more and more Fortune 50 companies began to adopt Isilon’s products.

Finally he decided to increase the company’s focus on R&D. Innovation has always been an essential part of his life. A very innovative and inquisitive person, Patel is known to get at least six ideas every day. Even as a kid he was known for asking around 500 questions about everything under the Sun. Thus, Patel diverted about 25 percent of the company’s revenue towards R&D and fostered innovation within the organization.

The risk he had taken eventually paid off as the company’s revenues improved and the business became more predictable. By the time the third quarter of 2009 ended, not only the operating expenses were down in absolute dollars,even the growth margin was significantly higher, and because of that, today the business is in a position for a better breakthrough. A man of action and not words, Patel silenced the people who once questioned his leadership.

So what drives this confident and zealous man? It is the self-belief, passion and the creative way of looking at problems and coming up with solutions, says Patel. Even during his college days, while working on the Internet, he looked for opportunities to think about new ways, solve problems, or to bring innovative techniques/technologies to the market place.

To most he comes across as a person with true perseverance. On the contrary he admits being very impatient which is important if you want to continually drive yourself. Though many have judged his confidence, as over-confidence, Patel is not perturbed.

“I’m not emotional when it comes to making decisions. I founded the company at 26, when I had only technical knowledge and not much business acumen. So I stepped down as the CEO. But by 2007, I had the belief that only I could turn around the company and took over as the CEO again. But then I had also broadened my skill set, and especially honed by business skills.”

To run a business successfully, it is also important that one should be honest with oneself, the team and the stakeholders. The foremost thing that Patel did after taking over the company was to communicate with customers and partners and update them about the happenings within the organization, reinstating their faith in him and the company. “I went and talked to each of our investors and customers, telling what we planned and how much earnings we expected through the quarters. I believe that apart from your technology offerings, one reason companies want to do business with you is the goodwill you develop in tough times,” says Patel.

A Step in to the Future
Patel believes that the storage industry is in a gigantic progress and the market will be growing at an average four percent for the next five years. The data in the IT world is growing tremendously with data in the enterprise doubling every 18 months. As unstructured data continues to be the dominant form of data within the enterprise, organizations are experiencing significant challenges with the traditional stored products. For players like Isilon, this is the opportunity and the talent lies in capitalizing on the changes that are occurring in the field.

In the next five years, Patel hopes to continue solving robust problems and having happy customers. “Over the course of the next five years I want Isilon to be a bigger and better organization with a bigger market share and solve some of the toughest problems. We have innovation and if we follow the execution of the growth strategy, our foot hold will be stronger.”

Things seem to be sailing smooth for this perky entrepreneur, but for all, one knows he might be plotting his next step to go bigger and better. It is said that ‘Fortune favors the brave’ and Patel who has successfully cruised through not one but two of the worst economic downturns, just proved it right.

W

“My whole life flashed before me!” Her rank was 3001 out of 5000. Pragya, now in her fourth year at IIT Mumbai, is studying Integrated MSc programme in Chemistry.

Her mother and three siblings — a brother and two sisters — visit often, but her father has yet to. Very early in life, Pragya learnt to rely on herself. She and her brother were sent to a boarding school in Darjeeling. Pragya fondly remembers her Darjeeling days.

“I liked studying there.” But then quite suddenly, her father started spending more time away from home, the household income was affected, and she and her brother were pulled out of boarding school and admitted to regular schools in Patna.

Pragya and her mother together managed the household, and her dad sent what he could. Being the eldest, she looked after her siblings and did household work. And when her father would come to visit them, she wouldn’t be too excited. “He would come to go back.”

When her classmates came with their fathers to school, she didn’t miss her father. “Patna isn’t safe for women, but I don’t depend on male company to accompany me. I have learnt to manage on my own.” Because of this outlook, she feels she’s different from the others.

Until Class 9, Pragya was an average student. “I had no ambitions. Perhaps it was because of the way things were at home.” But one day, her uncle, who was a code developer, came over and gave her an algorithm code to crack. “It took me time, but I did. It was fascinating!” And before she realised it, she became absorbed in math.

“When I started doing well in studies, I began to dream of a future. I wanted to achieve something.” Her uncle said that IIT would change her life, and after that all that mattered was getting into IIT. She scored 97 per cent in math in Class 10.

In her first attempt at IIT-JEE, after her Class 12, Pragya got through Roorkee University where she got architecture. But she didn’t enjoy the subject and quit the programme. So when she came across an article on Super 30, she was willing to risk a year. “The only challenge was to get into Super 30, because once you are in it, half the battle is won as Super 30′s success rate was excellent.”

Studying there along with sharp brains was a challenge. She would come home with doubts of getting through IIT, but her brother would encourage her. “He believed in me and this revived my spirit. Of course, my mother has always supported me.” When Pragya looks back she says those were tough times.

She would wake up at 5 every morning, revise what she had studied the night before, and then help her mother in the kitchen. She would leave for college by 9.30 am and be back by 4 pm, buy vegetables on the way home, help her mother again, go through her brother’s and sister’s copy books, and then get back to studies. “I have never had time for myself.” Until now her mother hasn’t brought up the issue of marriage. “That’s not a priority for my mother or me. I have to first fulfil my dreams.’

Sunset at Chowpatty
When the results came out in 2006, for the first time she had a real sense of achievement. “I made my mother proud whom I have never seen resting. She’s always doing something or the other.” So when the time came to leave home, Pragya worried about her mother’s health. “She only looks after us, but not herself. You know how mothers are.”

IIT Mumbai was Pragya’s second choice and Guwahati first as both the IITs have a good faculty for both biotechnology and chemistry. “I just wanted do a course where I could study both chemistry and biology, I like the subjects very much. I want to be a researcher.”

On the first day in IIT Mumbai, she was nervous, but the atmosphere was such that “I settled in very quickly”. Pragya’s been awarded the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship, so her semester fee, which is Rs 25,000 (for four months), is now Rs 8,000. And she says she manages her monthly expenses in just about Rs 2,000.

She has a few close friends in college, but does not like to attach herself to a particular group. “I prefer to be with everybody than take sides.” And when she gets the time, she heads to Chowpatty or Marine Drive, sits by the sea to watch the sunset. “I am happy with my solitude.”

Original Source: Rediff.com

When the administrative officer at Mumbai-based ad agency Ambience Publicis, mentioned that the only vacancy was that of a head peon, Manish Patel took up the offer. In the few seconds it took to make up his mind, his heart secretly cried.

He had applied for the position of accountant, and his answer had shocked the interviewer. But as his father, a stock market broker, had just lost his job, he had no option. He had applied to several places after Class 12, but Ambience was the only company that reverted.

Three years later, Manish became a copywriter in the creative department located on the fourth floor, and went on to win a Silver Radio Lion for a campaign for BullZi Placement Consultancy. It is an unlikely story of hardship and success but Manish has never shied away from hard work.

As a peon, he gave his all, running errands from the fourth floor to the ground floor. Impressed with his hard work, the admin head promoted him to the position of administrative assistant. Life is full of surprises he says, and one surprise finding has been that money problems are never resolved with money. “Money doesn’t open doors. Hard work and initiative do.”

Manish’s life took a different turn when he was offered the job of a librarian at the agency. His salary then was Rs 1,845, and he spent most of his time reading advertising books. One day in the library, he chanced upon the press ads of The Economist. That communication could be so simple, he was surprised. This is what he wanted do to: he wanted to write. Before that he had no idea of what he wanted as he never had the time to think about his dreams.

At school, as a student, Manish wrote and directed Hindi plays. “I was fascinated by theatre.” But he remembers with shame how he had misused his writing skills to make fun of some classmates, by writing jokes and poems about them to please a group he was desperate to be a part of. Little did he know that one day, he would use the same skills to become an award-winning copywriter.

As librarian at Ambience, he began interacting with the creative department. “Everyone was accessible and helpful.” Seeing the work of the art team, he did a course in web and graphic designing alongside his graduation, which he pursued through correspondence. “It was tough, I was always chasing time.”

So every day after 6 pm, when his official duties were over, he stayed back at the office and learnt Photoshop. He observed the works of art directors and dreamed of writing his first copy. Even today, as a senior copywriter with McCann-Erickson, he’s in the office most of the times thinking and writing Hindi ads. He plans to write a book one day. And it will be in Hindi. His schoolteacher had once discouraged him from taking up Hindi because he was a Gujarati.

Elsie Nanji, vice chairman and chief creative officer, Ambience, needed an assistant, and Manish was offered the position. “I couldn’t ask for more.” As he did secretarial work for her he was exposed to the creative works of the agency. “Looking at their work, I thought I could do it too.” Then, one day, he got to know that Nanji was going to Paris to show creatives from Ambience India to the creative directors of the network from all parts of the world. In Paris, the creatives were to be shortlisted for international advertising contests.

This was the moment Manish had been waiting for. He made a press ad for Revive, instant starch brand. It showed a man sitting on a stool, but reclining as though he were on a backrest, only that there wasn’t one. The idea being communicated was that the starch made the kurta stiff enough for the man not to take any support.

Nanji smiled at his work. Although, she wasn’t happy with the art work, she took Manish’s work to Paris. “It was a big deal for me!” When she returned after two weeks, she called him in and said his work was appreciated. The press ad went on to win a Silver at Goafest 2006. This gave him the confidence to believe in his dreams.

Manish wished someone back in school had helped bring out what was inside him. He wanted to pursue the arts but was told there was no career in drama and theatre. “The problem with our education system is that there are no counsellors or people to probe you and tell you what you could do. Because software engineers are in demand doesn’t mean that I will be good at it.”

And the whole of Cannes heard Manish…
Ambience made an offer to Manish to join the art department, but he said he wanted to be a copywriter. It was a tough decision, as for the first time he had a choice. “Before this I had never had the chance to choose,” he says. Here, on the fourth floor, in the creative department, he wrote the jingle for a client, the BullZi Placement Consultancy, which went on to win a Silver at Cannes 2008.

Of course he hadn’t expected to win. So the moment, he heard that his work had won the award — he went blank for a few moments. All he could coax out of himself was that the whole of Cannes heard him.

Original Source: Rediff.com

N

There was no electricity, telephone lines or hospitals. Nirmal’s high school was three kilometres away from his village, which he covered on foot with a back affected by polio.

Today, 28-year-old Nirmal, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, is the CEO of Nirmal Group which owns G Auto, a company he founded a year ago in Ahmedabad. In its first year of operation, his company earned a revenue of Rs 1.75 crore and made a net profit of Rs 20 lakhs.

“When you are born in a place with little means, you learn to rely on yourself for everything. You become a fighter,” he shares. When Nirmal was struck by polio at the age of three — he could not be treated in time as there were no hospitals in his village, only ‘quacks’. But it never stopped him from playing football in school or taking the cows through the rice fields.

With unsteady fingers, Nirmal learnt how to hold the pencil, firm his grip, and read and write. In the evenings, he would clean up the lantern shade with a dry piece of cloth, oil the wicker, light it, and in its glow dream of a better life. “Lagan bahut thi.” ['I was very dedicated.']

Agriculture and civil services
He won the National Talent Scholarship and decided to pursue a BTech in agriculture from Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad. Agriculture was an unusual choice but back then he was planning to appear for the civil services entrance exam. While he was relieved to have won the scholarship, the paltry sum of Rs 800 a month wasn’t enough, so he gave math tuitions. “I have never been afraid of hard work,” he says.

Perhaps that’s why he gets impatient when his sales team complains about not getting a client. “I ask them how I, without political links or monetary support, could get ONGC, Reliance and the State Bank of India on board? Weak people make excuses.”

That’s why he wasn’t surprised when he wrote to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for an appointment to discuss his future venture, and he actually got one. Fifteen minutes stretched into 50 minutes, and Modi agreed to inaugurate G Auto. Nirmal thanks his parents, or rather his entire village for making him the way he is. “Not once I was made to feel that I was handicapped,” he shares.

Two things happened to Nirmal in Hyderabad that changed his life, forever. At the university he met toppers, polished people from big cities, and his confidence was shaken a little. “I came from a village with no electricity and it was a challenge coping with a competitive world,” he admits. Many made fun of his Bihari accent as his spoken English was poor. But he was determined to fight.

So Nirmal formed a club called ‘Phoenix’ for people like him who wanted to improve their communication skills. Every week its members met and discussed current topics in English only. If anyone switched to their native tongue they were fined 25 paise! Much change was collected and used for samosa parties. Little did he know then how handy this exercise would come when he was preparing for the Common Admission Test (CAT).

One day, when a senior at university showed him the prospectus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Nirmal had heard the institute’s name for the first time. He was also told that after studying at an IIM one could earn Rs 1 lakh a month. “I was shocked! My father earned only Rs 8,000 and he raised five children with that money.”

Two years of intensive preparation and he sat for CAT. He remembers shouting inside the internet cafe, when he realised that he was shortlisted. “It was an incredible feeling.”

He made it to IIM Ahmedabad, and one evening while returning to campus, the auto rickshaw he travelled in charged an extra Rs 10 saying it was evening time. “When I questioned him he spoke rudely.” That’s when he got the idea for his start-up.

Nirmal realised there was a need for well-behaved drivers and rickshaws in the city, who gave a better experience to the customers. So when the time came for a job interview at IIM Ahemedabad, he opted out of the queue. His mind was made up: he wanted to start his own company. “I had nothing to lose I can live under any circumstances. Those who have been brought up in luxury worry about losing things. They are the ones who are insecure.”

Now, G Auto manages 1,500 auto rickshaws, which are equipped with public phones, water and first-aid facilities. Every day Nirmal spends one hour counselling and grooming the drivers in customer etiquette.

But as a CEO he also believes in serving his people, so the company offers the drivers an insurance cover worth Rs 2 lakh from LIC, a mediclaim policy of Rs 50,000, education allowance for their children and a savings account with an ATM card. So how does he make money? “Through advertising. The autos are great advertising vehicles!”

Nirmal has now launched Mr Coco, coconut water on pushcarts. The carts are equipped with a chilling unit that chills fresh coconut water in 30 seconds. To the existing five carts, 100 will be added with the support of SBI which is loaning Nirmal money for the business.

He pauses and then reflects: he can’t believe that he’s managed to achieve all this. But there’s so much to do he says. For one, he has to prepare for marriage. His fiance is currently pursing an MSc in Chemistry. She too, has a disability. And for the first time during the interview, his bold voice sounds a little shy. “I am nervous,” he confesses.

Original Source: Rediff.com

T

He grew up amidst the coal and mica mines in Giridih, a small town in Jharkhand (earlier part of Bihar). His father repaired fuel pumps of heavy diesel vehicles and machines.

Due to the slowdown in coal production, his father’s income became irregular, so he travelled around buying machine spare parts and looking for work, while his mother stayed back managing the house, sometimes within Rs 2,000 and at other times with Rs 20. “Whatever my father could manage,” he adds.

What pained him more was to see his relatives doing well while his father toiled in a workshop. Things got worse when his father met with an accident. “I used to be angry about not getting something when I needed it the most.”

He sketched to fight his anger. Mostly kings, swords, horses, cowboys. So on weekends, after having lunch and after his mother went off to sleep, he would sketch, paint and makes things with his father’s tools.

“‘I was fascinated with all the tools and machine parts in my father’s workshop. Because of his exposure to different kinds of material — metal, clay, wood, rubber — Amit judges a material’s design potential without knowing the specifications. “My gut feeling guides me, and this is what I observe in students who come from small towns.”

Although, Amit was always among the top three in school, his Class 10 results didn’t measure up to his expectations. This shook his confidence to the extent that it badly affected his Class 12 results. “I had lost faith in myself.” And soon after finishing school, he became desperate to leave his town. “It was a small place with few opportunities.”

The awakening at Banaras
Amit wanted to apply for a fine arts programme at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, but his father doubted the subject’s prospects. So Amit took up sociology to fulfil his father’s dream of joining the civil services. Amit strongly thinks that schools must counsel parents as well, so that they are made aware of other career options.

In Banaras, Amit managed his lifestyle within the Rs 300 that his father sent every month. At one point for 14 days he just had one meal of bread and tea. His hard life turned him into an introvert.

“I was vulnerable to hurt.” This was also the time when he started paying extra attention to his studies. His first challenge was to learn English as he had opted for sociology in the English medium; the other was to get hostel accommodation. For that he had to score First Class, which he did, and as a result his course fee was waived, and he was given a place in the hostel. Now life became a little more comfortable and slowly he began to believe he could do well as “I was rewarded fairly well for my labour.”

Then one fine winter day, he saw BHU fine arts students selling New Year cards at the front gate of the university. That very night, in his hostel room, he started making cards. Before he knew it, they were all sold out. Alongside, he started giving tuitions, painting portraits and doing commercial illustrations.

Within one year, he made more than Rs 5,000 which he put into the bank. While the money gave him security, the design work gave him the confidence to pursue art in a professional set-up. So, at the insistence of close friends, he applied to both NID and NIFT, and got through both, but when he went to NID he knew it was the place for him.

There was something about the NID campus that gave him the peace and freedom to explore. “I was excited to see that a range of different design disciplines had studios and I could observe or work on anything in any of these studios!” Here he studied apparel design.

In his final year, Amit won a few awards for his work in fashion as well as in knits and jewellery, but he didn’t have enough to clear his dues at NID. So the institute gave him the chance to pay back with interest.

But NID changed Amit in more ways than one. “The harshest thing I learnt was to take criticism.” Once that happened, many things followed. He became less critical of people, stopped being very serious about things and discovered he had a sense of humour! “Hardships had taken away my sense of humour.” And he developed a fair command over the English language. “I had to get over my weak points!”

With his first job as a menswear designer with the Taj’s Khazana, he paid back his NID fee. For 10 years he worked in the design industry, moving between Delhi and Mumbai, travelling abroad, working with top international design houses and companies in India.

He even cracked the film industry as a costume designer but those film projects never took off. When he had saved enough he paid back the house loan, that his father had taken more than 20 years back. “That was a great moment for me!”

But the time had come to slow down and reflect upon things. “I had moved out of my town when I was 17 and since then I have been on the move.” So when the offer came to teach at NID, he took it up. “I could learn and share a lot with students.” And he doesn’t shy away from telling his students where he had erred so that they can do better. “I tell them: be smart and make your presence felt because you cannot wait for people to discover you.”

In his spare time Amit is back to painting. But something else has happened, he says. “I have stopped writing poems; I suppose the pain’s gone now!”

Original Source: Rediff.com

Even now he doesn’t have the time to reflect on his difficult past. “We are overloaded with work here and there’s never enough time.”

Suresh comes from a village called Adhkhani, in district Sitamarhi, close to the Nepal border. His father, for most part of his life has tilled land as a labourer in the village. But had it not been for his father’s determination, Suresh’s life’s course may not have altered greatly.

Options for primary education were limited; there was only one school in the village, a government school. But his father after many requests to the principal, was able to get Suresh admitted to the school. “My father didn’t want me or my brother to live a farmer’s life. It was a hard and ungrateful life.”

The school was small and the teachers weren’t that good, says Suresh. Since the school was in such a remote area, teachers came on short tenures and with little passion to teach. Except for one: the math teacher. It was because of him that Suresh’s interest in math began to develop.

Before that he wasn’t particularly interested in studies although he studied every evening, after helping his father in the potato fields. There was no electricity in his mud house and he studied in the lantern light. Even today, there’s no electricity in his house; again one of those villages of the country that have been left out to remain in the dark.

Suresh knows farm work all too well. “For years, I have given my father a hand in the paddy and wheat fields, in picking potatoes; tilling land, sowing seeds, watering the fields, and in the harvest season carting sacks full of potatoes to our small kitchen.” Suresh and his family lived off the farm; nothing was bought. Even clothes weren’t bought; all he had was his school uniform which he wore to school and at home.

But there was a “burning desire” to do something. At the time, his math teacher started taking special interest in Suresh, as he could solve complex mathematical problems. “It was because of him that I discovered I was good in mathematics.”

And so his teacher called him over to his residence for extra studies. “When he said that I was good, that’s when I started believing that I was a  good student.”

One day, a classmate’s brother came over to Suresh’s school. “He was studying in IIT Kanpur, and he told us that we must study hard and prepare for IIT. He said, IIT main zindagi badal jaygee (IIT will change your life).”

So, all he did was study day and night. “For the other students in the village, like the children of rich landlords, they still had options. For me it was almost a matter of life or death.” His Class 12 results weren’t too encouraging, and with his initial preparation he couldn’t crack the IIT-JEE exam. “I was shaken up. All along I had only thought of getting into IIT. That’s what I had been preparing for, been thinking of; I had no other future plans.”

Suresh’s father gave him Rs 4,000 and asked him to go to Patna to find a good coaching centre and prepare for IIT all over again. He went to Patna, stayed there for two weeks, spent all the money and came back to the village empty-handed. “I couldn’t find any centre where I could study in that little amount of money.”

When the villagers got to know of his failure, they laughed at him. Especially, the rich villagers taunted: “But you were confident of getting into IIT, eh?”

Then a friend from Patna told him of Anand Kumar’s Super 30. Suresh’s elder brother encouraged him to give it another shot, and so he went back to Patna. “When I met Mr Kumar, I knew I had come to the right place and once again found the strength to dream of IIT.” There, along with the others, Suresh studied for 10 hours every day. “All we did was study.” Everything was provided for: food, a place to stay.

It was Kumar who saw his result. Suresh’s rank was 77 in the scheduled caste category. “Now I had a reason to go back to my village and shut the mouths of those who mocked my failure. But I laughed when some villagers came up to me and asked me why I was going to Delhi, when ITI was here, in the district?”

Not many had heard of IIT in his village, and they often confused it with the Industrial Training Institute (ITI).

Disappointments at IIT
With the blessings of his father, Suresh came to Delhi. It’s been three years now, but not once has he felt out of place in a big city, or in the prestigious institute where students of different backgrounds come from all parts of the country.

“Nobody at IIT is valued for their money; education makes us all equals.”

But Suresh appears to be a little disillusioned. “IIT is an institute that seems like a magical place from the outside, but the story is different when you are behind its great walls.”

He says that the teachers are least interested in the students. “Their priorities are different.” Writing research papers  close to performance-review time often leaves the students unattended. “You have to fend for yourself. There’s no support.” As campus placements approach, he worries about his communication and English skills. “I am aware that they are weak, but we aren’t encouraged to do better.” So Suresh is teaching himself English now.

But there’s no doubt that IIT attracts the best companies in the country, says Suresh. More than the corporate  sector, it is the civil services that allures Suresh. Being a civil servant, he says, will give him both the power and the opportunity to change things. “I want to make life better for my people in the village who still light the lantern at night.”

But one thing that IIT has taught him will stay with him forever. “IIT has taught me how to fight; it has taught me how to survive. The work pressure is so much but we somehow finish on time. You learn to manage time.” But despite a punishing routine, Suresh finds the time to takes tuitions. “I send home some money.” And when he wants to take a break from it all, he goes to the nearby Priya Cinema Complex to watch Shah Rukh Khan. “I like his films. They are about love and romance.”

Original Source: Rediff.com

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