An Entrepreneur's Journey in pre-Liberal India

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 cliché, 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'!