Hello, gentle readers, it’s been a while since I have last written properly. I think March 2024 is the first time in over 2 years that I have gone a month without posting anything. Amidst the troika of Bangalore heat, Bangalore (lack of) water supply and most importantly - Bangalore static electricity shocks, I was extremely pre-occupied moving houses and all the last minute work at home. House buying has been amongst the most fulfilling yet exhausting things I have ever done. I don’t think I have the capacity to go to Chickpet one more time to save that extra bit of money.
We all have inspirations, mentors and even idols. These can be larger than life celebrities and other kind of "successful” people. We can be exposed to them via various means- social media, biographies or just generally following news related to them. We can have idols who we are big fans of and attach a part of our own identity with their fanhood - think of all Modi, Salman Khan, Kohli fans.
This is the screenshot of the search results on Google when you type “Inspirational Role Models”
For some reason, beyond a few outliers in sports like Kobe Bryant or Stephen Curry, I have never had any big-ticket inspirations/idols nor do I believe in full-fledged mentors. The reason behind this will be evident very soon.
In the last few weeks, I have been itching more than ever to write more regularly and have so many topics I want to write on. One of the reasons behind choosing this particular topic was reading Gurcharan Das’ latest book, his memoir “Another Sort of Freedom”. I had read his magnum opus “India Unbound” back in the last few months of my undergrad days and was blown away by the book. So when I noticed that his memoir was out - I bought a copy on my Kindle immediately. The book covers his journey from being born in Lahore, witnessing the brutal partition while moving eastwards to India, moving to the US for school an getting an admit to Harvard, coming back to India (and other countries) to become a CEO of P&G and finally retiring early to become a full-time writer for the last 2+ decades.
The reason that I cite this book is because I am so influenced by his journey, his reflections on philosophy and modern India, his belief in open market liberalism and scepticism of both the INC and BJP and most importantly, his brutal honesty about his journey and all his flaws. I am also inspired by the fact that he had made writing a life-long habit which helped in transform into a full time writer years later. I connect with his statement that he found weekend writing to be an blissful escape to connect with his thoughts away from the business of his weekday job. I have mentioned it before that I sometimes find material pursuits not a primary driving force of life and have a small and low probability ambition of becoming some kind of a writer/columnist one day. Reading Gurcharan’s Das’ books and his journey has given me a boost and hope that even untrained writers (not named Chetan Bhagat) who come from a corporate background can one day write.
While Gurcharan Das’ journey is no small feat, he is not big ticket celebrity or a known public figure. I write this to show that sometimes, we are so enamoured by larger than life figures and their stories but overlook the fact that their journey’s may be great in their own way but not necessarily relatable.
On social media, we can see hundreds of entrepreneurs’ story that on face value, should “inspire” people and we obviously get a non stop barrage of content on big ticket people. But -
I do not relate to them
The anecdotal posts on social media are shallow, full of survivorship bias and selective disclosure and barely scratch the surface on why I should get inspired by them
How do I know how the person is in real life? As they say - “never meet your heroes”
I have somehow not warmed up to the idea of a full-fledged mentor at work. I recall giving an interview with a fin-tech startup a few years ago and the founder asked me “Who are your mentors in the company?” which stumped me, and I do not think he was satisfied with the answer. I tried to think of the basis to his question and have a few guesses. My answer was something like this - “I do not have any single mentor that I fully look up to. I find inspiration and I give appreciation to certain traits that I see in people - be it the empathy and decency from a manager or the work ethic of an MIS analyst or the technical wizardry of a counterpart - that is what pushes me to be better.” In hindsight, the only thing I’d modify in this statement was to have a few trustworthy people in the organization (not necessarily a mentor) who you can speak to about issues that may improve you constructively (not to be confused with “gossiping”).
I once saw this beautiful speech by Harsha Bhogle at IIM-A where he talked about excellence amongst other things. If you skip to about the 33 minute mark in that video, he talks about finding it difficult to find role models in the world of broadcasting and talks about how he had deep admiration for the focus and accuracy of the main cameraman who had to keep going ball after ball for hours together and not lose sight of the ball.
Gurcharan Das, in turn, cites his role model to be a certain “Kamble” who was a security guard at his first company “Richard Hindustan” which sold Vicks and how Kamble’s sheer selflessness and working for the love of working helped him rise up the company ranks fast while always being a loved and revered person to people who worked with him. Gurcharan Das cites that he was too consumed by vanity and egocentricity to ever become as free as Kamble and recalls his example in times of his own “dharm sankat”.
I share the same belief. I have loved going to Brahmin’s Coffee Bar for long. While the food is great there, I think the filter coffee is also probably amongst the best on planet Earth. I massively admire the gentleman who makes the filter coffee there (image below). He does that same routine, with some style, hour after hour and year after year with that same consistency as ever and seems to be laser focused when he does it. What I may see as boring and mundane is something that he does with fervour. How can’t you admire such a person and find inspiration?
Finding Inspirations that you can relate to
One of the advantages of the explosion and democratization of good content is that you can find plenty of very relatable but not-so-famous people who you derive inspiration from. To give you an example, there is this podcast called “The Seen and the Unseen” that is hosted by Amit Verma where he invites a host of not-so-famous people who have done well in their own spheres and have done great work. They can be historian writers who have written on PV Narasimha Rao or the rise of the RSS, a liver special doctor (LiverDoc) from Kerala who is not famous for fighting pseudo-sciences like ayurveda and homeopathy, the founders of new age restaurants like Bombay Canteen, Mumbai and their journey, people who have served as diplomats and key government advisors and people who have done immense work on-ground on various developmental issues. There are guests like Ajay Shah who absolutely blow my mind with their deep knowledge (on so many topics) and consult to improve governance and policy.
I cite these examples again because going by sheer probability mixed with the nature of my work, its likely that I am not going to become a well known name or celebrity. However, it is my desire to achieve some kind of niche later on in life and be good at what I am doing in a way that can create some kind of impact. These names may not be household names but are amongst those lakhs of people who do great work in their own fields and almost always come from an unprivileged background.
As cited earlier, apart from these examples in the previous paragraph, inspirations can be found around you everyday - you can be inspired by a consistent quality shown by a colleague at work or you can be inspired by the belief in hard work shown by your father or you be inspired by the kindness shown by a office maintainance staff who gives everyone sweets on her daughters birthday.
I do not diss being fans of well known names, they may give you joy and entertainment but I think that is where I will limit their influence.
I think this also ties up a little to why we are so hooked to larger than life news items - both in India or abroad - which are of very little influence on your lives but overlook so many local developments which may be of far more significance to our lives. We like to be enamored by larger than life items.
Do you agree with me? Who do you get inspired by in your day to day life?
Had no clue about Gurcharan Das's backstory! We have similar goals then - just hope to be able to retire early for the writing / content to begin fulltime