Howard Roark, the immortal character from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, thought of himself as successful owing to his being able to work on his conditions and Peter Keating, a character from same novel thought of himself as successful when he acquired materialistic pleasures. But what right do Peter Keatings of this world have to label Howard Roarks as unsuccessful? And if success is only about hitting the right targets then one question we can’t afford to condone is: Who does set the target? The man himself after having seen the world or the world for that man after having seen him or neither man nor world, targets just emerge out of man himself and then challenge him to catch them. I believe it is the last condition that offers success a chance to get realised.

Recently, the news about an IIM topper, who easily could have been drawing a salary of 30 to 40 lakhs per annum sitting in an air conditioned chamber of an multinational company, taking to selling vegetables must have taken many by surprise. Neither it is the first case of its kind nor is it going to be the last. A little deeper understanding of the issue helps us solve some of the conundrums. I don’t give a damn to the theory that one can do these eerie things to grab headlines. Those who think along such lines must be hardcore proponent of herd mentality or what they call in Hindi ‘lakeer ke fakir’.

It requires a mind steeped in self cultivated self confidence to be able to walk out in street pulling a barrow after having burnt midnight oil and strained every nerve to top the exams of an institution, which is hailed as Indian Harvard. Kaushlendra, the protagonist of the story, says he want to help society raise its living standard, which he couldn’t have done from an air conditioned closet. It required walking out in the street and mingling with the general public and hence selling vegetables seemed a good idea. The aim with which he has set about may seem far fetched but if we take into account the startling fact that he has met initial success, people love to buy fresh vegetables from his air conditioned hand-cart (a benefit inducing business investment) at reasonable prices and as many as 150 farmers have already tied up with him to sell their vegetables directly to him, he appears not only to be on right track but events are also turning out to be a vindication of his stand.

To me, the more stringent question is not what Kaushlendra is doing today but what he has seen himself doing a few years from now. We expect an IIM student (here the man in question is IIM topper) to be even more far sighted than most of our representatives in legislatures and parliament. I can vouch for the fact that he is not going to be a simple sabziwala for all his life or for that matter even for few years. He too will earn money perhaps as much as his peers but what Kaushlendra is after is something more than mere money. He doesn’t want to earn “only money”, a trait most of us lack so vigorously and a trait most of us need to acquire so badly.

I sincerely hope his valourous step goes a long way in mitigating our obsession with “study hard and earn hard” mentality leaving no space for any reverence either for money or study. An IIM topper treading a path, his heart found happiness in, serves a cause for the society where suicide rate of students feeling the pinch of having to score heavily in exams is as much as of farmers unable to pay the huge debts.

Our whole system including parents, schools and governments are so obsessive with a linear life sequence of swotting hard without understanding and then earning hard without ever getting rich that in the end even after having crammed answers and drawing huge pay packets we remain poor, wretched and find ourselves whining about one thing or the other. Almost everyone’s taking to Yoga, be it cities or villages, stands testimony to the fact that either we are disease ridden cheesed off allopathic medicines or in search of tranquility.

I salute Kaushlendra’s daunting courage for having been able to do what he wished to do for his decision must have swept earth off the feat of his parents. We often hear though not that sporadically about IIT students taking to school education in villages, NRIs flocking to their roots wrapping up settled business, firmly entrenched professionals making mid-career jumps to unknown territories. What drives these people to do what they do and what keeps others from doing so? Is it the education or bringing up or genes or cultivation of one’s mind? Does this cultivation depend upon ambiance, surroundings or individual thought process? Does everyone have the capability to keep oneself on the pulpit of one’s own ideals or it is something that we can ascribe to some incomprehensible power and only some gifted individuals. I started with success and I believe Kaushlendra has attained the kind of success what some of his peers might take few years to achieve and some of them may never. India need many more Kaushlendras and I am pretty much sure there is no dearth of them. Can we wait for the day when such heroic deeds of such Kaushlendras will cease to surprise us?