Weekend had arrived. It was a pleasant and sunny Friday morning in Dubai. My plan for the day? Well, I had decided to go test driving a few zippy cars and later on spent a leisurely afternoon strolling in the Mall of the Emirates and the Emirates Towers premium shopping boulevard to see if I could pick up a suit or two. You really cant not find a premium brand. Armani, Versace, Gucci, YSL, Ermenegildo Zegna, Hugo Boss; you name it and between them the Mall of the Emirates and the shopping boulevard at Emirates Towers had ‘em covered. A pretty neat weekend then huh, wouldn’t you say? Absolutely! I was basking in the privilege that was bestowed upon me. I was relishing the prestige. I was reveling in luxury. I was rollicking in celebration. I was indulging in myself. I was wallowing in the evening Dubai dust with apple flavored hookah blowing out of my mouth and the sun setting magnificently behind my shoulders. I was living. I was the very spirit of ecstasy.

And zipppppppp….fast forward two years……Cochin, Kerala, India.
Yes. Don’t rub your eyes in disbelief. I am now in India, in Kerala, in Cochin. Why oh why? Yeah. I tend to ask that myself once in a while. More than why o why, how o how! I let it go. I let that life go. Deliberately. Not that it slipped out of my hands like sand or something. I thought to myself that if I had all this at the age of 22-23 what exactly should I be looking forward to in the years to come. Oh come on, don’t tell me a “bigger” house, a “faster” car. And suits? They aren’t all that different you know, whether you go traditional Savile Row or go more modern. So then what exactly was I going to do?

I had a plan. I was going to throw away a swanky financial services job in London. And then? Well either I stay west for my Masters in Finance & Development at the prestigious SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London or I pack my bags and fly east. To India. And yes, I chose east. I chose India. My homeland. My country. Home to nearly one-seventh of the entire human race! Wow! That puts things in perspective doesn’t it? India. A huge camp. A melting pot. A collection countries in one giant country. All facts but so what? Just like when Nehru talked about our tryst with destiny, I too felt that there was a rendezvous with my country just waiting to happen…a tryst with my country.  Although I was born in India, soon this country became just a holiday destination for me. I felt more strongly about India and thought there was some binding knot. That made me feel like I was probably wasting my time working elsewhere and perhaps even betraying the tryst. Betrayal is a betrayal whether the betrayed knows it or not.  I felt India is where the future is. I still believe that. India is still a land where you not only cast your vote but also vote your caste. India is still a land of paradoxes where we have showcased tremendous achievements in information technology and even managed to send a probe to moon but at the same time India is home to 40% of the world’s malnourished children and 35% of the
developing world’s low birth-weight infants. I want to expand just a little bit more on this. Every year 2.5 million children die in India, accounting for one in five deaths in the world. More than half of these deaths could be prevented if children were well nourished. I admit we are a lot of people to handle swiftly and we populate the land so far and wide that it becomes a governance nightmare. Still I am sure you agree with me that something can be done. I’ll tell you why I am back. I certainly don’t expect to be the next Theresa, Gandhi or Vivekananda.

I’ll you what I do know. I know that I have this huge opportunity here. I have a chance to influence, in no matter how small a scale, the future and the direction of more than a billion people and that is like a sixth of humanity. Its right out there. Plenty to resolve. Plenty to deal with. So what am I doing? I am back here running a tiny little business to make some money. Not that I wasn’t making money before. I wanted to make it here, from zero, the harder way. I get to know this place and its problems. I want to be successful and, damn right, I want to make money. I want to help myself so that I can help others. We need money to make the difference. We shouldn’t fall into the nationalistic trap either especially when we become too patriotic for our own good. Since we are such a big chunk of the world, we ought to see ourselves as humans first and Indians second. Look at us. We are an ocean of human beings. How better to explain who an Indian is than to try and solve problems of more than a billion human beings? Our humaneness lies in our ability to bring about a
more equally distributed growth, reducing the injustices and rampant inequalities that plague this mini earth. So what does the new-age leader look like? Perhaps its the kind who believes in the power of entrepreneurship and believes in doing good by doing well. This generation, most of us, including you who is reading this, have been blessed with everything. Tell me something you don’t have and without which you will die tomorrow? Nothing huh? Alright, may be you could do with a faster net connection, a better phone, a bigger house, a decent car.

That is fair. You have to admit though that we already have most of these things in some quantity and quality. We can keep upgrading ourselves and that is fine too. Eventually we are going to be bored and that is going to happen sooner than you think. How about this – we carry on with our personal ambitions and keep achieving them left, right and centre but at the same time we keep our minds open, our intellects tuned to opportunities that will make a difference to, well, more than you and your immediates? May be we need to keep these things in mind and try to lead a more meaningful life because more often than not we crib about insignificant things. I don’t know to what extent my life is going to be of any use to another fellow human being but I am certainly willing to try and may be this Republic Day may be a good day to think about our nations future (which also means the world’s future) and how you and I are involved. Are we going to run away from this chance?
Ps: oh by the way, that day after my test drives, I had decided to go for the Nissan 350Z (niceeeee).
I am glad I didn’t.