Will We Ever Change?

Posted by: Vijay on: February 2, 2009

• In: Entrepreneurship | India | Politics | The Journey
• 10 Comments

Its 10:13pm. I just came back from IITM, after listening to a talk by Nandita Das on “Cinema and Social Change”. I have to admit that until today, I knew that the name had something to do with the Cine world, but I had no other associations of it. This is the first one, and it probably will last that way – thanks to Today.

There is something good about being in a University campus, and working there. You sometimes feel younger beyond your years, and sometimes you just feel out of place. In either case, it provides you an alternate reality – not that I wish for it, but the difference in perspective in opinion and viewpoint is one that I thoroughly enjoy.

I overall liked the talk. It was simple, casual, touched upon personal lives – had a wee bit of self promotion – was optimistic, and the tone was real. But perhaps the message was exaggerated.

See, Gandhi said the words “Be the change that you want to see”. Quite powerful words, and one that finds itself many meanings, depending on what lens you are wearing. Nandita felt free to use those words to stir up a moment, and even an applause from an audience. I dont blame her, but I think its a very common mistake. Let me tell you why.

Those words are around sixty years old. Look around you and tell me what has changed. Probably a little. Thats what nobody tells us about. I think we have developed this over-romantic ideology of what “Change” is. It’s really the simple things, and the little steps really. India going from a country which was under an empire, to becoming self-governing, to actually being one of the “positive” news in the economic situation – That’s change. But none of it comes easily. And if you look at things from an individual standpoint, you probably wont even have much to talk about.

Societal changes take ages to come into being. I have almost come to the conclusion that people never change. Its nice to stand on stage and talk about not getting angry when we are insulted. But the man was right, man is social and we are animals. And the first instinct is to get angry. And those who do act differently are either insane or, saints – both of which takes some working internally. The masses simply don’t comply with those rules.

So why am I writing about this topic in a supposedly “Startup guy’s” perspective. Because I think change is at the essence of entrepreneurship. We all aspire for it. We would love for what we create to take the world by storm, but most of us will live to see that thats not true. The world in most cases will act quite indifferent to it – not even hate it, which is the worst part. My mentor raised me repeating those words as I was making my baby steps. That was his way of preparing me for the real world. I couldn’t thank him more for it.

So does radical change ever happen? Absolutely. It happens only twice. One, if people are chasing after something that they desperately want. Its the romantic change. People will go to hell and come out unscathed to get that girl, that house, that future for their child. And there is one other occassion when that beautiful transformation happens – when we are at the brink of extinction.

Tell the world now that we need to save energy, and preserve water, and take care of this planet. They wont. But when our own life is going to be threatened, we would shut down all of our gadgets in a heartbeat, and happily prefer to live in the forests, in an unconnected world, oh so easily. Drastic change does happen… yep, but when we are in the precipice of extinction. If you are a startup though, that’s probably not the scenario you want to aim for 🙂

Be the Change… inspiring words, but somehow I have a feeling that those words will be scribed in futuristic placards and placed in a museum eons from now, and we still wouldnt notice the changes around us… because we missed everything. Because the change really is in the smaller things. When you can raise the tolerance level amongst ourselves by a few seconds, when one atleast starts listening to another for his viewpoint, and simply when we start reaching out for our ancient trait – of being an argumentative Indian, I believe thats where change really takes place.

Tags: Entrepreneurship, Gandhi, IITM, nandita+das, startup, talk, vijay+anand