Main aur AAP

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often - Winston Churchill

As the broad contours of this post crystallised in my head this evening, I grew determined to write about what a wonderful thing change is, and why we all need to support it. Then, I went back a couple of years, when I was in second year of college, when Vedant told me very animatedly about his Students' Union campaign speech. He said that he was surprised that he could make a statement like "Kakati represents change, and change is good." He seemed, then, to wonder why people would accept that statement (the second part of it) without any protests. Let me park this thought here.

It has been a very long year for anybody who has ever been a supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The time during the Delhi elections was the high tide of our enthusiasm, when it seemed that we could set the world right just by pressing the 'jhadu' button on the EVM. It seemed like the politics of this country was going to change, that governance and public accountability would get a new definition and that the tyranny of the ruling classes would end. Over six months down the line, that hope has evaporated. Several people who were associated with the movement have grown disillusioned and left. Not without reason! The party has, at several stages, made it difficult for us, the silent supporters, to justify their actions. It was difficult enough to justify the resignation from the government, when the perplexing recommendation to the Lt. Governor to not dissolve the house surfaced after the Lok Sabha results. Part of this would be media mis-interpretation (as has often been the case with the AAP), but it was enough to make people believe that we made a mistake.

Let me again park this though here, and move back a couple of years to my college life. Quite in contrast to how I feel about things now (someone recently told me I had a mahatma kind of demeanour), I would be very aggressive about my view points, and my perception of what is right and wrong. I was much like what the AAP now is - with a clear conscience, but with very little understanding and tact. I would often rub people the wrong way (I remember once, when a senior questioned me about a mock stocks model I made, I told him that he first needed to know a bit of finance to understand it). I spent nearly a year in this 'activist' mode, shielding and encouraging those who I perceived as being wronged, and being very aggressive with those who I saw as perpetrators of a legacy of racial and nepotistic favours. It all came to a rather violent end, and since then life has become less about standing up, and more about accommodating.

Now that I think of it - would my life today be richer if I did not make those 'mistakes'? I do not think so. Those 'mistakes' was as much part of the 'change' that I was trying to bring about as anything else. I was trying to bring about a system where mistakes were considered less of a crime than malfeasance. I strongly believed, and still do, that as long as the heart is in the right place, mistakes should be condoned. Change is a delicate object, and we need all our patience and all our will to see it through.

Coming back, why would the same principle not apply to the AAP? Of course they have made mistakes! Does that mean they are unfit to govern us? I do not think so. As long as the heart (i.e. participatory democracy) is in the right place, we will always find a way. I needed my shock three years back to become a new and improved person, and the AAP is going through convulsions of its own. Shazia Ilmi's resignation has been (thus far) the nadir of this downturn, and it made me write an email to her. She replied, reaffirming her commitment to doing the 'right thing always' and saying that together, we should all make India a better place. It was reassuring to know that we, with all our differences, are hoping for the same thing - a better India, a happier life for its citizens.

I would end by saying that change is at best the panacea to our present woes, and at worst a 'disruptive agent' that will keep the status quo on tenterhooks. I feel that we in India tend to question change more than we question the status quo - this is our famous 'chalta hai' attitude. I looked back into my past, and I found that for me to be a 'holistic individual', who applies the same principles to his social life as to his individual life, I need to support the AAP for as long as I can (till the time that their heart is in the right place). If at this moment, I turn my back on the party and the movement, it is a betrayal of that spirit of change and innovation that, in one college society, helped me become the person I am, and in another, saw me destroy myself in the singular aim to achieve it.

Rhodes Application _ Statement of Purpose

As I begin to write this essay for M.Phil in Economics at Oxford, I see it as the answer to the simplest question I’ve been asked. My supervisor at McKinsey once probed ‘What makes you want to wake up every day?’ I have thought intensively about it for a year, and concluded that it is the desire to see people, myself included, live a life of happiness, contentment and self-actualisation.

I believe that self-actualisation is driven by opportunities. The transmission of capabilities and networks within a family, while leading to great progress, also leads to inequality of opportunities. For example, I see education as both progressive and divisive – it is an enabler for greater opportunity, but also intrinsically linked to the parents’ status.

My father grew up in Gorakhpur in under-developed Uttar Pradesh. His decision to seek employment outside Gorakhpur and his steadfast support for the best education for me, financial constraints notwithstanding, enabled me to hone my academic and literary skills. I stood third among over 600,000 candidates in the Class XII board exams. I then came to study Economics at St. Stephen’s College, aiming to pursue an MBA and working in the corporate sector; coming from a middle class family, financial security was my primary concern. I topped the Common Admission Test (CAT) among 180,000 candidates, the only arts student to do so. I was offered admission to MBA by all the top IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata – and by ISB, Hyderabad. At college, however, I had found my true calling. I thoroughly enjoyed Economics; I stood 1^st in the graduating class and engaged in a lot of data-driven research. The liberating atmosphere at college also enabled me to turn down the MBA offers and instead, work at McKinsey and Co. This decision was the best I could have taken – not only have I worked in strenuous client-facing situations, but the firm has made me more passionate about economics and more knowledgeable about India’s social problems than I have ever been.

To me, however, everything I achieved was a function of my father’s espousal of good education. I was, in that sense, lucky - most Indians, who do not go to a top-notch school or college like I did, start out with a disadvantage. It is with this thought that, a year back, I made ‘equal opportunity for all’ a personal motto in my life.

I have made an effort to study India and its people. My internship at Bandhan Microfinance, consisting of field surveys at 17 rural locations, was extremely insightful. The grueling visits, during one of which I had a heat stroke, made me realize just how tough provisioning of basic services in such areas is. I also saw Bandhan fill the gap through informal schools and semi-trained health workers. Next year, I worked as a strategy intern at SochYo, a start-up aimed at helping urban NGOs be more effective. At McKinsey, my most exciting experience is an ongoing study on inclusive growth for India. Not only are we characterizing India’s poverty rigorously, but are also framing broad contours of the potential solutions. For example, I have leveraged McKinsey’s exceptional network to come up with a new deprivation-based, solution-focused segmentation of districts.

Based on my experiences, I believe that creating equality of opportunities involves two distinct aspects – capabilities and channels. Capability building in others, especially around education and employability, has come naturally to me. When I topped the country, several students from less developed regions messaged me. I tried to help them in every way I could, and then thought of more sustainable interventions. Open source learning is one - I completely believe in it as the future of education. I thus uploaded 11 self-made video lectures on undergraduate econometrics on Youtube. Recognizing the importance of MS Excel today, I initiated the ‘MS Excel Lecture Series’ at college and also taught it to clients at work. While teaching English to an underprivileged teenager, I realised the link between communication and employability. I thus started Absolute Interview, a website dedicated to helping students, irrespective of their background, have an equal chance at admissions and jobs through CV restructuring and interview guidance.

However, I struggled to make desired impact because of failure to create enabling channels. For example, as part of a Financial Literacy Campaign, we were able to raise the number of bank accounts among temporary college workers manifold, but were unsuccessful in popularizing more advanced products such as insurance and loans. This, I later learnt, could perpetuate poverty, since lack of inter-temporal monetary substitutability augments child labour. As an economist, I hope to break such vicious cycles.

During M.Phil at Oxford, I will enhance my knowledge and gain practical exposure to careers in development. My preferred choice of subjects in the second year – development economics, game theory and econometrics – reflects this aspiration. Skills such as conducting experiments and surveys using advanced econometrics, and knowledge of development theories will be immensely useful in my goal. I will continue to supplement my formal study of Economics with my own study of politics and history. Oxford will also provide me excellent exposure to practitioners in the field of international development through lectures and discussions. I will also evaluate different career paths, since my impact will be higher at an established organization. At the core of this choice, however, is my strong affinity for Economics.

One day, I see myself designing and implementing welfare policies in India, and I view my primary contributions being academic and analytical insights, and focus on impact. How I reach that position is a question I deliberately leave unanswered, because this lack of preconceived career plans has allowed me to take my best decisions.

In conclusion, Steve Jobs once said that you can only connect the dots looking backwards. I see all my experiences coming back to the same idea – my joy in seeing people be the best they can be. Today, despite a rewarding career in the financial sector, I want to move decisively on this path. My experiences at Bandhan, SochYo and most importantly McKinsey, have given me the resoluteness to make this application with complete honesty.

Life is pleasant, death is peaceful. It is the transition that is troublesome - Isaac Asimov

I am feeling quite restless today. It is perhaps like a student feels nearing the end of his examination - the end is close, but there are still a few barriers to cross. Similarly, I am waiting to sprint towards life in September, when I move to the next stage of life to pursue my M. Phil. in Economics at Oxford. What happens from now till the end of my job feels like 'borrowed  time'.

My friends have been taken a bit by surprise by my recent spate of rather emotional status updates on facebook. Perhaps it is during these times on transition that I tend to revert to what is the 'core' of me, and there I discover a lot of anguish, and yet a begrudging acceptance of the anguish. I am not running away from my sadness, and am just getting it out there. I have noticed how it is sometimes difficult for people to understand my pain, just because I smile through it (my smile, on the other extreme, also irritates people because it comes forth in very intense situations - but that is another story in itself).

Put together, there is a lot of uncertainty over the next couple of months. There are lots of things I could optimise for - my career in general, my studies at Oxford, time spent at home, time spent with friends, travelling across India etc. In making this choice, however, I want to go back to that one guiding principle that has done me wonders.

Let me take you back in time. People still ask me why I turned down the IIMs. Any career-minded individual will tell you that it was quite an obvious choice - my job has opened up more doors for me than an IIM ever would. I would be lying if I say that thought did not cross my mind (at that time, however, I did not quite understand how big the difference is). But, for me, it was an intensely personal question. I wanted to spend time with my friends in Delhi - with Manchit, Swati, Juhi, Pranati, Gaurav, Suhani, Juni, Kritika, Anoothi, Abhisek, Niket and all. I hypothesized, at that point, that after two years many of these people would have left Delhi, and that I myself would have had enough of the city that I would want to move on, to a new city and a new life.

Thankfully, all of it has come true. I am still in Delhi, but I might as well have been in any other place in the world. The city has lost its charm for me. Given the life I have lived in the last two months, I feel like I have now done whatever I wanted to do in the city; everything after this would be deja vu, or returning to an old friend at best. I feel ready and determined to move on to new shores.

Coming back, this realisation now gives me the confidence that I am ready to move out of Delhi in these remaining few months. Maybe Mumbai, maybe travel the country or perhaps abroad - but some place where there will be new stories to make. Because Delhi has been kind enough, it will forever remain the nur of my eyes. Because I cannot do any better than the stories and memories I have of this city - my childhood, school, college and work. It is time to move on. Thank you, Delhi.