in the other countries obsessed with
marks and grids the obsession continues
where your name is replaced with your
board results you’re not Rahul anymore
you’re not Anjali or 97% or 61%
somewhere along the way that is really
sort of affected me as an individual
when I was growing up in Calcutta I was
very fortunate to have attended one of
the oldest schools in this country I
went to Lamarck Nia College which is
probably one of the oldest schools in
India and what we had at school was what
I’m going to talk to you about was a
holistic education I’m going to talk to
you about this initially the obsession
of wanting to becoming a doctor an
engineer or lawyer if you want to do it
that’s fantastic but like me if you
sucked at mathematics that kind of takes
away from the science and engineering
aspects for sure
so when I was 17 or 16 years old I went
and spoke to a teacher and I said I want
to study social sciences I want to do
humanities and his reaction was are you
a girl
awkward and I thought to myself I said
why can’t I study history and literature
and these beautiful things that make
things come alive but I did commerce
with mathematics and struggle through
maths I had 12 math tutors I learned
more about drumming and the Rolling
Stones and Pink Floyd than I ever
learned about trigonometry and and
mathematics needless to say I scraped
through maths with the social pressure
of wanting to go and taking more
tuitions always raised one questions why
do we go to tuitions essentially we’re
paying people to teach us what we should
be learning at school and then it
becomes a social sort of angle of things
your parents would want you to say I
want a rota tuition I need extra help
and so as a culture we started creating
a pressure situation for our Paracels
for our students for our children so
when I decided to move back to India I
spent a lot of time in England as an
investment banker okay
and it involved a bit of math and a lot
of my friends job that the recession
happened because I pressed wrong numbers
not true by that so Investment Banking
which was an interesting aspect where I
learnt a lot about how other people
studied different things and chose
careers not relevant to what they
studied so in India when I remember
growing up they said if you wanted to do
banking or consulting you had to have
economics of Beco or BBA
the person who sat next to me on my
floor when I worked at Merrill Lynch had
theology he studied religion and his
thesis was on Judas and this was the
person who is sitting right next to me
the person on my left studied
Shakespeare and then I started
questioning something very important how
important is the information passed to
our students and parents about what we
should study there’s a very famous
American writers name is Charles
Bukowski his court said find what you
love and let it kill you in India we let
everything everything else kill us apart
from what we love okay so this is a bit
of my story before I get into where
education and how important it is for
you to be a well-informed young Indian
student if you are to lead this country
into a developed stage for the longest
time
India’s developing when I was six years
old we were developing when I’m 21 we
were developing I’m 32 we’re still
developing at some point I would love to
hear India’s developed okay now if you
watch football this part is very
important I’m a die-hard fan of a
football team called Arsenal okay and
they never win so whoever said yes I
mean I love you but you know we will
never win okay let’s this embrace that
if anything else we live longer because
when Arsenal plays a heart grows
stronger so this is me after Arsenal
lost the game I was 25 years old I had a
fantastic job in London and I said why
am I here what is the reason for me to
live in London and I said well it’s
mostly football not the job and if a
school isn’t winning and I hate my job
what am i doing that so then I said
back to India where in India I was born
in Calcutta my family is full of writers
and professors and and filmmakers my
grand aunt was mahasweta devi who was
one of the most respected writers and
one of the most translated writers from
India so to think of coming back to
India and getting into writing and
cinema was always a possibility but I
must tell you all one thing if you have
an idea you must go on a journey and
that is very important you must talk to
people believe me when I say this people
have time to talk to you if you spend
five minutes with them so I landed up in
Bihar like most people from London would
and it was a remarkable experience
because there were days when someone say
please don’t come outside of a house is
the Cobra and I would think okay this is
something I would never have imagined
and then they would days where you would
drink water out of a tap where you would
put a cloth and the water would come
through the cloth and you would drink it
and then you would see there was full of
mud and you start realizing how
privileged we are as individuals as
Indian as human beings but how far this
privilege take us do we like to keep
getting richer do we is our life on this
planet to become more successful and
quantified with money or will we make
one promise in one pledge that we will
try and make a difference in one more
life in a lifetime so my travels across
India led me to meeting these wonderful
people but seen for instance right he
took me to his village to play Holi
there’s no need to but when he took me
to his village I realized how many
children don’t go to school it broke my
heart
all my school I fought about I need a
new uniform I need new bata shoes I need
both shoes I need football starts and
here you were in an environment where
people didn’t even have the ability to
go to school question idea number one
you’ve come back to India what are you
going to do about it
how many people do you know how many
people can you talk to to try and make a
difference so I walked into a school and
I started spending time on weekends to
but you know children didn’t come to
school to learn they came to eat because
there was something called midday meal
parents couldn’t put two square meals
for their children this is also the
reality of the country we live in you as
educated people have to start taking
ownership and responsibility so when I
started teaching in these village
schools I was moving from up-2 be hard
to Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka and the
stories were the same farmers would want
their children to go to school because
they had one simple argument 13 years
before they earn well this evening they
can go and read the cattle I’ll see them
I’ll see the prayer of the product
tomorrow so India was opening up to me
in ways that I never imagined it to okay
and the journey essentially and this is
food but I’m going to come to this now
it really allowed me to meet more and
more people I would have spoken to maybe
20 30 40 thousand people over the last
four five years and my agenda has been
very simple how do we make education
accessible how important is it to break
the mold of these centers that promote
home schooling you look at quota today
you take away childhood and you speak to
children and I went to quota and I met
kids and I said do you want to be an
engineer no sir I want to be an MBA I
want to make lots of money where are
these aspirations coming from where are
these ambitions coming from parents and
as a collective effort across schools
such as yours another many others here
we need to start addressing that one
simple thing studying what you love now
where we lack massively in this country
is providing a holistic education to our
children what is a holistic education
why can’t we study physics with
philosophy why can’t you study
psychology with Mac well not math whiz
but as we know I’m not very good at
literature the idea is also for students
from a young age to have community
outreach to work with the
underprivileged to teach them
understand ourselves what privileges so
every school in this country this is
probably my 200th talk where I’ve been
going and telling people send your
children out there try and live one week
in a village try and see if you can make
a difference holistic education will
only lead you to becoming smarter
educated and passionate human beings
somewhere along the way we realized that
success is determined with money it’s
not really it comes down to you leaving
a legacy and you my friends are the
future of India so a holistic education
is what is required so when I moved back
to India I realized there’s a lot of
movement happening within the secondary
and and junior and sort of primary
school education with the midday meal
and things like that so I had the
opportunity to do something incredible I
joined the team to build one of India’s
first liberal arts colleges remember me
at 16 that was shunned away and said you
can’t study humanities you can’t study
social sciences this is me 16 years
later saying we will build the number
one college of liberal arts in this
country where every boy every girl has
the opportunity to study anything that
he or she wants to study you want to do
theater with physics of course we work
towards it you want to do things that
you’ve always loved and thought will I
make a career out of this we’re going to
give you that opportunity it’s very
important to ask yourself one question
and parents often tell me this what is
my first my son’s first salary going to
be now and I tell them I’m not a
soothsayer I’m not an astrologer I can
tell you what your son’s birth class is
going to be at college we often forget
there’s a journey involved before
reaching somewhere we’re so impatient
that we’ve already reached five years
away from where we are without ever
realizing where did those four years ago
so today I want you to do one exercise
when you go home on a piece of paper you
can lie to the world but you can’t lie
to yourself I’ve tried so what I would
want you to do is one is obviously
support Arsenal that’s very important
secondly what I want you to do is on a
piece of paper write the subjects you
love write things you’re passionate
about it could be
food it could be anything related to
things that make you happy happiness is
underrated okay and things you hate math
no um sorry and things you hate crumple
that piece of paper okay
keep it in your wallet when you decide
to study going to college open that
piece of paper and be honest to yourself
very important we live in a start-up
generation you can do incredible things
with your life and if you want India to
win more Olympic medals you have to
start doing things you love you need to
tell your friend who’s a good sportsman
to pursue it oh well we can have more IT
jobs as you can see because you go to
Seattle you go to Washington and you’re
on the tube or naturally like oh they
see off to Microsoft okay we have to
break that mold we have to come upon and
have more leaders as a nation if you ask
yourself again
how many global CEOs we have you are
gonna be surprised in the renewing at
Pepsi probably this boundary at mastica
this attended ale at Microsoft seven or
eight we’re a nation of over a billion
without 27 people and three people have
done with an extra Bosh well done you
know think about it how do you become
the next global leader how do you become
someone giving people jobs and not
seeking jobs education that is the most
important thing education and not
because you have to wake up for a nine
o’clock class sleepily walking in your
pajamas but you are excited enthusiastic
to walk into a class because you love
what you are studying
I’ve had six careers and I’m 32 I’m
writing a book and I teach on food I
teach the history of Delhi through food
and biryani and kebabs and I mean I also
do some vegetarian stuff so if you are
ever interested but it’s important that
I collated two of my most important
passions writing and food I did dream of
becoming an investment banker and
holding a green card I did dream of that
when I was 17 because that’s what
everyone told me but at 25 when I gave
it up I realized that my heart beats for
this country and by the time I’m 50 I’m
going to realize that was the best
decision of my life and I’m going to
leave you with one thought that’s me 26
years ago on this day I was a model
and but not a face model I was working
for bata so clearly have good feet and
this is an important day because today’s
Durga Puja okay and today I’m gonna tell
you whatever this is should you take
whatever you do in life keep the child
within you alive because that child is
not going to judge that child is not
going to get on order of Goswami show
and have a shouting match that child is
going to actively allow you to be the
most reasonable you’ve ever been in your
life you will laugh you will make others
laugh and you will be honest so embrace
that India by being that child you
always were more importantly remember
Bukowski his words find what you love in
this term a subject a stream something
that you can make your life out of and
don’t judge spread the good word right
so thank you very much for listening to
me and build a good India thank you [Applause]