Karma Chameleon

AMONG them, they share India8217;s most coveted degrees and experience in the bluest of chips. They were India Inc8217;s Men in Suits, the...

AMONG them, they share India8217;s most coveted degrees and experience in the bluest of chips. They were India Inc8217;s Men in Suits, the kind who would make covers of business magazines8212;if not in their corporate avatar, then as the perfect provider. Six-figure salaries, a sumptuous suburban apartment, a spouse who quits her career to bring up the ideal child. They would have Arrived.

Instead, they chose to Go Away. Away from the beaten track, in search of a new destination. In another generation, they would have been dismissed as the jholawallas, the rebels with a cause, usually socialist. The new generation of dropouts, too, follow a cause, but it8217;s their own heart. There8217;s space for ideals, yes. But no illusions.

Take Sunil Vishnu and Karthik Kumar, both 25. As classmates at the Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad, they shared a common passion in theatre. But cautioned by professionals like Naseeruddin Shah and Sanjna Kapoor, they joined the rat race. 8216;8216;We actually lived like rats,8217;8217; says Karthik. 8216;8216;No bikes, no splurging.8217;8217;

Within two years, one was a project manager, the other a senior marketing executive, and there was Rs 2.5 lakh in the bank. Seven months ago, they set up 8216;Evam8217;; last month saw their first production Art open to appreciative audiences in Chennai.

8216;8216;We identified why earlier outfits like ours didn8217;t work,8217;8217; says Sunil, 8216;8216;they were sponsor-unfriendly.8217;8217; The marketing jargon is intact, so is the commitment.

If the Chennai duo always knew what they wanted to do, Ashwini Bhatia, 31, didn8217;t have a clue. The Punjab Engineering College graduate had been through two jobs in two years when he headed for the Dhauladhars in 1997. One morning, the Moment happened. 8216;8216;I knew I could scrounge together Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 through odd jobs,8217;8217; grins Ashwini.

The first job was teaching physics at the Tibetan Children8217;s Village School in Dharamsala. And then, just as he was beginning to get restive, he met Angus Macdonald, a lanky Aussie photographer 8216;8216;I had wanted to meet ever since I read The Five-Foot Road, his book on China8217;8217;.

Today, they are partners in the Moonpeak Photo Lab. Ashwini the engineer is now Ashwini the self-made photographer and co-founder of the Kangra Bird Club, soulmate to Mizo wife Zos and father to one-and-half-year-old Arnav. 8216;8216;We make okay money, enough for a comfortable life and a bit of savings,8217;8217; he says.

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The new buzz among India8217;s most favoured sons, then, is not about living up to parental ideals or societal expectations, but about following the heart. And no way is it easy. Delhi8217;s Django okay, that8217;s his stage name, his real name is the more prosaic Gyanesh Gupta was a bania boy in a secure job at Thai Airways with a secret desire to be Michael Jackson. 8216;8216;I was the best dancer in my Latin American dance class, but I never thought in my wildest dreams I could make a living teaching dance,8217;8217; says the 27-year-old.

Nor did his family and friends. 8216;8216;They thought I was out of my mind when I quit my job after a year,8217;8217; says Django. Now, with wannabes and already-theres crowding his Copacabana dance school in New Delhi, Django is nurturing hopes of rivalling Shiamak Davar in a couple of years.

But the new follow-your-dream mantra isn8217;t guided by principles of prosperity, it8217;s more about passion. 8216;8216;I decided if it was a toss-up between acting and a bike, and no acting and a Merc, I8217;d go for the former,8217;8217; says Arvind Shandilya, 25, who chucked up his budding career as a lawyer at Delhi High Court to don warpaint as a bit-part player in the film and television industry earlier this year. 8216;8216;I earn less than a tenth of what I could have as a lawyer, but I tell myself that as an actor, I live a new life each day.8217;8217;

8216;8216;And it8217;s fun,8217;8217; assures Siddharth Sharma. 8216;8216;It means freedom from suits, protocol, high stress levels.8217;8217; He should know what he8217;s talking about. The one-time investment expert with Deutsche Bank, London, is trying to find himself nowadays8212;but if, 40 years ago, the search would have taken him to godmen and the Ganga, the 28-year-old today is dabbling with languages, paragliding and travelling.

8216;8216;I lost out on so much doing the conventional thing,8217;8217; says the IIM-B graduate. 8216;8216;Right now I have the financial security to try out different things. The decision to quit the corporate was the hardest I8217;ve ever taken8212;it may also be the best.8217;8217;

Like Sid, Jayesh Morwankar also ran away from the boardroom into the great outdoors, to transform a passion for trekking into a business op. Odati, the adventure activities firm the 32-year-old launched after quitting Iridium, is also Jayesh8217;s way of educating neo-trekkers about nature and the pitfalls of overkill.

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Giving back, in fact, is a huge factor for those in the switching tracks mode. While the Evam twosome keeps aside a percentage of their earnings for the Cancer Hospital in Chennai, Ramesh Ramanathan, 39, quit as managing director and European head, Citibank, to launch Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based NGO that works to improve the quality of public governance through participatory democracy. 8216;8216;Real change is going to happen in the local governments,8217;8217; says Ramanathan.

8216;8216;This is the real world,8217;8217; says Aditya Natarajan, 30, CA, MBA and now a programme manager with the underprivileged children8217;s NGO Pratham in Ahmedabad. 8216;8216;I earn about 12 per cent of what I got as a vice-president with an IT company in London. But then, I always wanted to work at the grassroots level.8217;8217;

If an 18-month trial stint with the NGO cleared any doubts Aditya may have had, his decision triggered quite a storm at home. His parents, not unsurprisingly, are perturbed about his financial security. But Aditya doesn8217;t blame them. 8216;8216;Unfortunately, developmental work is still considered charity,8217;8217; he points out, emphasising that his parents are not alone in their worry.

But the misconceptions are more than balanced by the returns, assures Manisha Khemlani, who gave up a career in physiotherapy research in Sydney three years ago to run a vocational training programme for village women at the Chinmaya Seva Centre in Sidhbari, near Dharamsala. 8216;8216;My job offers peace and creative satisfaction with just the right amount of challenge,8217;8217; says the 33-year-old, who has trained an army of physios in surrounding villages.

Mundane matters like marriage and family don8217;t cloud her mindspace. 8216;8216;I don8217;t want to restrict myself to two or three people. I enjoy the freedom of community work,8217;8217; says Manisha.

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Freedom. That is the guiding force for today8217;s privileged people. In their 20s and 30s, they are the generation caught between the selflessness of their pre-independence parents and the post-liberalisation self-seekers. And in that fine balance lies the ability to make a difference.

By Palak Nandi in Ahmedabad; Manraj Grewal in Chandigarh; Rosella Stephen in Chennai; Astha Gupta in New Delhi and Ketaki Ghoge in Pune