When I look beyond the screens — TV, computer, mobile phone, dashboard — that govern our lives today, I can’t but help get charged by the electricity in the air. Overnight, so many new people are doing so many new things in so many new industries that it is difficult to imagine a life that didn’t dare to look beyond doctors, accountants, bankers, engineers and managers as career options. Essentially, there is a new can-do-will-do attitude in the air. The telemarketing industry, that has been aggressively tightening its clutches around our private lives and causing annoyance of varying degrees for the past two years now, actually has real people on the other side. I’m sure rules prevent them from randomly dialling numbers beyond Indian borders, and those rules (consumers being given the choice of being called or not) should reach India soon. Even so, there are thousands of people with these jobs that help them carry home between Rs 3,000 (the daughter of our security guard just got one last week) and Rs 25,000. The business model is changing and today many of them are financially dependent upon results — the conversion of calls into customers. No security, no assurances; only a can-do-will-do spirit. The post office, LIC and UTI agent was a ubiquitous breed of illiterate, shabby, uncultured and unconcerned fiftysomething men with shifty eyes. Their younger versions, as agents of mutual funds and private insurance companies or direct selling agents of banks, have been around for many years now. But wealth managers — specialists who manage the money of the really wealthy — is a new lingo. Financial planners — professionals who examine an individual household’s finances in its entirety and offer integrated solutions — is a new designation. Coming up: financial systems implementation consultant, master financial professional, financial reporting accountant/manager, regulations manager. All these people, by managing our money in different forms, undertaking different functions, accepting different responsibilities and upgrading their knowledge and skills, are today creating high-income livelihoods, taking home six-digits every month. Some as employees, others as professionals. Can-do-will-do. The chicken tandoor around the corner is as old as the Mughals, but take one look at the number of new restaurants opening every other day and you know that a large number of entrepreneurs are creaming the moolah literally from under our noses. Punjabi, Goanese, Bengali, Chettinad and all flavours of India, plus continental, Lebanese, Chinese, Thai, even Greek — these foodpreneurs are creating fortunes. But it’s not just food that’s inviting enterprise. Littered along markets, in basements of residential colonies, in coffee homes, in two-hour train journeys are twentysomething entrepreneurs collecting bills to be paid, offering boutique software, back office and transcription services, cutting and packaging vegetables, creating specialised ad agencies, building clubs and education institutes and even selling dog-walking services. Can-do-will-do. A paradigm shift in thinking is on. Security of careers through the traditional job-profession route is no longer their prime concern. They want to carve out their own space, sow their own future, write their own destiny. They have realised what their parents haven’t — or have chosen not to: that to succeed tomorrow, they need to change their thinking today. The old vocabulary of survival was job or income security by working in conventional organisations like the government, the universities, the big companies, or by peddling in secure, established, predictable businesses. The new vocabulary of survival is to experiment in new, risky domains, where uncertainty is not only a given but essential to the process of wealth creation. The entrepreneur and the employee, both are taking risk — the former by putting ideas, capital and sweat on stake; the latter by experimenting with new services, new organisations that may turn obsolete in two years. Common to both is an attitude that refuses to conform, or tow the popular line, that is, well, rebellious at its creative best. Just as youth is supposed to be. Can-do-will-do. And they are not confined to the metros. I have seen them in Dehradun and Pondicherry, I know of them in Ranchi and Indore. Sacrificing current incomes, slogging nights and days and carrying a strong faith in their hearts, many of these new entrepreneurs are building strong businesses that will grow over time; maybe some of them will launch IPOs in which we will invest. These are the people we see driving to shopping malls in hot bikes, talking about the latest deal on latest models of mobile phones. They complete the cycle of money — earn, invest, spend. Where they are going to take us is fairly clear — towards a wealthier India 2025. Can-do-will-do.
