“India A Land of Cultural Entrepreneurial Diversity”

India is a land of cultural diversity – This was a common line in almost 90% of the essays written by Indian kids a few years ago. A lot of these have changed since then, two waves of pandemic hit us with the third wave in line, common political protests but now at a larger scale and many lives lost in the process. One thing that caught my eye among all these things was the rising entrepreneurial mindset among every age group in India. Teenagers these days are using buzzwords like startup and entrepreneur, planning on starting their own businesses and sharing potential startup ideas with each other. By the development of this startup culture, the younger generation is talking about investments, equity, valuation, funding, IPO’s and whatnot. If we closely observe the things happening around us, a lot of it has become contradictory in nature compared to the earlier times. When my parents were my age, they used to talk about how to get a good “government” job and bring food onto the table. On the other hand, we now talk about how to get into a good “private” startup company to gain more skillsets regardless of the salary. Earlier people wanted to save their capital money and hence invested in fixed deposits but now people are willing to take the risk and are learning to invest in mutual funds and the stock market (Of course with a few prominent exceptions). Youngsters are going to the extent of investing huge amounts in cryptocurrencies which have still not been legalized in some countries. The contradictory change in several other related domains gives a positive hope of our “developing” country paving its path to becoming a “developed” country. On a similar note of a contradictory change and entrepreneurship culture, a major thing that I noticed recently was, we have an Indian version of Shark Tank now. For those who don’t know, Shark Tank is a business reality show where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their startup and business ideas to a panel of distinguished investors and persuade them to invest money in their idea. I guess that’s the change India wanted where families not just turn on their televisions to watch the same old daily soaps but sit together and normalize watching budding entrepreneurs from their ’20s till the ’70s coming up with diverse business ideas and gathering investors and funding for their startups. Participants had startups ranging from an online clothing line, snacks, and refreshments products to some service-based ideas wherein they provide various business and healthcare services. One lady entrepreneur came to seek funding for her business of providing funeral services online. Who would have thought that a death ritual such as a funeral would now be arranged for someone with the help of a few clicks on the internet and that too in a country like India? This is the interesting part of the change we are currently living in. We never know in what direction it will turn into either positive or negative. But the only thing which brings the ray of positivity is the attitude change towards certain things the younger generation is moving forward to. Not craving for money but to learn new things and trying to do something of their own resulting in spreading the entrepreneurial awareness across the society. I guess a few years down the line, students will start using “India is a land of entrepreneurial diversity” in their essays. 

                                                                                                                                                              –Ninad Kancha