Rashmi Bansal - Take Me Home: The Inspiring Stories of 20 Entrepreneurs From Small-Town India With Big-Time Dreams

Country Roads, take me home

To the place I belong

John Denver

AUTHORS NOTE

There are some things you can never change in life. One of them is your place of birth. I was born in Ratlam and this was what I had to write on my biodata, on my passport, on the very first page of my school diary.

Why had my parents been so thoughtless?

My brother had the good fortune of being born in Bombay. He would never have to answer the question, Where is Ratlam? Uh, its in Madhya Pradesh. Really never heard of it! And there I would squirm, feel a bit ashamed.

The citizens of Ratlam are proud of two things: their town is an important railway junction, and makes the worlds best namkeen sev .

To me, it is what we call the native place. Its where I spent summer vacations, with a houseful of aunts, uncles and cousins. Each a colourful character, indelibly etched in my mind.

Like my chachaji, Shyam Sunder Agrawal, who never sat at a table, or wore shirt and pant. Dressed in white kurta and pyjama, he cycled to work. There he sat on a thick mattress, with his bahikhata , conducting the business of the Agrawal Steel Corporation (Power House Road).

When a child was up to some mischief, chachaji would call them a benda or a bendi . A special Ratlami word for idiot.

We slept on the veranda and fought over taash ke patte (playing cards). I could play teen-do-paanch the entire day and still not get bored.

Much as I hated the idea of being born in Ratlam, Ratlam never grudged me.

Looking back I see how snooty I was. Because I lived in Bombay, because I knew English. Because I never oiled my hair, or wore a bindi.

An idea of coolness so Western, so shallow. Like the lyrics of Careless Whisper, which I once thought was the ultimate song.

Today, I am proud of my Ratlami heritage. Of my cousins and aunts and uncles who have grown and prospered. Some of them still dont speak English, and still oil their hair. But it does not matter anymore.

This is the new India, the real India, the consumer every marketer and every soap opera wants to reach. They have overpowered the metros with their numbers, with their hunger. To be something, to do something. Through education, through aspiration, through pursuit of work.

They come to metro cities, in search of opportunity. But how long before the tide turns?

For there is a small revolution taking place in small-town India. A new breed of entrepreneurs who are changing old equations and assumptions. Doing world-class quality work from the city of their birth.

These cities lack the glamour of Bombay, but also the grime. Its a quieter, gentler way of life where time is what people have for each other, not something you chase to catch the next train.

The future is bright, it is beckoning. Close your eyes and remember your roots. You may hear a whisper from that inner voice, I have seen the world. Now take me home.

January 2014 Rashmi Bansal

Mumbai