Sid and middle-class mentality

When I first met Sid he was wearing navy blue slippers, black shorts, and a fluorescent orange t-shirt with the words “Who’s your Momma?” printed in bold letters across his chest. It was a fall afternoon before the start of freshman year and I’d just reached campus after a grueling 30 hour journey from India. Those were the days when you had to go Calcutta-Delhi- Somewhere in Europe (Frankfurt/ London/ Paris)-Chicago-Indianapolis before driving 45 minutes to reach Greencastle. The odds of the bags making to their final destination were lower than the necklines on dresses worn to the Oscars - mine once reached a month later after an unscheduled stint in Africa. Sid, however, wasn’t worried about long journeys or suitcases; he had other things on his mind. He slammed his hand down on the hood of a car in the parking lot and said “Alright junior, welcome to campus. We’re going to arm-wrestle for your brother’s X-Box now”.

Over the next few years I got to know Sid a lot better. I learnt, for example, that he was lactose intolerant but loved eating malteasers (a kind of milk chocolate) on long drives. Individuals in the back seat were then subjected to a unique brand of biological warfare. I also learnt that he was nearly thrown out of a plane at 39,010 feet once after the unsuspecting souls at Aeroflot upgraded him to business class on a flight back to Calcutta – a gesture they have never repeated. After partaking of the free alcohol, Sid proceeded to play antakshari (a singing game) at the top of his voice and tried to rope in some horrified Russian businessmen as well. It nearly created an international incident.

His other idiosyncrasies included post shower walks to his room with the towel draped over his shoulder instead of around his waist, frequently considering a career in modeling, and introducing freshman girls to “thunder and lightening” – his biceps. But you shouldn’t let these anecdotes color your impression of Sid. He’s a teddy bear (just don’t squeeze him too hard). An economics and computer science double major, he also had his moments of brilliance. In a flash of clarity that only the finest whiskey can induce, he once sat up and proclaimed

“You, me, most of us in this room….we’ll be good but we’ll never be great. We’ll likely do fine but we’ll never make it really big”

“Er…why Sid?” asked someone.

“Because of the mindset we were brought up with - the mindset often found among families with no history of entrepreneurship. Because of our perspective on risk. Because of middle-class mentality” he replied.

Let me explain.

Almost all of us in that room grew up in middle/ upper middle class families in Kolkata (Calcutta). Our parents were nurturing, supportive, and gave us every luxury we needed. We were very lucky; some might even call us spoilt. From a young age, however, we were steered away from thinking about potentially risky callings. Sport was encouraged but more as a pastime than a primary focus. Theatre, debate, and music were meant to be hobbies, not our livelihood. Pursuing a career in an alternative field (anything outside of academia, engineering, law, medicine, economics/ management, and journalism) was risky and there was no pot of gold or phonebook to fall back on if we failed. The ideology was simple – get educated and get a job. That is what our parents had done. This wasn’t a strictly enforced rule; it was more of a strongly suggested guideline.

A part of this outlook is perhaps local to where we grew up. Kolkata is an incredible city to go to school or retire in but doesn’t offer much to the young professional. Labor strikes, political turbulence, and the silting up of the city’s once profitable port have resulted in industry moving elsewhere. Students are almost forced to leave for opportunities in other parts of the country or abroad. The ones that have returned or stayed on often have family businesses to join. Even within this industry, where businesses are passed on from father to son, it’s not clear that many new firms are coming up or growing aggressively. Kolkata hasn’t really experienced the boom that other parts of India have gone through over the last few years.

The economic situation in the city has widespread ramifications. Studies show that parents who haven’t seen or heard of successful entrepreneurs are less likely to be supportive of their progeny entering the field. Given that parental support and consent are typically vital for major decisions children take, the new venture space effectively gets crossed off the potential career list. The same holds true for acting and music. Until recently, these fields in India didn’t pay all that well and only a handful of artists had made it big. Parents from middle/ upper middle class families who wanted their children to maintain the lifestyle they were brought up with would try to steer them away from vocations that involved uncertainty.

There is also a cultural angle to this mindset – perhaps we Bengalis (the people from the state of Bengal) tend to shun capitalism. It is difficult for me to speak for others so I’ll give you an example from my own family. Upon returning home after completing his studies at Oxford, my grandfather was torn between two job offers that represented vastly different careers. One was a managerial position with the personal products line of a consumer goods company. The other was a job with the federal government. To help him think through the process, my great grandfather offered some input. He asked his son if he really wanted to sell soap for a living.

What I hope this anecdote reflects is the underlying attitude towards business or risk. In this case it is the mindset that celebrates the government employee but looks askance upon the entrepreneur or profit oriented individual. In other cases it is the mindset that encourages employment with a large firm but discourages starting a new venture. Kolkata has good engineering, technology, management, and law colleges either within the city or a short distance away. It should have the knowledge base and human capital required for start-ups. Though it would take decades to establish the property rights, venture capital sources, and agglomeration benefits of Silicon Valley or Route 128 in the US, the basic knowledge and potential to deliver should exist. We should have been able to create a microcosm of the habitat that exists on the west coast. Other than the political backing espousing this end, however, a critical element is missing. The ability to take a risk is not something that can be taught in the classroom and has not really been nurtured at home; at least not among the people I grew up with. The answer to all problems was not 42; it was more education.

This mindset isn’t necessarily local to Kolkata - I’m willing to wager that it exists in other parts of the country as well. It can be found among families where highly educated individuals have worked hard to make their way up the career ladder but haven’t really been involved with entrepreneurial ventures themselves. They contend that stories of successful entrepreneurs have a strong survivor bias – the only tales told are about the ones who have succeeded. Not all high school drop outs end up being Bill Gates and no-one really knows what happens to the people who fail. Corporate or government jobs, on the other hand, provide a far more stable livelihood. As my mother once told me “it is the exception that proves the rule”. And she’s right. The statement is a near tautology. The job market in India has not historically been an arena that encourages optimism. The sheer numbers in the country create a stifling degree of competition and individuals who have gone through the process realize that there often aren’t second chances. To be an entrepreneur would be akin to being a trapeze artist without a safety net.

Sometimes the mindset can also be driven by the fear of loss of social face in the event of failure. A survey of the most popular superpowers ranked invisibility highly. While this has voyeuristic implications, it also hints at the fact that anonymity is a powerful and much sought after quality. India is a gregarious country where significant weight is attached to social image. Middle/ upper middle class families often interact in circles where discussing what one’s kids are doing can result in pride or embarrassment. This can create vicarious associations with the successes and failures of one’s children. It generates an environment that is unwelcoming of career related uncertainty. Things might have been different had everyone led isolated lives. Social pressures might have had less of an impact on individual choices.

The attitude towards risk often permeates into other aspects of our lives as well. After the recent financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal published an article on how Indian men living in the US were shunned in the arranged marriage market because the state of the US economy was considered too precarious. Individuals working for start-ups, financial services firms, or as consultants bore the brunt of this coup de grâce. It is difficult to deny the logic behind these decisions – every mother wants the best for her laddo (daughter) and if that means a husband with a lower but more secure salary then so be it. I’m not comparing the choice of marriage partner with choice of job, though in some cases there isn’t much of a difference, I just think it showcases the general averseness to risk. An arranged marriage has a lot of uncertainty associated with it – the individual on the other end might turn out to have terrible digestion problems or snore up a thunderstorm at night. It was interesting to see that career associated risk, above all the other variables, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Let me conclude by saying something I should have started out with. I do not mean to be judgmental of the mindset referred to above – this was intended to be observational, not critical. I realize that there are very good reasons for why people think the way they do and that this outlook arises out of the love and concern for one’s children. It is engendered by brute fact and does well to put food on the table; starry eyed messiahs often end up hungry and cold at night. But it is also necessary to consider what this mindset precludes. What are people missing out on by buying into or propagating this outlook? Aswath Damodaran, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, offers an interesting definition of risk. Using the Chinese symbol for the word, he discusses how risk means both hazard and opportunity. It refers to both the upside and the downside. You typically cannot have one without the other. The only thing all lottery winners have in common is making the initial investment of buying a ticket.

So what would you do if your son or daughter came up to you and said he/she wants to give up a stable career and start a business or take up an ‘alternative’ profession? How would you react? Though I am (hopefully) close to a decade away from having kids, I realize that Sid’s middle-class mentality is likely where my reply would likely come from. Perhaps this is because I’m emulating my own childhood and what people told me when I was young. Perhaps I have been programmed too well and can’t overwrite the code. Either way, I realize that there are questions that I need to work out for myself. Why? You might ask. Why try to be great and risk the comforts you get from good? What’s wrong with just being good? The answer is nothing. There’s nothing wrong with being good. There’s nothing wrong with leading a comfortable life. But I’ll leave you with a quote from the movie Troy –

Messenger: The Thesselonian you're fighting... he's the biggest man I've ever seen. I wouldn't want to fight him.

Achilles: That’s why no-one will remember your name.


Ps. Sid today is married, which is clearly testament to the fact that miracles do happen. He lives and works in Singapore and is pursuing a new venture on the side. Give him a hug when you meet him and wish him luck.