On the contrary: Of valleys and startups

As we enter a new phase of LAPT, that’s life after President Trump, the results of a survey released by Bentley University make for interesting reading. “Only 13% of survey respondents said their career goal is CEO or president. Almost 67% said their goal involves starting their own business. Fred Tuffile, Bentley’s Director of Entrepreneurial Studies, says that Gen Y want to make their own pathways because they suspect traditional ones may lead nowhere. “Millennials see chaos, distrust of management, breaking of contracts and bad news associated with business,” he says.

“They’ve watched their relatives get fired and their peers sit in cubicles and they think, ‘There has to be a better way.” My good friend Anuvab Pal, an MIT alumnus, opens his shows with this killer line: “My parents are always whining, ‘Beta, we sacrificed so much to send you to

MIT and now how do we tell Shona-masi that you work in a mall?’ Hunh?”
Having attained codgerhood, I am struck by the number of young people who forsake the safety of corporate life for the gamble of a startup; it helps if you say the word with an accent that oscillates between Malleswaram and Manhattan. Like starredup. Say it really fast and you can make Lady Gaga look like a has-been. You have to follow it up by saying that you’re back from the valley. The Vy-alley.

I was about as popular as the Bible salesman at the Al-Qaeda convention when I ventured to suggest to a gang of millenials that FAAN (Facebook, Amazon, Apple & Netflix) was rubbish. “Dude, that is so lame,” I was counseled by a bunch of young greybeards, one of them sporting a luxuriant man-bun which had me forlornly stroking the few remaining hairs on my head in envy. “Ok, so I’m past it but tell me how it is noble to inflict the daily trivia of your toiletry habits on your circle of friends, bore them to distraction with your likes/dislikes and continually discover, as the Wilde-man said, “the price of everything and the value of nothing? Online, in the Amazon shopping jungle. When I have difficulty sleeping, I read Jobs’ biography and in seconds I am snoring sonorously, I added to their collective outrage.

“You don’t like movies,” one asked in the aggressive manner an immigration officer may have adopted with a Syrian passport holder at a US border. “Netflix isn’t so bad but they lose the plot when they substitute a curator with the banality of the lowest common denominator. Mob thinking degenerates, dude,” I replied but they had all left by then.

As a former food writer, I am occasionally approached by a millennial looking for  validation of his rockstar idea. “So, we’re like total foodies and we have this awesome app that will…” “Deliver food from UB City with white glove service in twenty minutes,” I complete his sentence, as if we were a long married couple.
“Awesome, you’re so cool, uncle,” he says until he sees the pained expression on my face. “Even if Mallya escapes prosecution for his financial crimes, the Bangalore Urban Arts Commission should sentence him to ten years for that ghastly Chrysler wanna-be,” I venture, “ and tell me how home delivery of momos is a game-changer?”

Lamentably start-ups in waste management, water conservation, renewable energy are un-cool, which is why an organization like Hasiru Dala shines with the intensity of a Martin light at a Coldplay concert. This 7500-member strong organization has spread from Bangalore to Mysore, Tumakuru and Nelamangala and has ambitious nationwide plans. Their business model leverages wastepickers’ expertise and entrepreneurship, generating stable livelihoods in the process.

Training this invisible section of society to play a critical role in solid waste management system is their primary focus, while providing them with the umbrella of social security.  Dry waste collection, community composting and terrace gardening services are offered while Total Waste Management Services with a van unit franchise model is an option for areas outside municipal reach. Hasiru Dala offers a user pay model with innovative pricing and currently service more than 20,000 households.  Since inception, they have diverted 8610 tons of low and high value dry waste, and 3713 tons of organic waste from landfill.

They have also pioneered a trend of zero waste events in the city, created unprecedented awareness and reached 30,000 individuals from all walks of life. Best of all, they have given wastepickers a sense of identity, access to financial inclusion, health insurance schemes, educational scholarship and loans for their children’s education. Now that’s a rocking stardup, dude.

Ajit Saldanha has a finger in the pie, and another on the political pulse. And when he writes, he cooks up a storm.