indian success story

today i met an indian success story. when you think of an indian success story, you usually think of the lone son of a poor lower-class family slogging at school between handling 3 jobs to take care of his ailing parents and hungry siblings. he manages to excel in his 12th class examinations and is offered a place at the various IITs and IIMs , and so his life immediately takes a giant leap into the burgeoning middle class. 


that, however, is not the story of vikash kumar. vikash kumar was terrible at school, he never even used to go to his classes. he had no lofty ambition of entering the IITs and the IIMs of India. hell, vikash kumar did not even know a word of english till 5 years ago but he is now the executive director of the world's premier microfinance magazine- Microfinance Focus. we sat down and had lunch together today, and as he was narrating his life-story to me i could not help but gape in awe.


vikash told me he was born in a remote village in Jharkhand- his village is 16 hours away from Calcutta and the journey involves a bullock cart, a boat, a bus, train, and many many kilometres of walking. just to put things in perspective, i can leave washington dc the same time that he leaves his hamlet and we will both arrive in Calcutta at the same time. additionally, you should know that Jharkhand is one of the most backward states in India- it is one of the poorest and most illiterate, and it also has the some of the highest mortality rates in the nation (and invariably, in the world). anyway, vikash grew up in a piddly village in Jharkhand and was educated in a government school up till his 12th grade. now, government schools in rural districts are frightfully bad. the teachers are incompetent, the facilities are non-existent, and parents themselves do not value education as much as they do child labour. vikash never used to care about studies because of the typical villager's small-world mentality that education would be pointless for his likely future career in farming or taking over the family kirana store. he said that he would never go to class, instead whiling away his time goofing around in the fields with his friends. after his poor showing in his 12th grade board exams, his family admonished him for being a wastrel and told him he would be a complete good-for-nothing. 


vikash finally decided to make something of his life, so he decided to head to the nearest big town in his district. his family was against this, they thought he would be of better use working in the fields rather than roaming around  cities trying to make a living. finally, he managed to convince them on the condition that he return in a year if he did not make a name for himself. he wanted to get a MBA but this was not possible without a solid command of English. vikash's education in his village was in the hindi medium and so he had not a clue about the english language. the first thing he did when he got to Bhagalpur was find a premier english coaching academy and he enrolled himself at great expense to himself and his family. he studied english intensively for just 6 months before writing his GMATs. he had only learnt english for 6 months up to this point! how much can you possibly learn in 6 months?! i am pretty sure that i would have only gotten a little past the alphabet. vikash did exceptionally well in his GMATs and got accepted into a number of prestigious indian business schools but coming from a poor family, he could not afford them. he finally enrolled himself in a MBA programme in Rural Management in the Entrepreneurs' Development Institute where he found that he was unable to compete with the other students and was only an average student.


however, it was here that vikash's brainchild was spawned. he recognised that microfinance was a growing field and he decided that he would take it upon himself to annal its progress and offer a database of information for his colleagues in the field. his first newsletter was written and distributed in MS Word; i'll put it up here when he sends it to me but when i read it, i remember it being poorly worded and grammatically awful. i had no idea why anyone would want to read it. but this guy had tremendous courage and determination- he would work on his newsletter late into the night after coming home from his day job (which was a low-paying position at Grameen Koota).


it must have been immensely challenging and disheartening, and his road must have been littered with so many obstacles the way but look at where he is now! he is the go-to person for any microfinance news/information/research. he has an excellent website with tons of information, he has even managed to interview Muhd Yunus and Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, and most importantly, he has turnover of a couple of hundred lakhs (Rs 100,000). can you imagine someone who has just learnt english as the editor-in-chief and executive director of a leading editorial? his english may not be the best but he is still learning the language avidly. he is lively and jovial, and in his eyes, you can see hardship but you can also see hope. he is the sort of person who makes you realise that if you put your mind to it, anything can be done! america always brands itself as the land of dreams but vikash kumar is living proof that any place in this world may be the land of dreams if the dreamer has the courage, drive, and determination to pluck his dream out of the sky and land it in reality.