My life is a big failure. I have been arrested three times, produced before a court once but never went to jail. Once hospitalised in an accident, but did not die. Perhaps I did not take more risk, may be I was conservative in action. Should have pushed my ambitions harder? Gained some, lost some but…

 

I am a small town boy of the 1960s, only son of non-prosperous parents. Studied in a Jesuit school, brought up in a potpourri of Vaishnava – Christian – Gandhi culture.  College in 1970 was a big jump for me, Economics, Karl Marx, Beautiful girls, Bangladesh war, Vietnam, free books uncensored by the paadrees. 

 

Next, IIM Ahmedabad in 1973, it was rocketing to the moon, among the “best of the best”. First mid-term exam, D minus in MSM but a B plus in Economics. What a come down and loss of face to the erstwhile hero! Hey, where’s your grip? Oh, found it. Two years later, a letter from PGP Chairman, “We award you the G Schol, You are in the Top 25%”!, Found my face again!

 

Placement season Desi boy finds favour with Pupul Jaykar, the prima donna of art and craft, and bosom pal of Indira Gandhi. She gives me a job as “Probationary Deputy Manager” in the Public Sector HHEC. I take my self-appointed role of “change agent” seriously. Fall on the face, once, twice, three times resistance is hard. The MD wants to sack me as a failure but I ask for “one more chance”. Finally deliver results, anointed “zero turns hero”. 

 

Resigns from job and wants to be on my own. Enough is Enough. It is 1981, Am nearing 30. High time. 

 

Its 1981, I am now on the road, no home. No scope for consultancy, market dominated by fixers. I try my hand at publishing for the masses. Release the first Computerized Index to the “Red Book” which puts the complex Government of India Import Policy “at your fingertips”. The book is a best seller, records sale of 3k copies in two weeks, flashed on TV, by VP Singh the Commerce Minister at that time. 

 

Money rolls in (Got myself some new clothes and took my girlfriend(s) out to dinner. Good times are here?) But I don’t know how to manage money, Fall again, once, twice. Declared bankrupt and insolvent. 

 

Finally, I learnt the art of making money and preserving it. Wrote a column in The Economic Times, and later Times of India, which ran for 25 years before the owners axed me. The writer was getting too popular?

 

Commissioned by GoI to rewrite, and officially publish, the “Red Book”. By now, I am an insider in Government observer and commentator on the great liberalization of 1991, known expert on product classification, trade and WTO. 

 

In the meanwhile, married finally in 1988 at age 36 to Mita, an English Professor who is Bengali. I now have my own office Ansari road, the publishing district of Delhi where I build and publish databases on trade matters. A side business is that of trouble shooting on Regulatory Affairs for the Rs. 130,000 crores mobile industry. Am dilettante at large, current position is study of human anatomy, and write satire to provoke English Professor wife in a running battle. We have a 28 year old son Asim who is an Engineer-MBA, two inches taller than me.