Money!

This afternoon, (when I was supposed to study for tomorrow's Probability and Statistics), I was watching videos on YouTube and I saw this 20 minute video on TED "Jarrett J. Krosoczka: How a boy became an artist"

So, one might wonder who the heck is Jarrett J. Krosoczka, right? He's a children's author and illustrator form United States. So what? What fascinated me about Jarrett was his story. In this TED talk Jarrett J. Krosoczka describes his journey from naive doodles, kiddish comic stories that he drew in classes, to becoming one of Print Magazines's one of 20 Top New Visual Artists.


Well we all have heard story of people starting from scratch and achieving fame, money and other such things. But what struck me most was how Jarrett stuck to drawing those cartoons and doodles, despite lack of income sources,security or other such things. It wasn't just his creativity or doodling skills, but most of all it was his love for sketching, that made him what he is today.

But unlike Jarrett, Zuckerberg or others of the same sort, we here lack the guts to stick to something we love, something innovative, something cool. Is it only in the US that a boy in his 20s, coming from nowhere, can create a company worth billions in six years.

Even for brightest of minds here (IITs,BITS or IIMs) what matters are placements, packages and money. Yes, money gives stature – "Naya Ghar, Nayi Gadi",  lavish parties, high-end places you shop. We have newspapers filled with ads of luxury goods, as if acquiring them is life’s ultimate aim (All my intelligent neighbour dreams is of buying a Lamborghini in his life). We have TV shows about expensive weddings and judge people by their residential address. Yes we do have start-ups coming up, but even these start-ups are evaluated in terms of the money they make.

I hope one fine day, we Indians begin to think beyond money.And to end the blog-post with a The Social Network quote, I hope one fine day "Money, or the ability to make money, doesn't impress anyone around here."