Beyond Academics: Acharya Prashant's IIT Memoirs

Questioner: Going back to your journey during IIT, you wanted to get into IAS and that's why you wanted an entry through the IIT gates. When you actually got in, did you feel misplaced? Did you feel that you don't belong here? Like a lot of students do probably, because we hear a lot of these stories—a lot of these students are very young, and they prepare very hard, and their parents' expectation is there, a lot of money is put into their education. What was your IIT dream-like, living that IIT dream-like?

Acharya Prashant: I didn't have an IIT dream, it was just a pathway. So, it's not as if I was carrying humongous expectations and therefore I might have felt disappointed or something. IIT, to me, was a breath of fresh air. So, I lived a fairly protected life before IIT, so I went there, then by the time I got into the second year, I got a bike and a very free, very liberal and equally challenging environment, and a massive pool of talent, bustling energy, and so much to do.

I picked up sports, I got into dramatics, debating, writing, so much. I was a bit chubby when I entered, I just lost so much weight. I had to get all my jeans restitched. Because I was busy all the time, there was so much to do, and one didn't want to miss out on any of those things. If there is nothing else to do, go, just pick up the racket, and there is table tennis. All the sports, and I am talking of the mid-90s, India didn't really have too many sporting facilities in all the towns and places, not accessible to everybody. So, it was just very, very happening, something is happening all the time. Movies, so, the entire day, you are in the classes and in the labs, and then you return, and then you just eat something, the mess food was not too good, so you don't want to eat too much, and then you get busy with your sports or something, and then you don't want to miss the movie.

So, you go to the movies and that was my first experience with the theatres. Because 80s, the theatres were anyway not doing well, if you remember. There was the time of the VCRs, so I had not really been to the movie theatres. So, when I went to my first semester, I found myself rushing to the movies every second or third day, and then going to the hall, and then sometimes creating a ruckus there, stuff that the obedient and disciplined good boys never get to do at home.

So, I was doing all those things, night outs.; that's what IIT meant to me and competitiveness. Just when you thought that you had aced a particular course, you discover that there are ten of them ahead of you. And you think that you couldn't have done it any better and then you realize what raw talent alone can do. So, you saw that you might have been heads and shoulders above everybody at the school level or the district level, you know, in your own province, but when you come to a place like IIT Delhi, you discover that there are so many of them truly ahead of you, in terms of pure talent. And then you also see what hard work can do. You saw many others who were not so talented, but just by dint of their diligence, they would make it into the top ten in the department.

So, all kinds of things were happening, and it depended on you what you wanted to extract from that place. I think I did a decently ok job of extracting value from those four years. I was not a daily one, but quite regular at the library as well. So, there was reading, there was sports, there was co-curriculars, and politics. I had stood for the student body elections, I was quite deeply into it at one point, and it was all-around fun.

Questioner: Thank you very much for an honest answer to that. I want to move a little beyond your IIT journey. Let's move on to your IIM journey now. I know for a fact that it was a precursor to your IAS dream that you had, that's why you went into IIT also. But why join IIM, then? Once you were done with your IIT, you could have worked at a place you were an engineer. Why did you decide to study for another two years?

Acharya Prashant: See, all of it was just evolving. It's not as if these are episodic decisions. These things emerged over a period of time. So, there was a background to my decision to join the civil services. But when you are in IIT Delhi, the capital city, and you start seeing how the world operates, you also start seeing how the world of private enterprise operates, not only in India but also across the world. Then you start seeing that there are powerful forces other than and beyond the government machinery that are affecting and changing the world continuously.

When you are in a place like Kanpur or Lucknow, the places where I got my education from, most of it, the government is big, and there is hardly any private enterprise, even if there is private enterprise scattered and not really of much worth. In Delhi, that's not the same. Also, you get exposed to the world, and the internet came on in a big way in 96-97 in the campus. We had a top-class connection and we had access to all kinds of places on the web, much before the rest of the country did.

So, I started seeing that the power to change does not belong only to the government, more specifically the bureaucracy, there are other ways as well. Still, I proceeded with the preparation, the UPSC preparation. And the UPSC preparation is itself quite an enriching process, especially the general studies paper. So, I learnt and learnt, and learnt more. There were two, three, four intensive years starting right from my second year at IIT when I became very regular with the newspapers, and the journals, and gleaned as much as possible from as many places as possible, and I started seeing the limitations of bureaucracy. But still, I wrote the exam.

Curiously, what happened was that by the time I got through, I was already disillusioned. So disillusioned that I walked into my UPSC interview in a pair of jeans. I had already made up my mind that even if I get selected, I am not going to join. So, that was the reason I had filled up the CAT form as well, along with the UPSC. Even though UPSC continued to remain close to my heart for historical reasons, you know, it had been my dream since a decade or so. So, that hangover, you could say, continued even after the breakup.

But CAT had come in, and I could see that private enterprise means a lot. I didn't really get the time to prepare for CAT. November was my UPSC mains, CAT was on ninth or tenth of December, so could hardly give it a month, less than a month. But was fortunate enough to scrape through and landed at IIM Ahmedabad.

Questioner: You were scraping at that examination but you landed at the topmost institute possible. Were you aware that it was the topmost institute that you were going to at that time?

Acharya Prashant: I really didn't know that it is held in such high esteem, I really didn't know. In fact, I refused to fill up the forms for Indore and Kozhikode. So, only the top three IIMs or something. So, I said, “I am not going to the rest of them.” My ignorance, I didn't know that they were really so big.

And I could scrape through probably because I didn't feel the pressure to perform. When you don't have expectations from yourself, it sometimes happens that you perform beyond your regular level. Maybe that's what happened on the exam day that year. So, I landed there and I was not very happy to join IIM because the UPSC offer was there. The call letter was there, I was being called to the academy, and instead of going to the academy, I was going to Ahmedabad.

Questioner: This is which academy we are talking about?

Acharya Prashant: Mussoorie.

Questioner: The IAS academy.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. So, instead of going to LBSNAA, I was going to Ahmedabad.

Questioner: This is a choice a lot of people would like in their lives which you are projecting as a problem.

Acharya Prashant: I actually wept on the day I reached the campus because I had never wanted to be there. And the fact is, had I secured IAS proper, I would probably had gone to the academy. Just a few marks more, in fact, in today's scenario, my rank would have sufficed to get me at least IPS, but that was not the case that particular year. So, it was with a very heavy heart that I made the decision to go to IIM.

And even then, I didn't really leave the bureaucratic thing. I asked them for a sabbatical and they were gracious enough to extend it. And I actually resigned only after I graduated from IIM. So, for two years, I was actually in service. So, technically, I have two years of experience of being with the government. And though I didn't really work even for a month, hardly for eight, nine days or something, that's my active thing.

Questioner: But you were saying that your heart was not in IIM Ahmedabad. If your heart is not at a place that you are selecting or going to, you are inviting chaos in your life. It is something that I have understood in my personal life that has happened. So, what kind of chaos are we talking about? What exactly was happening and how were you dealing with your anxieties at that point in time?

Acharya Prashant: My past was calling me to the academy and I also had my attempts left. I had just begun, so, I could have appeared another time and gotten into IAS proper, and you know, it was very feasible, I just had to improve my rank a bit. So, my past was calling, beckoning.

On the other hand, my reason, my rationale was saying that the bureaucracy is not the place where you can bring about radical changes. And I had become quite a bit of radical by then. I didn't want management or cosmetic changes, I wanted to append it all. I wanted a very shift of the centre the entire world operates from.

And even if I forced myself, it was impossible to not to see that such a thing cannot happen via the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is not the place where revolutionaries can do their work. And something in me was beginning to see that nothing short of a revolution would suffice. So, as I said, with a heavy heart, I had to bid goodbye to my IAS and dream.

Questioner: But was it satisfying for you at IIM Ahmedabad when you spent those two years? You know, it's a struggle. Every time when your heart is not there, you know for a fact that you have to complete this degree. But every day, it's you waking up to something that you probably don't want to do. How did you manage that?

Acharya Prashant: See, when it comes to knowledge, I am a sucker. So, I do not really bother how that knowledge would benefit me in the future. So, if they are teaching me economics there, I am fully present. If you're teaching me strategy, or finance, or accounting, or HR, or communications, I am available. So, in the classroom, I was very attentive, very active. It's just that when you are with yourself in your solitude, you have your inner demons, and then questions regarding existence, purpose, and even the future, they pop up. So, they did use to be there. But I learnt a lot, it's not as if I neglected academics, I did decently in academics as well. I wasn't one of the toppers or something, but I was doing okay.

In my second year, I got into dramatics in a big way. So, the entire second year I spent doing plays. So, there's that society IIMACTs, and I would go and pick up scripts from Badal Sarkar, and Ayn Rand, and Ionesco, and Mohan Rakesh, and great scripts, wonderful scripts, and would direct, would act, and I gave myself totally to that. In fact, all my angst got expressed on the stage itself. Those plays were an expression of what I was going through.

So, that's how the period at IIM was spent. A lot of what I learned there has proven very useful. I use it on a day-to-day basis. And sometimes, when you look at people who have not been beneficiaries of management education, it's then that you realize how much you owe to an IIM. Because there are certain things that I find quite obvious and commonsensical, courtesy to what I have been taught. But since those things appear very obvious now, so you just forget how important they are and how much they are missed by those who do not have that knowledge or skills.

So, it's not as if those years went to waste in any sense. Those were years of tremendous significance, I was surrounded with peers who were quite inspirational when it comes to application, and diligence, and focus, and all that. Equally, I could see that profit and career were the sole motivators. So that place hardened me a lot. I said, “I am not going to go with the flow here. I am not going to belong to the campus, I am not going to be one of them.” Though in many, many ways, I really find them inspirational. But when it comes to meaning and purpose, I am not going to have it from them. And the flow there, mind you, is quite strong, and it's quite an achievement just to not go with the flow. So, I often say that IIM in some sense, those two years, really hardened me and prepared me for the challenges ahead. Those two years were years of, in some sense, solid rebellion. Nobody enters IIMs, especially in Ahmedabad, to do plays, and I was doing plays all the time. Nobody goes there to be sitting at the Gandhi Ashram half the time, and that's what I was doing.

Vastrapur and Gandhi Ashram, they are quite a distance from each other, but I would pick up my bike, go there, somehow earn the money to distribute stuff to the kids there. There was an NGO by the name ‘Manav Rachana that operated from the Ashram itself. So, I would teach the kids, be with them. Actually, the kids were supporting me, that's the reality. Because they were doing me a favour by spending time with me, small kids. I would be just so happy if one of them gets to watch this or one of them connects to me someday. But you know, they were so young, they would hardly have a memory of what was going on.

So, that's what I did at IIM. And just grinding your teeth, and clenching your fists, and deciding, “I am not going to belong to the system. Yes, yes, I am here to be educated, I am grateful I am getting this knowledge from this campus, but I do not partake in the spirit of careerism that this place has. I am not here to make a career. I am grateful you're giving me all this knowledge, but you know, the way everybody is just looking at internships, and jobs, and placements, and this and that, I am not participating in this.”

Questioner: Absolutely. And I want some nuggets of you on this. Every B school that I go to, I don't see this bit that you just mentioned as a focus. They don't talk about what the ultimate learning is. They start the conversation with what the ROI is going to be. And right now, we're talking about twenty-five lakhs rupees of loan, and that's something that they're entering this organization with. Now, in the back of their minds, they're always thinking, “Do I have the luxury to actually not think about money?”

Acharya Prashant: No. Then, you must see whether the whole thing is worth it at all. I shelled out a total of two point five lakh rupees, and that included the cost of the desktop that I was given. So, that was not really a consideration, even though I too went there on a student loan. But if it's twenty-five lakhs, these days, one has to very sanely consider whether the whole thing makes sense.

For an IIM, probably it does. But if it's twenty-five lakhs even for the lesser institutions, if I may say so, then it's not advisable just doling out that amount. Because what's the point? The peak, the prime of your life you are spending just somehow managing your EMIs, hardly makes sense. I don't know why one should feel the pressure to have that degree on your CV against your name. So much can be done just even without that thing.

If I look at it, in fact, please, I have many times more entrepreneurs from my IIT batch than I have from my IIM batch. The IIT batch has been much more fertile in terms of yielding entrepreneurs and a couple of unicorns as well. So, it's not as if you really need that business education to do even materially well in life, not compulsory, though useful, certainly useful.

Questioner: Are you hinting that this mindset of getting a job, hinders them from innovating?

Acharya Prashant: The packages are bigger, so the stakes are higher and that lowers your risk appetite. The packages in an IIM are like two or three times bigger compared to an IIT. Though there is a distribution, I am just talking of the average package. It is quite possible that a top IITian gets a package that even a fellow from an IIM Ahmedabad may not match; so that's possible. But when you get paid more, coming from an IIM, when you get paid more, it starts making lesser sense to quit everything, and go out and brave the winds, and the cold, and secure funding, and feel the pressure, and bear the grind, and do all those things.

And also, you are twenty-four, twenty-five by the time you complete your MBA education. So, for many people, it's another phase of life that awaits them. So, they really are not in a position to take risks in a big way, and in a prolonged way. Whereas, when you complete your B.Tech. or something, you're twenty-one or twenty-two, so, you have those three, four extra years when you can just play around with life, and experiment things, and see how it works for you.

Questioner: Right. Tell me something, Acharya ji, this is a conundrum that I also have in my life. I always think that what next? This is something that we all think, right? Am I doing the right thing? Where am I right now, is this something that was meant for me and I am doing the right thing or not? And what next that's coming for me? Is this something that constantly kind of eats you up as a professional?

Acharya Prashant: You see, if you are doing the right thing right now, that thing decides what's next. So, I have had the luxury of never being tormented by that question. In fact, I always have much more on my plate. So, the first question I suppose that you asked today, “What's my state of mind?” I said, “Wonderment.” You could say I am always overawed by what's going on and challenge.

So, you're never asking what's next. In fact, you have to ask yourself, “Now, there is so much, what to keep, and what to discard, and how to prioritize?” So, if you pick up the right identity for yourself today and the consequent right action, the decision has been made for you already then, when it comes to the future. Because the right work is just so overwhelming that you cannot ever call it done, or completed, or discarded. It starts owning you, it becomes your master, and it starts dictating your future. It's like a love affair, once you get into it.

See, you have a kid at home, let's say. You become a father, or you become a mother or something. You have a kid at home, you lose the luxury to envision the next day. How the next day would shape up is decided not by you but by the kid, that's what I am saying. So, get a kid.

Questioner: I actually do. I have one dog and two cats, all of them rescued. I really think about them the moment you said that. It made me think about it.

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