Silent Seeds of Success

Trrng trrng, alarm beeps. Snoozed this time also. Then enters a middle-aged human alarm, Raju, along with some juice and toast, tries to wake up Pranay once again who might have pulled an all-nighter. Pranay is a seventeen year old boy from Delhi studying in DPS RK Puram, son of Mr. Bansal, Deputy Director Central Water Commission, and Mrs. Bansal, Creative Head in a leading advertising firm. Today is a very important day for Pranay, he is expecting the results of the engineering entrance exam he gave two months back. Pranay has been a bright student from the beginning, is fairly smart and curious. He has worked so hard for this exam, had been taking classes for the last three years, god knows how many times he skipped parties his friends were throwing in the most happening clubs of Hauz Khas. He has slogged so many hours in his study room and he moves to his bedroom only to sleep or sometimes when he needs a break from studies by playing some games on his PlayStation. He was just going to eat his breakfast and his iPhone ringed; results are out. He checked the results with all the haste and nervousness and yes, he cleared it. He cheered at the top of his voice, “I did it! My efforts have finally paid off”. His friends, family, and even those who barely knew about his existence commended him for his hard work and intelligence.

Is that it? Is that all you need to succeed? Hard work and intelligence. Is this the only thing Pranay had? What about the other factors which we knowingly or unknowingly tend to ignore? Or are people so delusional? Maybe. Sometimes it is a good massage for your ego also, to believe that it is all because of you. Broadly speaking apart from so many things, one major variable on which success function might depend is one’s socio-economic background. This encompasses the family one is born in, their financial well-being, their education, their occupation, various tangible and intangible resources they can provide, the lineage of wisdom and wealth they pass on, and whatnot. I would like to call these silent seeds of success. The best part is you either have these seeds or you don’t. There may be an argument that some seeds are more nutritious than others, but that’s a different debate. But let us be honest with ourselves having these seeds or not is a matter of chance, no amount of hard work or intelligence can get you these, best you can do is try and gift these seeds to your upcoming generations.

Let us try to delve into this further and see how these seeds help one grow. Pranay has a house help whose duty is to wake him up, cook and serve food for him, and do other household chores. There are so many families in developing nations like ours, who still struggle to find a place to stay, to look for ways to feed themselves and their loved ones. It’s not even in their farfetched dreams that somebody will wake them up and serve them food. Their dreams also aren’t courageous enough to dream something Pranay is living every day, which to him is pretty normal or sometimes mundane. Pranay in his seventeen years of existence never needed to think about how he will feed himself. Pranay goes to one of the best schools in town and in addition to coaching classes as well. Isn’t this an advantage? Does everyone have this opportunity? Yes, in a utopian world maybe. Pranay’s parents are already very successful and hold a reputed position in their respective fields. They always act like a sailor to his ship, guided him whenever he needed any guidance, gave him room to sway when he needed that. They had already trodden the path of success and had a book of their own mistakes and learnings, which Pranay has the luxury to read anytime he wants to. And when Pranay wants to walk on the same path he is already ahead of so many other travelers. Imagine a bright child who wants to succeed academically and in life and is willing to put in all the hard work. Say, his father works as a machine operator in a textile plant and his mother works in a shop as a helper. Will he ever be able to get the right invaluable guidance like Pranay? Maybe not. The next important factor is the peer group or network that one gets exposed to at a certain socio-economic level. There is a bright chance that some cousin or senior of Pranay is sitting at Stanford or MIT aiming to start a SaaS startup or to become an investor in Sequoia. On a regular basis, he might get exposed to discussions, say on world politics or on how climate change can impact us when his parents’ friends are chatting in the living room. The impact these things have on one’s personality and thought process cannot be quantified but is huge. Lastly, distress and discrimination are an innate part of life for someone belonging to a poor socio-economic background. Feud in the family or in the neighborhood over something which might sound so trivial to us is a daily sight for them since childhood and this can terribly affect their psyche. They may feel discriminated in some way or the other based on their caste, religion, and sometimes color. Even if they belong to an upper caste of a major religion, class-based discrimination doesn’t leave them, particularly in urban regions, for I believe class system is the new caste system. Someone like Pranay is always protected from these demons of our society. Inequality carried from childhood in the form of parents, their education, financial resources, and so on, goes a long way and results in inequality in mindset, opportunities, and hence achievements.

I agree this world isn’t a level playing field and Pranay is not at all at fault. He actually worked hard and maybe has an above-average mind also. He has all the right to be happy and celebrate the fruits of his labor. It’s just he might not be at that stage to think about all this and that’s completely fine. Maybe as he grows up and when his perspective broadens, he might acknowledge these silent seeds and become slightly humble and thankful to the universe for rolling the dice in his favor.