Rebels or Revolutionaries?

 

The Business Standard today morning carried articles on two maverick personalities in different segments – Rahul Yadav in the business world, and Kangna Ranaut in Bollywood.

I choose to call them mavericks, for want of a better term in my limited vocabulary. And I do not wish to label them as ‘rebels’, without a complete understanding of their psyche.

Rahul Yadav

I have keenly watched the waves created by Rahul Yadav, the 28-year old ex-CEO of a start-up housing.com. I admire his ability to stand out from the crowd, the courage to speak his mind and his generosity in giving away part of his stake in the company to the employees. He was widely accepted as a genius, but quickly written off by proponents of the ‘Conformity is the route to success’ theory. I was happy to hear about the launch of his new venture Intelligent Interfaces. Data aggregation and visualization solutions for governance needed a disruptor’s mind-set, and Rahul was all along seen as one.

He had launched exambaba.com in his student days in 2008, which is a collection of IIT question papers. He was totally consumed by the start-up bug and dropped out of IIT ( the hallowed Indian Institute of Technology), a few months before his final exams, to launch the now infamous housing.com. He quickly became a media favourite with his unusual outspokenness. The waves ended with his exit from the company. The launch of Intelligent Interfaces, rumoured to be backed by industry bigwigs (which is now being contradicted), re-ignited hope for the future. However, the recent announcement about the failure of the venture gives rise to several questions.

• Is it a lack of interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, that blocks his path to success ?
• Has he failed to learn from the past, and manage the present, while brilliantly visualizing the future?
• Is it a refusal to learn, to reassess, to recalibrate and try out a different method?
• Does he have a mentor, or has anybody shown the courage to mentor a disruptive mind?
• Does society have a responsibility towards nurturing brilliant minds, and channelizing the talent pool available?

Maybe, a new Rahul Yadav takes some more time to re-emerge, or just disappears into oblivion. Only time will tell.

Kangna Ranaut

The brilliant actress has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, other than the highest performance award in the country being bestowed on her. Her histrionic ability stems from her ease in letting herself go completely for a role, and the courage to enact scenes, where she is seen as less than graceful. She could drop all inhibitions, and draw upon the reservoir of emotions to bare her soul. The directors who have worked with her, appreciate her understanding of the finer nuances in the script, and her meticulous preparation for a role. Kangna has indeed come a long way from a small town in Himachal Pradesh, to the top echelons of the film industry of India.

There have been many who have tread the path before, and she would have anyway, found her place in the Hall of Fame. What catapulted her to a different level of notoriety, are the shenanigans in her personal life, and adamant stand on the controversies. She is being hailed as a feminist, and maligned as a social and mental aberration at the same time. She is deemed to be everything, but a normal, coy and gracious woman. It could well be her strategy to success that misfired. Controversies are known to erupt before the release of a film, and lead to its unprecedented success. But this time around, the controversy was not around the release of a film, but her personal life. It happened to coincide with her acquisition of the National Award, alongside the legendary icon Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. And there was no political manipulation in defaming her. There is no known cause that she espouses, except a demand for being accepted as she is.

The burden falls on the shoulders of her personal associates, and the world at large, can merrily stay away from it. Just enjoy the films, the tabloid gossip and go back to leading your life.

Rebels or Revolutionaries?

What takes young talent to the edge of invisible boundaries? They are rebels and visionaries and warriors, but fail to draw the line at some point. They extend themselves into the future, but snap links with the past, and consequently, lose the equanimity of the present.

The rebel secretly quite wants the world and the system to remain as it is.  Its permanence, after all, is the guarantee of his continuing ability to “rebel.”  The revolutionary, in contrast, really wishes to overthrow and replace existing conditions. 
-Christopher Hitchens, via Jean-Paul Sarte

The world for sure, needs revolutionaries, not rebels. The brilliance gets neutralized by immaturity. Mentoring such minds first needs acknowledgement and acceptance of their mind-sets, initial rejection of your views, tremendous persistence, and then a gradual correction of flaws in their thinking process. It needs a readiness to view the world through their eyes, and maybe, change yourself in the process. Outright rejection and ridicule drives them further on a path that leads nowhere.

Being Disruptive has costs.  You may lose friends.  You may upend an institution.  You may find yourself an outcast. 

But at the very heart of this mindset is being true to one’s own self.  Fight for what you believe in and never stop learning.  Push the envelope, experience new adventures and see what happens. 

It will probably pleasantly surprise you.

 —–Ben Kohlmann (Source : disruptivethinkers.blogspot.in)

Reference links:

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/rahul-yadav-says-he-wants-to-give-up-entrepreneurship-116051300989_1.html

http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/finding-kangana-116051301103_1.html