Cometh Community

I was at a OTV function last week and my mind harked back to why as a community, we haven’t been able to build, like say the real successful ones in South (Reddys, Chettiars, Naidus) or the Jains, Marwaris, Gujaratis, Parsis, the Sindhis, Jats or the Sikhs (obviously not comprehensive). And what could we (as entrepreneurs) do to spark a revival.

Historically, Kalinga (then Odisha) was a rather rich state. It had fertile lands, great maritime trade with South East Asia and natural resources like metal, coal and timber in abundance. And then several issues happened – some geographical, some cultural, some colonial, some political, etc. Well, that does not matter; we are where we are. Albeit there’s no taking away that we have progressed massively on all indices in the past 2 decades.

Back to what we can do, for that has to be a personal quest. Purely in learning from the famous communities above.

The first is to be the very best (globally) at what we do. While many have done well in many endeavors, there aren’t many that have reached that scale. True excellence has no compromises. In any field whatsoever, that’s the first. Then those stories will be told. And perhaps celebrated. And that will spark followers who will get inspired.

Second is to build a community. One who is successful pulls up the next few in his area, ones who are closest to him. Not as a mass revolution but just a few who are next to us. And then that will begin a chain and hopefully will cascade.

Likely a lesson for most communities, whichever way you cut it. It can hold true for communities built via common academia, common alumni, common professions, etc. Or for the own company that we work in, like I’d aspire to do for the communities of OfBusiness and Oxyzo for sure. Set a global benchmark and pull up a handful.

Once an OFBIan, forever one:

Asish Mohapatra

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