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Education in India: A Rebirth

In March 2003, Anil Jethmal watched an episode of the television show “60 Minutes”.  That evening, the show featured a man known as “the Bill Gates of India”, Narayan Murthy, founder of the Indian technology firm, Infosys.

In a wide-ranging interview, the interviewer, Leslie Stahl, at one point, asked Murthy about the impressive “brain power” coming out in the form of graduates of IIT, the Indian Institute of Technology.  Known by executives in Silicon Valley as perhaps the most competitive in the world in which to gain admission, IIT had actually been Murthy’s son’s first choice.  Since his son was denied acceptance to IIT, he went to Cornell instead and, then, continued on to receive a fellowship and his PhD from Harvard.

Interviewer Leslie Stahl was surprised that an Ivy League school was, in effect, Murthy’s son’s “safety school”.  While watching, though, Anil Jethmal, was not surprised at all. After all, members of Anil’s own family had been accepted to and attended Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cornell, Brown and Stanford.  For some of them, IIT was actually their first choice.

Yet, in the west, most people outside of Silicon Valley have not even heard of IIT.  But within Silicon Valley, graduates of IIT are so well regarded that they have standing job offers at US firms.  Silicon Valley executives do not even require an interview from them. This is due to the fact that IIT’s vetting process for admission and consistent high quality of graduates has led to fierce hiring competition among those elite US firms.  It is hard to argue with the results.  Many of today’s most successful CEOs in the US received their education at IIT.

Many in the west wonder what happened that made an Indian institution, all of a sudden, such a gold mine of talent.  Anil Jethmal is quick to point out that India, prior to IIT, was home to the world’s best university for 800 years.

Before Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Sorbonne, Cambridge, Oxford, etc. ever existed, the world’s best university was India’s own Nalanda University.  Educating the best and the brightest as far east as Turkey, Persia, India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia…and as far west as Europe, Nalanda was every bit as prestigious as all the Ivy League schools combined are today.  

Nalanda taught religion, literature, astronomy, medicine, fine arts, mathematics, politics and much more. Its dormitories housed 10,000 students and 2000 professors.  Being accepted to Nalanda, like IIT, was very difficult.  One had to pass three rigorous tests in order to even be considered. Until its destruction by foreign invaders in the 12th century, its graduates, like those of ITT, were world leaders in many fields.

And, of course, subsequent to the destruction of Nalanda, from the mid-18th century to the mid-20th century, the British Raj did not allow most Indians to receive an education.  In fact, when the British were forced out in 1947, the literacy rate in India was below 17%.

The British Empire: Is Ignorance Bliss?

Virtually a lifelong New Yorker, Anil Jethmal lived in India for four years, studying at Bombay’s Campion School.  When he resumed his studies in New York, he was struck by the very different lens through which history was taught.

When a young Anil Jethmal first heard of the British empire and Winston Churchill spoken of in glowing terms in his New York school, he thought that he had misheard.  After, all, he was well aware of the evil atrocities that the British had committed in colonial India.  Anil learned in his Indian school days that a poverty-stricken England arrived on India’s shores in 1757 when India was one of the richest countries in the world.  By the time Britain was driven out some 200 years later, 90% of Indians were living below the poverty line, the average life expectancy was 27 years old and the population had a 17% literacy rate.

The reason, Anil Jethmal was taught, was that England governed India simply for their own self-interest.  During that shameful two centuries, through violence, racism and looting, Britain extracted, in today’s real terms, tens of trillions of dollars from India.  In fact, the Hindi noun “loot” meaning wealth was bastardized into a verb by the British, meaning to steal other’s wealth.

And after Britain destroyed India’s dominant industries such as textiles, steel and shipbuilding by maiming workers, destroying the tools of their crafts and imposing tariffs and duties, they were able to impoverish over 30 million.  Having no other choice than to starve to death, these 30 million Indians worked, virtually as slaves, in indentured servitude in the UK and its far-off colonies.

Simultaneously, another 35 million Indians died in British induced famines (the British claim the number is between 15-29 million).  In fact, Winston Churchill, who tellingly said “I hate Indians.  They are a beastly people with a beastly religion” showed his hatred for Indians in a manner that draws comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and Mao.  In 1943, Churchill seized food supplies from Bengal leaving 4.3 million people to die from starvation.  The seizure of these essential supplies was simply to add to reserve stockpiles for Churchill’s future planned invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia after World War II ended.  When informed that million of Indians were literally dying on the street as a direct result of his actions, Churchill callously replied “It’s their own fault anyway for breeding like rabbits”.  He added, “The starvation of anyway underfed Bengalis matters much less than that of sturdy tommies”.

Yet, to this day, Anil Jethmal hears Brits ignorantly sing the praises of Winston Churchill and of the British empire.  The reason is very simple.  Just as a communist or fascist country suppresses and alters its shameful behavior for public consumption, so too has the UK.  Even to this day, the British do not teach unvarnished colonial history in its schools.  In fact, one can study “A” levels at the most prestigious universities in the country and not learn a line of colonial history.  What is more, in London, a city that is littered with museums, there is not a single museum dedicated to British colonial history.  In fact, those very same museums, veritable thieves’ markets (chor bazaar in Hindi), proudly display their purloined loot without any mention of how and from where those items were stolen.

To this point, former schoolmate, Shashi Tharoor, quipped at a debate at the Oxford Union, “No wonder the sun never set on the British empire….because even God couldn’t trust the English in the dark”.   

Ahead of their Time

 Having lived in New York City for almost 40 years, Anil Jethmal has seen a major evolution in attitudes towards Indian customs and rituals.  Raised in a family of Indian descent and also having lived in India for four years, Anil Jethmal, as a child, considered practices such as meditation and yoga to be well established means for self-improvement.

However, when Anil would utter those words to his young classmates, he often was greeted with scorn and mocking laughter. His friend’s parents, too, would often respond with quizzical amusement.  Reflecting back on those days makes Anil Jethmal smile with satisfaction.  Those very same New Yorkers who once chided Anil Jethmal mercilessly now gladly spend thousands of dollars on yoga equipment and classes.  Others gush about the benefits of meditation.  Moreover, many of today’s enormously successful people in the US credit those ancient Indian disciplines for their own professional successes.

Anil Jethmal remembers it all too well….the debilitating pain, the excruciating journey to the doctor’s office and the inevitable long wait in the doctor’s waiting room.  It was yet another bout with gout.

Anil does not remember a continuous stretch of six months without an “attack”.  And every time it happened, he did not know what was worse---the pain itself or the experience with the doctor’s office.  The way Anil Jethmal explains it, no one could find a reasonable cure for the ailment---neither the doctors with the fancy Park Avenue address, nor the nose-in-the air Fifth Avenue doctors. And the experience was always the same. Anil would make his appointment---a 30 minute wait in the waiting room, if he was very lucky---once over 2 hours. And every time, Anil would endure that seemingly interminable wait in extreme discomfort.  It got worse.  After taking a blood sample for analysis, the staff would give Anil an appointment to see the doctor on a different day---another several days without medical treatment, another painful journey to the doctor’s office and another 30 minutes (at least) in the waiting room.

After ten years of being on the hamster wheel, Anil Jethmal took his family’s advice to go to India to see a doctor there and “take care of this once and for all”.  They quipped that the 16-hour flight to India was much shorter than the cumulative time Anil spent in Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue waiting rooms.  Of Indian descent and with significant interest in re-visiting India, Anil prioritized the trip.

Once in India, an appointment was made for Anil to draw blood---not in the doctor’s office, but in Anil’s hotel suite.  The phlebotomist (bloodsuckers…Anil calls them) arrived precisely on schedule. Anil did not even need to get out of bed.  Room service arrived minutes later wheeling in freshly squeezed juice and a croissant on white table linens to the other side of Anil’s bed.

The phlebotomist informed Anil Jethmal that the lab would hand deliver Anil Jethmal’s blood analysis report to his doctor in downtown Mumbai within 24 hours.

The next day, Anil went to visit his doctor.  He was cautioned to be on time because the doctor “ran his schedule with the precision of a Swiss watch”.  True to form, Anil experienced no waiting time.

The Indian doctor advised Anil to cut down on processed foods and to give his kidneys a rest by drinking freshly squeezed organic green juices every day for two weeks----and then again, at a very minimum, whenever Anil felt even a tinge of a gout attack.  He prescribed the same medication that his American doctor had prescribed.  However, while the American doctor had Anil taking the medications “for life”, the Indian doctor was confident that he could stop taking them after one month.

Four years later, Anil Jethmal remains completely gout free.  A year after his trip to India, during his annual check-up, Anil’s American doctor saw his bloodwork.  He was shocked that Anil’s uric acid levels (a sign of gouty blood) had decreased so dramatically.  Anil explained that it was because of his reduced consumption of processed foods and higher intake of fresh green juices.  Anil Jethmal suggested to his American doctor that he tell his other patients of his new found cure.  The doctor smirked at the suggestion.  “Keep taking the pills that I prescribed.  They are really working.”

When Anil Jethmal was 16 years old, his father sat him down at the kitchen table for a serious conversation.  His father told Anil that he had been discussing having Anil marry his business partner’s daughter.  

Anil Jethmal gulped----but then, there was a reprieve.  The marriage, his father further explained, would occur after both parties finished their college and university studies.

Luckily for Anil, that was the last conversation that Anil and his father ever had about having an arranged marriage.  In fact, a few years later, his father surprised Anil by emphatically stating that he would prefer that his children have a love marriage (where bride and bridegroom choose each other) rather than an arranged marriage.

He spoke about how marriage in India has evolved for the better over time.  As recently as 150 years ago, a recent widow would have to take her own life so that her body could be burned to ashes in the same funeral pyre as her recently deceased husband.  The practice was known as sati.  

Today, 85% of all marriages in India are still arranged by parents.  However, nowadays, the prospective bride and bridegroom have a say in the matter.  After the parents have chosen and agreed on suitable partners (a process that relies on many factors, including horoscopes), the bride-to-be and bridegroom-to-be can meet and “interview” each other.  The interview typically will last for less than an hour.  Based on that interview, they mutually decide if that is the person they choose to be their life partner.

When Anil Jethmal tells his westerner friends of the tradition, he is greeted with shock and dismay. However, in a recent survey, 74% of young Indians still prefer to have their parents pick their future spouse. They point to divorce rates under 5% as proof that parental wisdom in the matter is better than their own youthful and, oftentimes immature, judgements.

Anil Jethmal was raised in New York.  Of Indian heritage, Anil would travel back to Bombay (also known as Mumbai) India often to visit with family.  His New York summer vacations coincided with India’s monsoon season.  

In New York, Anil Jethmal had often heard of any kind of heavy rain referred to as a “monsoon”. Yet, when he visited India and experienced what a monsoon truly was, he realized his fellow New Yorkers were using the term to simply denote extremely heavy rains.

In reality, monsoon rains are much more intense than anything Anil had ever experienced in New York. However, much more than that, the beauty of monsoon season was that there would be extremely intense rains one moment, and as little as 30 minutes later, there would be barely a cloud in the sky. During the metamorphosis between rain and sunshine, the clouds would do an incredible dance that delighted Anil.  

Equally amusing, he noticed, while the Indians would run inside when the rains came, visiting Arabs would do exactly the opposite.  Since Saudi Arabia is mostly desert with absolutely no heavy rains, Arabs would run outside when the rains returned…...ecstatic to be drenched in the torrential downpour.  Then, when the rains disappeared, the Indians and Arabs would yet again switch places. In effect, as the clouds were doing their dance, so would the Indians and Arabs.

Anil Jethmal graduated from Bowdoin College in 1987.  He does not remember much of the day.  What he does remember, thirty years later, in vivid detail, is a twenty-minute conversation that he had with Maya Angelou. 

Maya Angelou had received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College that day.  At a cocktail reception following graduation exercises, Anil found himself in close proximity to her.  To his very pleasant surprise, she initiated a conversation with him.

At one point during their conversation, she introduced herself as Maya Angelou.  Anil, still star struck, smiled broadly and acknowledged that he was aware who she was. He introduced himself as Anil Jethmal. Instantly, she recognized the name as that of Indian heritage.  She asked if he lived in India or the US. Anil replied that he lived in New York.

Then, she asked a question that Anil has replayed in his mind dozens of times over the last thirty years---“What did you think of Bowdoin College?”

It was an open ended question, to be sure.  Anil steered it towards Ms. Angelou’s area of fame and expertise.  He replied that even though the student body was predominantly White Anglo Saxon-Protestant, with otherwise very little diversity,  it was the only time in Anil’s entire life that he consistently encountered absolutely no racism---not even a hint of it  Yet, when Anil had spent summer and winter breaks every year back in a very diverse New York City, he had an unfortunately familiar and almost constant unease of being blindsided with a racist “joke”, comment or innuendo.

“What does that tell you?”, she asked knowingly.  Anil Jethmal, reflecting on his personal, real life experience, replied that he knew people from diverse backgrounds who had racist tendencies, but he does not personally know any highly educated people who are racist.

Of the 4000 plus colleges in the US, Bowdoin College perennially ranks among the top ten of all colleges in the country.  To borrow a phrase, it is the “extreme vetting” process that admits only the best and the brightest to Bowdoin College’s student body.  The fact that Anil Jethmal personally experienced no racism during his four years at Bowdoin College gave him a strong basis to believe that racism is inversely correlated to education.  

Maya Angelou spoke of how Anil’s education had given him both a privilege and a burden of combating the ignorance of racism.  She challenged Anil to not collude with racism by responding with apathy.

Over the last 30 years, Anil Jethmal has taught dozens of financial advisor trainees various methods of stock analysis. Anil’s preferred method emanates from the Graham-Dodd method of investment analysis---that is to find value in a stock and then invest only if a large margin of safety exists between the market price of the stock and the value of the company.

Anil Jethmal concedes that some trainees were quicker learners than others.  Invariably, it is the quick learners who tend to be better stock pickers.  However, ironically enough, he found that it is not always the best stock pickers that have the best portfolio performance.  Anil learned, very early on, how humbling the stock market can be.  One might spend hours and days analyzing a company only to be proven wrong by the markets.  It is how one reacts to failure that is the more salient characteristic of what makes a successful advisor.  Too often, Anil finds, that an advisor is not willing to admit faulty analysis, and thus will ride a stock down further than one should.

Working in a business fraught with pitfalls and failure, Anil Jethmal learned very early what a disheartening effect the stock market can have on those who invest and, even worse, on those who advise. 

A few years ago, Anil ran across a video of J.K Rowling’s commencement address at Harvard University. The speech was about the fringe benefits of failure.  While Anil has found “inspirational videos” to generally be trite, he gave this one a chance since it promised to have some substance---J.K. Rowling addressing students at Harvard and dealing with the benefits of failure.  Watching the video, one gets an overwhelming sense that is was no accident that Rowlings went from being “nearly homeless” to becoming wildly successful.

With 30 years of teaching and advising, Anil found the video to be the single best teaching tool for dealing with failure--and therefore the single best blueprint for success he has ever found.

In 1987, Anil Jethmal graduated from Bowdoin College.  Thirty years later, what Anil remembers most of graduation day was a conversation he had with Maya Angelou, who had received an honorary degree from Bowdoin that day. She asked him what his plans were now that he had graduated. A very self-assured and determined 22 year old Anil Jethmal laid out his 1 year, 5 year and 10 year plan for her in painstaking detail.

After realizing that he had carried on for far too long, Anil asked what she thought of his plans.  After uttering some niceties, she advised Anil that life does not always go according to plan.  Sensing that he was about to receive unfettered bits of wisdom from the great Maya Angelou, Anil had the presence of mind to focus on listening instead of speaking, trying to remember instead of trying to impress.

She cautioned Anil against getting caught up by the greed on Wall Street.  She advised about the importance of balance in one’s life.  She reminded him that he was one of a lucky few who received an education from an exceptional institution such as Bowdoin....that he should use it for good.