Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

November 13th, 2019. Jubilee Hall. Rashmi Bansal is one of the most celebrated names among the non-fiction writers of the me-now generation. Within a very short span of time, this IIM (Ahmedabad) alumna has literally flooded the market with a tidal wave of best sellers that started with Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” and was followed up with “Connect the Dots”, “Take me Home” and “Arise, Awake”. Having found her true calling – her magnum opus has already crossed the 1.5 million copies sold mark –  she is now a full-time author, apart from being the co-founder of JAM, a magazine dedicated to the youth, the only one of its kind.

 

 

“Rashmi Bansal” said Prof Dilip Shah, the Dean of student affairs of the college, “is one of the most powerful voices in the country, not only because of her connect with a million youthful minds, but also because of the way she his spreading the cult of entrepreneurship. In this avatar, she is doing much more than what traditional text-book oriented studies could ever dream of doing.” He went on to9 underscore, how the Bhawanipur Education Society College (BESC) is driven by the same belief of freeing the young minds from the fetters put on them and how both were essentially working towards the same goal. Prof Shah also welcomed Dr Neha Sharma, the Director of Shanti Business School to the BESC who had accompanied the author.

About two hundred students had packed up the Jubilee Hall to hear the celebrated author deliver her speech and she did not disappoint the assembled crowd. Drawing extensively from her experience, Rashmi Bansal did the Nike thing – impressing upon the students to do whatever that their hearts desired, without waiting for the “opportune moment”.

“Life is too short, either for procrastination or for brooding over what is right and what is wrong” she said “what is important is to do whatever it is that you want to do, without fear or favour, to take the plunge”. Her pitch was distinct – she made a concerted effort to wean the students away from a salaried future and encourage them to take up entrepreneurship, not only for their own but also for the greater good of the Nation and of mankind. For, it is the entrepreneur, who, more than everyone else ensures that the wheels of fortune are in perpetual motion, by contributing to the process of wealth creation.

An extremely powerful speaker, Rashmi Bansal not only carried the crowd with her discourse, but walked away successful in her mission, having planted the seed of entrepreneurship in the mind of BESC. “Her speech was a revelation” gushed an obviously moved student “and it was a pleasure the way she spiced her talk with stories from her life, which was not only pleasant to the mind, but have convinced me to follow my heart and take the plunge. Like she said, if she could do it, so can I.”

Prof Dilip Shah expressed his satisfaction that the students were so positive in the way they embraced the speaker, “this is the magic of one-on-one interactions” he said with a smile. ”It has been my endeavour to provide students with the maximum number of opportunities to interact with thought and domain leaders so that they may take life-lessons straight from the one who have been there, done it. What Rashmi Bansal said today, was in effect, a vindication of what we have been doing in the BESC and the positive vibes in the audience, more than her speech being an echo of our thoughts, is what makes me feel so happy and contended”.

The high point of the event was a spontaneous response for the speaker when she said that in her future book she would like to feature one of the successful entrepreneurs  from this college.

(This report has been filed by Gopesh Jain along with camera persons Sakib and Kanishq of the Expressions Collective of the BESC. Soham Das was the student co-ordinator for the event.)