The game is always rigged.
My
father’s disdain for the arts far exceeded his indifference toward my
dyslexia, forcing me, a numerically challenged person, to study commerce. A subject I quickly developed an equal disdain for. What college didn’t
teach me, despite being about trade and commerce, was that the game is
rigged and the dice is always loaded.
My
first proper job selling cars in Kolkata seemed like a dream for an idealistic
auto lover, till it quickly fell apart. I learned that most of the
gruff, uncouth buyers who booked ₹6 lakh cars (in the 90s) did so only to sell the
allocations at a premium. Concurrently, seeing how a nonchalant young
plain-Jane at the bus stand, hopped into a van full of sleazy guys after a
brief chat, catapulted my moral and sexual innocence to oblivion.
We learned
that our rival dealer outsold us five to one. He was a
well-heeled Marwari businessman who was related to, or knew all the who's who in town,
and even the car manufacturer's regional office chaps were on his payroll. Who despite knowing practically nothing about the cars or the customers, still expected dealership staff to bow low to them.
Later, as an auto
journalist writing a magazine bike column, the outgoing editor boasted
about running the rag for over a year without anyone having a
driver’s license. His replacement was a borderline psychotic self-styled super bike expert who broke every journalistic norm. He sent out drunken rants by
email, and seemed determined to prove he was a reckless asshole. Which he succeeded in doing, by crashing a few test cars, and next the magazine into the ground. By then, I was
unpaid for months. Despite having a decent readership and a flair for
writing, I could never find another gig. Well, aside from the occasional
dangling carrot to get free work done. Why? Because most editors were
moonlighting as consultants for manufacturers or riding the gravy train
of freebies: the business class flight to Stuttgart, the bullet train to
Nagoya. Sometimes, a few crumbs fell to the senior staff too. So, who needed rogue truth speakers, writing skills be damned.
Now, a few years spent in trying to be an innovator and running a startup, the scene is no different.
I don’t know the exact ratio, but the number of Startup incubators mushrooming everywhere in India, is certainly not about promoting the Supreme Leader's vision of empowering Indian startups or Atmanirbhar Bharat.
They are the new NGOs, the "Dukan" (Shop) variety!
And believe me, those inept seminar event managers and webinar organizers, who parrot startup mantras—people who’ve never built anything themselves? They may actually be the best of the lot. The most benign ones are in it for their salaries, which are quite often much higher than what bootstrapping founders can afford to pay themselves.
Otherwise, it starts with incubator staff skimming cuts from disbursed grants—government and CSR funds. Then the rot goes all the way up with their bosses siphoning money through shell startups. Many saddle their incubatees with rent and incubation fees hidden behind classic bait-and-switch tactics. Some offer one-sided contracts that startup founders either don't understand or are too desperate—or broke—to have vetted by a competent lawyer. Not that most lawyers even grasp the nuances of startup contracts themselves.
Then there are the idea thieves—those who harvest concepts from ideation-stage applicants. Not to build anything themselves, of course. No, they peddle those ideas to wealthier businessmen as consultants. Others act as scouts for land sharks—VCs—always looking to carve out their pound of flesh.
Frankly, here are more games being played in this space than I can even claim to know. The deeper you go, the murkier it gets.
As I said at the beginning: the game is always rigged.
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