Sunday Snippets: The samosa tycoon
By Venkatesh Raghavan
It was early morning when my friend Amir pointed out the latest trending story on social media about a samosa vendor and his wife. Making samosas on the street yielded the couple an income to the tune of Rs. 12 lakhs per day. Our conversation went somewhat along these lines.
Amir: How on earth can it be Rs 12 lakhs per day? It amounts to upward of Rs 3 crores on a monthly basis. I feel the figures have been very badly cooked up and this is indicative of unrestrained exaggeration.
Me: Exaggeration also serves a purpose, my friend. It’s good that such statistics hit the mainstream media and get consumed by the masses.
Amir: Of what earthly use can such blatant lies be to anyone?
Me: If you see clearly Amir, parents will stop making a beeline for admission to professional courses like engineering and medicine. Instead, they will groom their children to cook vadas, samosas, dhoklas and other such snacks and act as vendors just outside the campus gates. People will then start seeing sense in not allowing their wards to blindly get admitted to higher education institutions.
Amir: How on earth is this going to help our country, when we require more skilled humans for handling technology and that too with successive disruptions like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics?
Me: Technology is only for those who require it for reducing routine manual effort. It can assist our vendors and make them earn more money for the nation.
Amir: From what you say, entrepreneurs like our samosa sellers or snack dispensers are the only ones who will need technology and AI interfaces. Rest students who study in college can in vain take pride in wearing well-ironed formal blending with powdered or clean-shaven looks.
Me: If you observe Amir, whenever a country seeks to expand their economic activities, they have to start from the bottom. For instance, if we want to make forays into Make-in-India, we have to expand our workforce in labour-intensive areas like textiles, leather works and toys. Similarly, if we want to put the skills of our engineers to good use, there is no better way in training them to come out with machines that can assist milkmaids, newspaper boys, fast food vendors, samosa and other desi delicacy items sellers.
Amir: You seem to be oblivious to our nation’s requirement for startups that can come out with innovations in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
Me: Innovations Amir, can wait till the other countries in our globe start looking up to us for the growth model we pursue. That will result in the free exchange of ideas and information to deal with our daily needs.
