Excelling through hard work

No job is menial and it doesn’t take innovativeness to think differently and indeed, make a handsome living out of it.

At 32, Arnab Mondol taught me that. Owner of 16 stalls spread over Central Kolkata and a plush flat in the upscale Salt Lake City, here is someone who began without a job, an emaciated purse and survived for a year on dabeli and bada paav — Mumbai’s staple snacks that charted his rags-to-riches itinerary.

Son of a jute mill worker from Burdwan in West Bengal, Mondol came to Mumbai with dreams to make it big. For a year, he survived at a shady guest house near CST station.

Then it struck him. Kolkata, like Mumbai, a city where Bengalis love to gorge at roadside stalls, was oblivious to these delectable snacks. Mondol got his childhood friend, Animesh Misra to assist him to set up a small shop at Gariahaat in Kolkata.

Rechristening bada paav as boro ruti and dabeli as dadar kirti (which, incidentally, is a famous Bengali film) to give them a Bangla tastebud twist, Mondol struck gold.

From one to 10 to 16 stalls, the count continues. Today Mondol employs 30 people, drives a Maruti, but still takes turns to assist in making the dish at his stalls.

Mondol didn’t do anything extraordinary. He just kept his eyes and ears open and followed what American educator writer, Peter F Drucker said, “Innovativeness is an act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth”. If Mondol can, all of us can as well.