Binny’s reputation, however, rested on something else entirely: he had a girlfriend. He was dating Aparna, one of his three female classmates in the computer science department, and considered attractive. The men in his class numbered more than fifty. Being in a relationship was ‘the rarest of the rare thing’ at IIT. Binny was of average height and had what is considered quintessential Punjabi good looks – clear green eyes, fair skin and a sportsman’s lean physique. He often invited jealousy but such ill feeling would never escalate thanks to his agreeable personality.
Engineering students are often known to lack rounded personalities, as they spend their late teens confined in the bleak rooms of Taylorist7 coaching institutes in the single-minded pursuit of securing admission into a reputed college. Very few of these aspirants make it to the college of their choice, or in many cases, of their parents’ choice. Many of those who do, spend their college years in a vacuum of sorts. Their conditioning is such that education is seen strictly as a utilitarian means towards the end goal – a respectable job. Humanities programmes – there is one at IIT – are dismissed as superfluous. Social development in this environment is thus stunted, and gender sensitivity is nearly absent. Many male engineering students struggle to hold a basic conversation, much less form friendships, with women.
In this abnormal environment, it was hardly surprising that Binny was one of the few men who led a ‘normal’ life.
Binny lived in the Shivalik hostel. In other hostels, first-years had to share their rooms with a roommate. Shivalik was the only hostel where every student had a room to themselves from the beginning. It was the least distinguished of the ten IIT Delhi hostels. It had been opened up to students in the four-year programmes only a couple of years before Binny came to the campus (IIT Delhi also offers a five-year programme). Anil Kumar, Binny’s hostelmate, describes Shivalik as a ‘very laid-back kind of place, a sleepy hostel, almost like for retired people’.
Anil and Binny worked together on the student publications board which published the campus magazine. The magazine contained student profiles, information about events, study groups and other on-campus activities. Anil, who came from a small town in Bihar, was in the civil engineering programme. He and Binny had joined IIT in the same semester. Unlike Binny, whose involvement in the publication board’s activities seemed perfunctory, Anil was an energetic member of the group. He organized events, put together a literature festival that boasted Keki N. Daruwalla as one of the speakers, and won praise across hostels for his efforts. Binny, on the other hand, ‘was a bit in his hostel’s image,’ says Anil. ‘He was not too enterprising and he didn’t really show any signs of leadership then.’
One of Binny’s teachers at IIT Delhi was Professor M. Balakrishnan, who had graded his main research project in the programme’s final year. Professor Balakrishnan has no recollection of either Binny or Sachin being his student. He only realized years later that he had taught Binny, as he watched an interview of the Bansals with journalist Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s show Walk the Talk, where Binny mentioned his project.8 According to Professor Balakrishnan, it is largely the mediocre, anonymous students such as the Bansals who excel at entrepreneurship.
It hasn’t escaped Anil Kumar’s attention either that the highest scorers in his batch may have done well in their careers but they weren’t the standouts. The people who truly excelled were the average students, nearly anonymous in college.
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EXODUS FROM AMAZON
This is the story of how Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal met, an extraordinary tale as befits all matters of grave importance such as politics, caste, religion and war.
There are often varying accounts of the same historical event. This isn’t unreasonable – memory is fickle, events lend themselves to different interpretations, old opinions get coloured by newer perceptions that are bound to evolve with time. But what Sachin has said publicly about how he met Binny differs so much from the accounts of people who knew them during Flipkart’s early days, that one must delve into the concept of the ‘creation myth’ to understand Sachin’s claims.
In Flipkart’s later years, Sachin came to idolize Steve Jobs. He treated the Jobs biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson,1 like the gospel. Closely associated with Jobs and Apple Inc, the company he co-founded in California, is the idea of the creation myth, a practice entrepreneurs often follow, whereby the story behind their company’s creation is embellished by at least some imaginary element.2 The purpose is to pad up the romance, glamour and providence already associated with the company and its founders. The fact that Job and his friend Steve Wozniak built the Apple computer in a garage all by themselves is only a half-truth. Such accounts presented as the real and romantic version of how a company was founded become a source of inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs who look up to these successful entrepreneurs as business icons and role models. Most founders perpetuate the creation myth to some degree, even if they add minor imaginary touches. It is but expected that an innovative entrepreneur who has founded a business worth billions of dollars, will be able to creatively present their founding story to the public. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, who, like Sachin, also idolized Jobs, has been known to fabricate his own creation myth around Twitter. It has been alleged that Dorsey gave the impression that he was the sole person responsible for the founding of the online social networking company, thus erasing the
