Founder's Blues

I've been meaning for ages to blog about the process of setting up a non-profit think-tank. Not so much because I have any great insights to offer but because someone else doing the same thing might stumble upon my blog and think, "Okay, I am not alone in this universe! There are other insane, misguided and obstinate people out there, whose egos won't let them beat the retreat that the rest of them urges."

So right there: Some qualities that it takes to found something when you have nothing more than your own skill-set and a clear vision. A healthy degree of insanity that allows you to boldly go where only Star Trek has gone before. An ability to selectively edit out the cautionary advice you get--and where I am, where answers to all questions begin with either "That's not possible" or "That's very difficult"--this is especially important. Obstinacy that makes you stay the course in a way that's true to your vision and not "what someone else does" or "what funding agencies like." And an ego that won't let others be right, even if you have to bend the universe to your will.

I would say that Prajnya is the natural adult version of an institution-building imagination I have always had. I am not just rewriting history to say this. Every cousin, aunt, uncle or schoolfriend that has been subject to my school prospectuses and architectural blueprints for a campus would attest to this. My school dream borrowed from all the school story-books I loved and my vision for Prajnya grew out of all the other think-tanks and dreams I have encountered.

And yes, I do use the collective 'we' when I speak about this in public, but the reality is this is a dream that found its first agent in me. So this and related posts will inevitably be very personal.

So where do I start with this? I won't do this in a linear mode because really it would not be fair at this stage to narrate the back-story of Prajnya in any particular way. Ultimately, this will be a story of many stories and many people.

What I do want to write about are moments like the one I have been this morning.

I have before me a fundraising proposal to write. It requires imagination, knowledge of the field and a tedious amount of detail to be worked out. Inevitably, we are leaping in the dark on that detail. The chicken-egg problem here is that we cannot actually be sure of the detail till we have money. We cannot get money without writing as if every detail has been finalized. So we sit down, the 2-3 of us that are usually available for this, and imagine a house of cards.

We will do X in January. We will do Z in February. So-and-so and So-and-so2 will do this with us (never mind, that they still have no idea). Jane Doe will evaluate this. Etc. Etc.

That's what all grant-seekers do. No big deal.

The catch: We actually don't have any full-time people on our payroll. So even the 'we' is an iffy 'we'. So as the person who is always there because the dream is in your head, you start to think: Okay, what's the point? Who am I writing this proposal for? Who cares if I do this? Who else is at all invested in this?

The hardest part of founding and building something is that it is very lonely. And this is both ironic and worrying, because an institution-building is a team effort--not just during public programmes but every single day. And I don't want a codependent relationship with Prajnya. It's very hard even for the founder to stay motivated when the team remains virtual beyond a point.

Prajnya is teaching me to live in the moment--the human, financial and material resources I have at any moment are all I can count on. That has spiritual virtue but in the real world, it is very difficult. I have not learned how to live this lesson yet. I worry less about what will happen--I have enough faith in whatever's brought me here to know that Prajnya will become what it should be. But I have a hard time staying motivated. My conviction on specifics wavers. My faith in anyone outside myself is easy to shake and it billows and folds like a light curtain caught in a resentful wind. And I need a lot of cheerleading which we all know is mostly unavailable in the adult world.

This is a downer of a post in some ways but this is not an easy process. And as I said, I hope my being candid will give someone else solace: You are not alone. All of us have to remember that we started on this course because we had faith in ourselves and in our dream. We need to remind ourselves (and each other) of that, oftener than we do.