Listening to heart, not mind : When a movie entertains masses and moves them to ask even a simple question, it does more for re-formatting the mental hard disk, than any amount of research papers and policy pronouncements can ever do. I will not go into the merits of the various scenes and the messages they imply. That is not the central issue here that I wish to talk about. The basic idea is that when children’s freedom to think, dream and pursue those dreams into action is debated in India, what will educational policy makers do? Will they sit on the fence, remain busy with tinkering on the margin, and trivialize the whole discourse or let the agenda be designed by the millions of young Indians who want change. This change is required in their own mindsets but also that of their parents, teachers, educationists and of course tuitions industry ( which has a vested interest in perpetuating the present rote based system). Let me illustrate: I just gave a talk recently at an IIT and asked them about some basic questions about a new portal www.Techepdia.in. Thanks to Haranmay Mahantha, final year student and his team from svnit Surat, summaries of more than hundred thousand projects by about 300,000 students from 500 engineering colleges including IITs, NITs and even polytechnics have been pooled. I asked them as to how many had visited a small scale industry workshop or informal sector mechanic workshop in the neighborhood to identify technical challenges. Almost none had. In college after college, I hear the same thing. Hiranmay has decided to forego the placement opportunity in large corporation and spend a year with Techpedia supported by SRISTI. Why is he doing it. He shares the faith in the capacity of youth like him to address the basic problems of our society and engage the young minds with exciting, and risky challenges. There must be many more students who may be willing to do what they really wish to and not what their parents or friends expect them to do. What kind of eco-system we design so that more and more young people do what their heart says and not just what the mind prescribes. I wish we could have 5000 fellowships to provide to young people like Hiranmay who wish to take risky paths and do create the eco-system to link formal and informal sector of economy, the aspirations of masses and potential of elite classes. Why could we not remodel National Service Scheme ( NSS) into Indian Innovation and Entrepreneurship journey. It does not matter if every body does not have new ideas. But can we not support those who have? Sheikh Jahangir’s two wheeler scooter mounted flour grinding machine in the film Idiot symbolizes the new agenda. How to engage with those who can help in redesigning it, making it more sleek, more affordable, more energy efficient, and demonstrate it different applications for poor ( who can not buy grains to be ground in large quantities) and rich who wish to get spices ground in front of their eyes to maintain purity. Affordable, efficient, accessible and aesthetically exquisite solutions are the need of the hour. To design these, we have to move away from the incrementalist mindset. We have to become less respectful to established dogma, styles of thinking and acting. We have to spread the attitude -I will Do It At my Terms-, an idea Honey bee network has been trying to cross pollinate for more than last twenty years. Next week, insights from our 24th shodh Yatra in Assam, where we found a whole stretch of houses without latches, lock thus were not even possible. So much social capital and yet so much economic stress. Anil K Gupta