Talk with class of 2019 Dakshana Scholars at JNV Silvassa, Union territory of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, India on Feb. 25, 2018.
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Mohnish Pabrai's Talk With Dakshana Scholars
Transcript
I don't know how many days we have to go through my childhood but I'll try to keep it brief. So I was born in Mumbai and the first 18 years of my life. I spent 10 years in Mumbai six years in Delhi and two years in Dubai. So I was in Delhi twice for three years each. It was going all together and then now my 11th and 12th I finished in in Dubai. By that time my father had a business in Dubai and I went through to my child revenue to many different schools every two 3 years. The family was moving somewhere and so there was a new school. But after after it's standard I went through CBS The but my my percentage is lower than all of shouldn't test. I don't think I cleared it and and then then. So so one other thing that I think had had some impact on me probably going forward a long time is from fifth standard to a standard I used to be at this school in Mumbai where it was in a place called Jehu in Mumbai called Monica Cooper. And that place was close to where a lot of Bollywood stars used to live. So some of my classmates were kids of the actors and actresses although the difference different kind of school kind of fun. But the school didn't have much land so it was right next to the beach. So all our physical activities physical training as who used to be on the beach was very nice.
So basically you know three years in that school and not once did any teacher ever mention to me that there was anything worth looking at outside the window and outside the window I saw lots of poverty. I saw very poor sanitary conditions people were deprecating. It was just a smell a lot I mean a lot of problems there. But the Indian school with some kids from actors and actresses. No one did anything worth talking about this school I just found kind of interesting and and so you know we always especially in Mumbai you see that you see basically to India right. So any time in Mumbai you see a big tall building you will see a slum next to it because the slum is servicing the tall buildings and so the slum is right there because all those maids and workers and everyone who's working there is living right there and now it's actually starting to change. There are actually some because they've done slum redevelopment in France. Now actually we are seeing neighbourhoods where the slums have been transformed and the housing is better quality and such. But anyway so you know that's kind of a quick summary of how I how I how I grew up. So I was mainly in the cities you can say and and and then after after high school I first came to Delhi for college and then there were strikes in college basically I think for the eight months there was no classes. And so my father encouraged me to my brother and I to apply to us. And so I went to went to college in the U.S. And so I had I had finished 11 the standard in commerce unlike all of you.
And but when I went to the U.S. I switched to computer science and then I switched to engineering so I again got back into the science and. And so one of the one of that kind of experience that had long long before Dakshina I got started. So this must have been like 1990.
