The Journal Entry #018 : India Has 1.4 Billion People. But Can We Find 11 World-Class Footballers?

At 49, I sometimes wonder how many people of my generation actually chose their own careers—and how many simply entered the careers chosen for them.

I have an MCA degree and have spent many years working in IT. But if I am asked a simple question—

“At the age of 15, did you really understand what you were talented at and what you wanted to do with your life?”

My answer would be no.

I don’t think I was alone.

Most of us were never seriously asked what we were good at. The questions were different.

How many marks did you get?

Science or Commerce?

Engineering or Medicine?

Private job or government job?

Nobody asked:

What makes you forget the time?

What can you do naturally better than others?

What kind of work would you still enjoy even if nobody forced you to do it?

Perhaps that is one of India’s biggest failures.

We have one of the largest young populations in the world, but we still don’t know how to discover what our children are actually good at.

The World Cup Makes Me Think About India

As I watch the 2026 Football World Cup, one uncomfortable question comes to my mind.

India has more than 1.4 billion people.

Can we not find 11 world-class footballers?

Of course, football is not just about population. It needs academies, coaches, nutrition, competition, sports science and years of training.

But that is exactly my point.

Somewhere in India, there may be a seven-year-old child with extraordinary football talent.

But perhaps his school has no proper ground.

Perhaps his parents are already worried about his Class 10 marks.

Perhaps he is attending maths tuition every evening while his real talent is slowly disappearing.

At 18, somebody may tell him:

“You are a very good footballer.”

By then, for international football, we may already be ten years late.

Talent doesn’t wait until parents feel financially comfortable.

We Ask the Fish to Climb the Tree

Our education system still works like a competition where every animal is asked to climb the same tree.

The monkey climbs.

The fish fails.

And what do we do?

We send the fish for extra tuition.

That is India.

If a child is weak in mathematics but exceptional in painting, the family searches for a better maths teacher.

If a child can play football for four hours but cannot sit with a chemistry book for thirty minutes, we say he has a concentration problem.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe we have simply placed his concentration in front of the wrong thing.

We are obsessed with correcting weaknesses while ignoring strengths.

Then, twenty years later, we wonder why so many adults are unhappy with their careers.

The Doctor Who Cannot Stand Blood

I have seen something strange in our society.

A child may have absolutely no interest in medicine. The child may even feel uncomfortable seeing blood.

But the parents have decided:

“My child will become a doctor.”

They are ready to spend ₹50 lakh, ₹1 crore or even more.

Why?

Because being a doctor is considered successful.

But whose success are we talking about?

The child’s?

Or the parents’ social status?

Now compare this with someone who genuinely loves medicine.

A doctor who is curious about the human body, listens to patients, enjoys diagnosis and feels satisfaction in helping people.

For such a doctor, patients may wait hours for an appointment.

The difference is not just the medical degree.

One person chose the profession. The other person was pushed into it.

The same applies to engineering, science, teaching, sport, music, business and art.

India needs excellent doctors and engineers.

But we will not create excellence by forcing everyone towards the same destination.

We Have Created a Very Narrow Definition of Success

For generations, many Indian families have followed one formula:

Study well.

Get a secure job.

Get married.

Buy a house.

Pay EMIs.

Work until retirement.

If it is a government job, even better.

Pension until death.

For an earlier generation that lived through financial insecurity, this thinking was understandable.

But should the same formula be compulsory for every child today?

The world is changing too quickly.

Artificial intelligence is already changing jobs. Entire professions will change in the next twenty years.

In such a world, is a degree alone really security?

I believe the future belongs to people who become exceptionally good at something valuable.

A great doctor.

A great engineer.

A great programmer.

A great footballer.

A great designer.

A great teacher.

A great farmer.

A great craftsperson.

The important word is not the profession.

The important word is great.

And greatness rarely comes from spending an entire life doing something you never wanted to do.

How Many Talented People Discover Themselves at 40?

This is something I think about often as I approach 50.

How many people of my generation are only now discovering what they actually enjoy?

A software engineer suddenly starts farming.

A bank manager starts painting.

A corporate executive opens a restaurant.

Someone starts writing at 45.

Someone discovers photography at 50.

Someone retires and finally begins doing what he always wanted to do.

There is nothing wrong with starting late.

But I sometimes wonder:

What if they had discovered it at 10?

What could they have become with 30 or 40 years of practice?

This is the real cost of our system.

We measure education through marks and degrees.

We don’t measure the talent that was never discovered.

Parents Are Not the Only Problem

I don’t believe parents are deliberately destroying their children’s dreams.

Most parents are afraid.

Afraid of unemployment.

Afraid of financial struggle.

Afraid of relatives asking uncomfortable questions.

Afraid that sport may fail.

Afraid that art may not provide an income.

So they choose what appears safe.

But there is a danger in trying to eliminate every risk from a child’s life.

A safe road going in the wrong direction is still the wrong road.

Parents don’t have to accept every childhood dream blindly. A seven-year-old may want to become a footballer today and an astronaut next month.

That is normal.

The job of education should not be to predict a child’s entire future at age three.

The job should be to give children enough exposure to discover themselves.

Sport.

Music.

Art.

Science.

Technology.

Nature.

Public speaking.

Craftsmanship.

Building things.

Repairing things.

Writing.

Leadership.

Let them try.

Observe them.

Then, when genuine ability and genuine interest appear together, support them seriously.

A Footballer Can Be Lost at Age 10

India’s football problem doesn’t begin when the national team loses a match.

It may begin when a talented ten-year-old is told:

“Football is fine, but first concentrate on studies.”

A musician may be lost when music classes are stopped because Class 10 has started.

An artist may be lost when someone says:

“Drawing is only a hobby.”

A natural entrepreneur may be lost when every small failure is punished.

A brilliant craftsperson may be lost because society taught him that working with his hands is inferior to sitting in an office.

This is how countries lose talent.

Not in stadiums.

Not during examinations.

One child at a time.

Maybe We Are Asking the Wrong Question

Every year, we ask:

Why doesn’t India win more Olympic medals?

Why can’t India become a major football nation?

Why don’t we produce enough world-class researchers, artists, designers and innovators?

Perhaps we should ask a different question.

How many children are actually allowed to discover what they are good at?

We don’t need every child to become a footballer.

We don’t need every child to become an artist.

And we certainly don’t need every child to become an engineer or doctor.

We need to stop deciding what a child must become before discovering who that child is.

Maybe the biggest education reform India needs is not another syllabus change, another entrance examination or another education app.

Maybe it begins with parents and teachers asking a child:

“What are you naturally good at?”

And then having the courage to take the answer seriously.

India does not lack talent.

We have talent everywhere.

In villages.

In small towns.

In government schools.

In crowded cities.

On football grounds.

In workshops.

In kitchens.

In farms.

In classrooms.

The tragedy is not that India has no talent.

The tragedy is that we may have spent generations training our children to ignore it.

And by the time many of us finally discover who we really are, half our working life is already over.

Perhaps the next generation deserves more time than we got.

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