All the hard work is now bearing fruit as Fountainhead starts its first full-fledged

school from June 2008. In partnership with a local businessman, the school is
coming up on a 10-acre campus and will admit approximately 200 students from
nursery up to class 5. The preschool will also continue to function from rented
premises for the time being. The infrastructure is of very high quality, says
Vardan with pride. We are going in for the International Baccalaureate's Primary
Years Programme (the affiliation is a 3.5-year process which started six months
ago). Adds Ankita, We are very excited with the program as we believe it has
all the right elements and emphasis as far as education is concerned and their
philosophy strongly matches ours. The aim is to make this a model school in
the next 4-5 years and then expand rapidly in the schooling segment. In the preschooling segment, Fountainhead is looking to start another branch by
November 2008. If the experiment goes well, then the stage will be set to
expand into more full-fledged schools. More schools mean more teachers.
Fountainhead's total staff will cross 75 this year and to keep them up-to-date the
school arranged for a 9 week training program through the summer vacation.
This included self-development exercises, field trips, educational videos and of
course everything about PYP. It has taken four years but the vision of a school is
now a concrete reality. We have our fair share of crises and issues, but we are
very satisfied with what we are doing. Of course there's so much yet to be
done! On a reflective note, Vardan adds, Because I got media coverage at the
very beginning, I thought that my dreams would come true immediately. That
did not happen - it takes times for big dreams to materialise. So basically more
down to the earth thinking would have been better. Maybe. But you have to
start with your head in the clouds. That's what gives you the courage to take the
foolish decision instead of the safe one! And you can think all you want, but life
has its own flow. And you just go with it. In the midst of giving birth to
Fountainhead School, Ankita and Vardan also became proud parents. Baby
Sunay was not really planned and his arrival changed life in many ways. Says
Vardan, Sunay's arrival has changed the way we work (or rather how Ankita
works - I am being more of a typical father than I thought I would be ). Ankita
has a lot of stress as a result of being a mother as well as the key person for the
school. For example, Ankita was working till the second last day before delivery
and she returned to working for 5-6 hours just 40 days after her delivery. We
actually had a dip in quality while Ankita was away but she was committed
enough to come back and ensure that work did not suffer. There is really no
correct time to have a baby, because there is always something more to
achieve as far as work goes. But work is not everything - that's why babies come
into this world. And there is no correct time to start a company, because there
is always some risk involved. But security is not everything - that's why books
like this are written. To drive that point home. Getting the direction is probably a
matter of time, and working hard - when you keep working you realize what
makes more sense. There were no specific attempts at creative problem solving,
but when the problems did get solved, typically that happened when the
atmosphere was conducive to out-of-the-box thinking. So yes, some attempt at
creative thinking would be useful. Know what you want - I take my time when it
comes to important decisions, but once made, I almost never give up. I do take
the opinion of other people, but when the decision affects me directly, then I

alone make the decision (e.g. deciding not to take up a job was against the
wishes of almost everyone around). In my undecided phase I happened to meet
a serial entrepreneur from IIT. I told him I wanted to start off on my own but was
not sure whether I should take up a job or not as backup. He said if you are sure
that you want to start up then taking a job should be the least of your concerns.
Start off, that's it! That's when I realised that there's only one way of jumping off
the cliff - you just have to jump off it!