Syed Abdul Rahim is hailed as one of the greatest coaches in Indian football history. Under Rahim Saab’s guidance, Indian football soared, clinching two gold medals in the Asian Games and numerous other accolades. His final years as a coach were marked by immense pain, yet his impact remains unmatched six decades later.
Despite today’s advanced training techniques and infrastructure, Indian football has yet to recapture that glory. But this blog isn’t about reviving it. It is also not about learnings from the movie — a trend that set in (quite irritatingly) after Lagaan!
Instead, it’s a personal reflection inspired by Maidaan, where Ajay Devgn plays Syed Abdul Rahim. The movie stirred my soul and brought tears to my eyes because, like Rahim Saab, I’ve dedicated over two decades to building something extraordinarily similar — albeit in a different arena.
Who am I and what’s my dream?
I am not a techie or a business leader so it may seem stretched if I draw an analogy with S.A Rahim, who played for Hyderabad. But the extraordinary similarity starts here: Like him, I believed in a dream (and continue to) and went all in, giving it shape with other business leaders.
My journey is about helping build a community that is obsessively driven to nurture an ecosystem that believes that Indian software products are world-class, and they can rub shoulders with the likes of Google, Apple, and Microsoft among other software product giants. UPI, a unique platform for instance, has already proven its mettle.
Many others will join suit is our belief; and soon the world will talk about Indian software products in the same breath as they do about Yoga (rooted in India).
I didn’t have any other option — that’s all I knew and that’s what I did
Ajay Devgan in a scene that got me teary-eyed, begs the new Board to give him one more chance. Without coaching, he is nothing. That’s all he knew!
When I fell in love with my dream and set about building a community ground up, I realized that it was my life’s purpose. As I put my heart and soul into it, other lucrative pathways looked fruitless. While I feel uncomfortable calling myself a coach, on the sidelines, I met leaders, on-boarded them, and helped build a winning team — the Product Nation community. With all humility today I proclaim that all I know is Community Building!
Passion gets you started but you need a guardian angel who unblocks obstacles
In Rahim’s life, he faced many obstacles, especially with the Administration. But he had a guardian angel — the first Board president who stood by him like a rock and backed him. I had several angels like that who backed me all the way and continue to do so. My JIKN column is a testimony to my deep appreciation and gratitude for them.
There’s an old saying — If you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to go far, take others along with you. In my case, influential, inspiring, and charismatic leaders took me along and ensured I had a pivotal role. They guided me and unblocked pathways when major obstacles threatened to derail me.
When passion clashes with power
Invariably, power is about retaining the status quo well past its shelf life. It takes years to build something impactful, so people are reluctant to change it. Power is derived from something so power holders and power brokers will first leverage “that something” to its potential and then cling on desperately in the later years, well past expiry. And closed circles ensure it stays that way.
Change is rarely welcomed. Most are forced to change. A wise human being once said, and it got circulated in schools, “Necessity is Invention’s Mom”; we are still trying to trace Daddy Dearest.
Sometimes resistance to change can run into decades.
Don’t get me wrong here, I am not taking potshots at powerful people because power is a function of time. Today’s powerful people will make way for the new batch and this baton-passing (or snatching) will continue forever.
On the other hand, passion challenges the status quo envisioning the desired change which is often massive.
A clash is inevitable.
Establishments are powerful. Established ideas become the norm and they get cast in stone. Rahim Saab wanted to choose his players and train them in a certain way which was very different from what the Board was accustomed to.
At the turn of this century, and even a few years later, Indian IT was all about very large IT Services players adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the country’s GDP and attaining legendary stature.
Rightly and deservedly so.
We are what we are because we stand on the shoulders of giants. But at some point, the wind changes its direction — tailwinds become headwinds — and new ideas flood the market. In the first 5–6 years of my journey, it wasn’t easy to convince the ecosystem partners that India could evolve (and even pivot quickly) into a Product Nation.
Yet, the Community did it!
It did it with a lot of grace, ongoing dialogues, and partnering with associations, professional bodies, academic institutions, investors, and many others. This continues at a frenzied pace, driven by technology, passion, and world-class talent — the nation’s Co-creators of Change. A different kind of leadership drives this change — it’s about soft power and the power of influence, backed by performance, of course.
Hard-earned success can slip away easily
It takes a lot of time and cumulative effort to build something impactful. It can slip away easily if the planned efforts aren’t sustained. It took Rahim Saab 9 years to build the team which achieved glory that slipped away in 2 years when India lost 7/8 international matches.
We were not the only Community Builders of Indian software products. We had competition from all quarters. Some, of course, did well and continued to create impact, but others were left behind. Complacency, lack of agility, and not spotting the trends early, contribute to a downfall. Macroeconomic trends at times come unannounced so keeping a watch requires laser-sharp alertness from subject matter experts.
There’s a scene when the team’s bus is attacked because hatred (against India) spread, due to a statement made by an official. The Indian team was made a target.
Unannounced. Just like that. Wham — it hits you.
No coaching manual could have taught Syed Abdul Rahim to act the way he did and save the day. Surviving Covid and then growing the software product segment, tested our mettle. People were dying, businesses were shutting shops, and thousands of people were losing their jobs — it called for a different kind of leadership where we all joined hands not just as ONE PRODUCT NATION but as ONE NATION to hold the team together and forge ahead. To add, all nations big or small joined hands.
I sincerely hope we never see those times again but in the darkest hour, I saw goodness in common people, and they demonstrated exemplary courage that inspired us to keep going. At SaaSBoomi, we have compounded on the idea of pay-it-forward so the momentum continues to accelerate.
Stardom and its challenges: Transitioning from Us vs Them to WE
In a team that comprises big names, holding it together is challenging. There are pulls from multiple directions and one must work towards articulating (and reinforcing) that one mission that brought the team together.
Over time, the narrative changes — not the big mission but the ways and means to achieve it. This is something I learned and continue to do. Optimally leveraging people’s expertise — and they are massively successful — under one umbrella for a mission, requires skill. It’s because outside of the umbrella, they may even be competitors.
Sometimes one has to take tough calls like Rahim Saab did — he sat out the goalkeeper who had played in all the other knockout games and had performed remarkably. Yet on the biggest day, he went ahead with his first goalkeeper of choice.
What really happens with time is we become friends. They, the super-achievers, let you share their personal space, and you reciprocate as well. And of course, you also make your mark to earn their confidence. Again, I’d like to draw your attention to JIKN — you can see how friendships evolve, and one becomes a trusted member of the family. No less!
Rahim Saab’s team had many superstars. He connected with them so well because he took a genuine interest in people — beyond the arena. One has to connect in an honest manner, to earn trust and cherish the friendship!
Sacrifice — it’s NEVER YOUR DREAM ONLY
Long hours, missed social events, time crunches, and health hazards are all part of that journey. They don’t appear in a linear fashion, sometimes they are all heaped at the same time. I’d like to put a special emphasis on health. Could Rahim Saab have avoided falling prey to lung cancer? We will never know. The nation lost a brilliant strategist who could have served for another decade and put Indian football on a pedestal.
Life is all about the choices we make — especially when it comes to health. While we remain vigilant about market trends and technology, let us all put equal emphasis on early health hazard signals.
Chasing massive dreams for twenty or thirty years can be intoxicating. Here’s to all the families who stood by the visionaries and gave a large part of themselves.
Let these heroes not go unsung!
This article was originally published on Medium.
