Gaurav’s Story

At a premier business school in India, Gaurav Marathe is exploring an unlikely idea: can kindness and community become part of campus life? An Associate Professor at IIM Ranchi, Gaurav works at the intersection of engineering, organizational behaviour, leadership, neuroscience and spirituality, with a particular interest in meaning and meaningfulness. One of his initiatives, Soul Carnival, reimagines a traditional student carnival of food, games and art stalls as a pay-forward, pay-as-you-wish festival. Now in its third year, the carnival offers students a simple opportunity to give, receive and participate without everything having a price attached to it. Students have embraced the experiment. Gaurav’s work invites us to pause and ask: what might change when kindness is given a little more room in places where we least expect it?