The article spoke at length about how there has never been another Bill Gates, another Lata Mangeshkar, though the potential for anyone being anyone is high. It spoke at length about how even after having immense amount of talent, we generally fail to channelise them into the right direction, the direction that would lead you to pursue the path of your role model.
It spoke about how in the US, kids, after a certain age are let free to decide and chose their own career, in comparison to the common state of an Indian student, who generally succumbs to pressure from the dad to do his engineering or medical course. The tone of such a sentence was so whining that I wondered if the author himself underwent through such a process, himself.
Not surprising. True. I Agree. If you'd muster up enough courage to stand in front of your dad and tell him that you'd become a rock star, or a classical musician, or an artist, I'm very sure that it'd be met with immense amount of scorn. Again, not surprising at all, considering our conservative society. There are very few people who would actually say, "Go ahead son/daughter, go and live your dream." There are tonnes of things inter-related to this. I'm not saying that its wrong on anyone's part to enforce. Yes. I'm not. These are very much dependent on how much that stream would have to offer, for a person to maintain his 'social status' or simply, to earn his bread. A country smitten with piracy where in people wouldn't want to spend on anything, wouldn't buy your paintings. The technologically advanced India would take snaps of that painting on a high tech 7 MP camera on a mobile phone, and hundreds of people would use it as wallpapers later on. :-) There is no thought process involved about how the painting originated or how you got it.
When CDs of international artistes don't get sold in the music stores, there is no way that the public would be interested in buying a CD of a band unknown hitherto. If the band manages to stick around for a while, like for 10-15 years and makes a good name, fanatics would rummage through the debris trying to find the first album. But finding it online would be easier, don't you think? ;)
All these factors are discouraging. Discouraging enough for someone to not take up other forms of profession other than the 'safer' ones. But tell me something, there is no fun in life without taking any risk. Throw a few twists and turns in it, it becomes all the more interesting. Any good driver wouldn't want to drive a supercar on a straight road.
Now, for Bill Gates or Lata Mangeshkar, the best way to put it across, would be to take the safest stance of telling that both of them, when they started off, didn't have much competition. Honestly, I don't know of many people who thought of wanting to start an operating system who were successful (by hook or crook) [sorry, it was too tempting to not say this] or a singer who 'supposedly' made sure that no one else sang in the movies she was a part of. But hey, both of them were revolutionary. People don't look at the process. People look at the end product. The process is what appeals to you, or what your guilt haunts you, later in life. You choose it.
Come to think of it, you don't have to become 'someone'. You can be you and do something. Such persons are cited all the time to gain inspiration, if I can say so. Well, luck and destiny too have a major hand in such matters. Not all can establish a software giant like Apple and stand up to a company that once, 'reportedly' refused to hire Steve Jobs.
