In October 1999, as the Super Cyclone tore through the Odisha coast, killing thousands and flattening entire districts, a teenager in Bhubaneswar was preparing for one of the toughest selection processes in the Indian Armed Forces. Electricity was unavailable for days, and there were no phone lines, coaching institutes, or online mock tests, none of the scaffolding that today's aspirants take for granted. What he did have was a decision he had already made: to serve.
That decision, made in the shadow of the Kargil War, would eventually carry Capt. Arun Kar from a modest household in Odisha to the officers' mess of the Indian Army's Regiment of Artillery, then to boardrooms in London, Amsterdam and Ahmedabad, and finally to the head of a conglomerate spanning technology, sustainability, gaming, agriculture and film.
