From ‘How Many?’ to ‘How Deep?’: Aniket’s Question

Fabulous conversation with Aniket Doegar from Haqdarshak and Archana Pillai at NSRCEL this afternoon.

Aniket talked about how he began obsessed with numbers — the validation of “How many?” that all of us in India grew up believing was the definition of scale. And then, over 10–15 years, he realised something quieter and more durable: that the deepest impact he ever made was with the 95 children he taught in his first two years as a Teach For India fellow. And that the problems worth solving take a decade of listening, patience, and course-correction, not a quarterly sprint.

Scale need not be a race to big numbers and can be a long, meaningful apprenticeship to the problem. Staying curious, building a culture that can hold the weight of growth, and being willing to learn from the field rather than from fixed plans.

Originally written for LinkedIn on 21 November 2025. View original →