Most people who have studied at ICFAI or know someone who has, have never heard the name N.J. Yasaswy. They know the degree. They know the campus. But they do not know the man behind it all.

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, written by Pattabhi Ram and Sudhakar Rao sets out to change that. It is the biography of a schoolteacher's son from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, who built one of India's largest private university networks without political backing or without government funding. He did it without anyone really believing it was possible.

The book begins with his childhood. At six, he was lending magazines to friends and maintaining a careful record of who borrowed what and when. At twelve, he translated an English biography of Abraham Lincoln into Telugu. At twenty-two, Nani Palkhivala told him he should be giving budget speeches. He went on to top India in the CA intermediate and final exams, a record that has not been matched in fifty years.

But what makes this book worth reading is not the list of achievements. It is everything in between. The authors interviewed over seventy-five people and made a clear choice to include the failures alongside the wins. When Yasaswy ventured into manufacturing in the 1980s, it went badly wrong. Yarn that could not be sold, investors getting nervous and trusted colleagues leaving. He faced it directly and moved on.

There are also some genuinely entertaining moments in the book. There is the story of young Yasaswy getting stopped by a traffic cop and telling him his name is Banerjee. There is the hijack on an Indian Airlines flight in 1982, where passengers are scrambling for the emergency exit and Yasaswy stays back to shield an old man who cannot move on his own. He does not make a speech about it. He just does it. That quality shows up throughout his life.

The prologue offers a taste of how he thought. In a hotel conference room in Hyderabad in 1994, a group of individuals decided to establish one business school. Without even catching their breath, Yasaswy stated that they will establish nine. Nine in eight cities all at once. Silence filled the room. The chairman simply asked everyone present to trust their instinct. This is what the writers have successfully managed to convey. This was no foolhardiness. But visionary thoughts based on the knowledge of India and its requirements. While other countries were enjoying open economies in the 80s, Yasaswy had started educating the nation in financial engineering, derivatives, and portfolio management.

He never adorned any magazine cover pages. He never got any Padma awards either. He believed that the work should speak louder than he did. This book has finally given him an opportunity to do so as well.

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