Events I Njoyed The Most In Last 2 Months

Sometimes life can get even more exciting when you do things whats really not expected of you . Looking back at the last two months I really enjoyed the below events ;–)

1)Had dinner with my watchman

My work keeps me in office till 3 -4 am in the morning and one guy whom ive troubled the most is my watchman , as he has 2 open the society gate for me each time i come back.

The other day i invited him for dinner and had an amazing conversation with him.He told me an amazing story of how once in his native village they had a leopard menace and how they made the traps 2 catch the man eater.

2)Travelled 75 Kms in a day

Its fun 2 have work which keeps u visiting new places and on one of those days I had to travel 75 kms in the whole day on my bike in the scorching sun ;–).Had never felt so tired riding a bike and just came home and jumped into icecold water in my bathtub

3)Met school friends

One of my school friends got married and it was great to meet all my school mates and teachers after really long time :–) at his wedding.

4)Dinner With Dad

Me and dad are foodies and go out every sat 2 try new adventurous stuff at various eating joints in pune. That day we ordered a crab for dinner and it looked like a watermelon when it came but the edible part in it was the size of a walnut .

5) Haideri family get together

After ages we had a complete family gettogether and was great fun partying and having dinner with my fellow family members .

Being on the field

These days I am busy doing sales for my product ShoppingLanes.

I think sales experience is a must for every entrepreneur. The biggest skill you need in this work is overcoming the fear of rejection ;–). I am writing here a few funny (I have the sprit to take it lightly and not get offended ;–)) incidents I have encountered so far …

1) “…yaar product accha hai , idea accha hai par apne ko iska use nahi, apne ko extra customers nahi chahiyeh,I am very happy with my life and business, dont wont more, aur internet pae toh bilkul nahi daalna hai ” .  A boutique fellow who just believes that internet is the biggest business doom and his doom too ;–)

2)”..sirji our items keep changing every week, so no use putting them online, customers will never get what they see ;–)  ” …After pushing him a little more ;–)… “..sir actually my business papers are not registered at all .. so i cant take chance of putting my info online…koi saab aa gaya toh ?…band baj jayegi ;–)”.

3)”..sir aapka idea funtastic hai….superb hai..par yeh aapnae mujhe mediam raftaar waali gadi dhikai hai..ab kuch aur tej dikhav… super fast model wali car… aisa kuch jo aur isse zyada maza aaye..” I was wondering if this guy is visiting some pychotic doctor…

4)”…sir aap inne kam paiso mae itna saara service dogae toh kaise chalega..” … A Doctor who was so shocked at the rates and the features we were offering,and after we actually offered him what what we promised

5)A hip hop aunty ,when i speak about the product “…i am just not interested…please go”…I smile and say very politely , “mam ill just take 5 mins of your time…. we have made this product ourselves…we want you to have a look.. please..” …..“ok…wait there …. have a seat….(angryly)…” I was still standing …. waiting for her to come and meet me…she shouts …angry tone.. “I told you to sit ..why are you still standing..just sit down..”… “I just felt like laughing seeing her so hyper…I sit down still smiling, she says yah tell me now, I say mam have a look at our broshure…ill explain you what we offer, she says “,  …..”I will not look at any broshure…Just speak to me about it…fast … (again angry)” …. “After explaining ..she gets calm, tells me ” “ ok ill buy this …. come tomorrow thou…ill think over it peacefully… ;–)” …. “….“I say lady was tough and sales is tough…needs loads of smile and patience ;–)”.

6)When I met him for the first time he just looked all confused and totally perpelexed he tells me to come after some days, after I go again “..yaar abhi aapkae product mae interest nahi aara, mere ko business mae bhi interest nahi aara …kya hai ki  yeh month meri shaadi hai…thoda tension mae hu ….uskae baad decide karta hu “.. I wished him all the best for his wedding and move on and i dont expect an invitation from him

7)Visited one fellow whos into business of icecreams and kulfis and  he was so impressed by our service, hes offered us most of his items and seeing the summer sun we couldnt refuse

8)Met one business owner whos into home theatre systems. Hes really impressed by our product and given us loads of references … was great fun listening to music on his systems ;–)

Well , ill keep updating my wild and hillarious experiences of being out there on the field, in the sun, facing the crowd..Its not easy… but then this is what drives you each day ;–)

Stay Hungry …Stay Foolish

Most of the books i buy are random and instinctive. Just the other day had been to crosswords and there I came across this wonderfull book “Stay Hungry,Stay Foolish – By Rashmi Bansal”.
I bought the book instantly and read it in one shot.Its an amazingly inspiring book for those who are on the path of entrepreneurship .

Written Below is the authors note ……..

………………………………………………………………………..

Of all the questions we leave unanswered the one that comes back to haunt us the most is : “What if…”

What If Id married my college sweetheart?
What If I had the good sense not to?
What If I had been born in this job market?
What if…
What If Id planned a little less?
What if i had lived a little more?
What if id chucked it all and started my own company?

What if’s are never idle fantasy.These are our hopes,dreams and desires.
Logic and reason are the naphthalene balls we use to pack them away into a sandook called “someday”.But when that day comes we are too old,too poor,too tired or too lazy.
This book is for all those people who seized their moment.So they would not wake up one day with regrets.Of course they saw markets and opportunities and need gaps.But more importantly ,they stood in front of the mirror and saw their true selves.
That self told them it was meaningless to sell soap just because you’re paid well to do so.
That being a corporate slave was the easy option, but not the one that felt right.
That there was something bigger and better to do with their talents.
So they did things others thought were foolish.And they stayed hungry for that something more.

“Stay hungry , Stay foolish” is what steve jobs advised the graduating class of Stanford University in his commencement address to the class of 2005.And that is the motto by which all entrepreneurs I have met for this book have lived.

Each story may be different but at another level they are all the same.The entrepreneur took a leap of faith.Then struggled and strived for years.Before finally achieving a size and scale which made the effort what we call “success”.

For every story there are several who are still struggling out there,struggling ,striving.This book will give them renewed hope and vigour.
And for those who look at themselves in the mirror each morning, before they head out to sell those soaps, I hope you catch in it a glimpse,
A glimpse of your hungry and foolish true self.
…………………………………………………………………………………….

This book has surely provided inspiration,hope, rejuvenation and most importantly shared experiences about those who took the untravelled path .

Illusion of time

Stephen hawkings , A brief history of time , is indeed a wonderful book , and i guess a must read for every physics fan. It really does a great job in explaining the scientific theories about the universe, and about the concept of origin of time. It also raises questions about existence of God, and where the universe is heading too. I have jotted some of the interesting points from the book here.

“Each individual has his own personal measure of time, that depends where he is and how he is moving“

“From a pair of twins, if one is living on top of a mountain and other at sea level, the one at the height will grow old faster than the one at the bottom “

“The universe is growing constantly, with time and equally in all directions. The force of expansion is just higher than the gravitational force, else it would contract itself and  get shrunk ed  “”

“If an astronaut falls into a black hole , its mass will increase , but the energy equivalent of that mass will be returned to the universe in the form of radiation. In a sence the astronaut will be recycled . “

Happy Fools day

Its really been a long time since ive blogged .

Lifes been way to busy, have to devote almost 15- 16 hours in a day to my work.

Today i finish one year after starting my company. Looking back i still recollect those moments when i started. The fear of being alone, the thoughts of traveling on unknown paths , resigning from a so called stable job and trying to do something perceived as totally unstable , That sinking feeling of been lonely and constantly doubted, I just remember everything way to clearly.

But amongst all that one thing that just made me go on and continues to make me go on is “faith” . Ive never felt so satisfied in doing something , as much as i have felt in the last one year.

Its been a great  experience, Ive even made loads of mistakes , but most importantly Ive learnt from them and continue learning from them. Today , each day i am living my dream , and no doubt when u start following them , you somehow feel amazed about how  life gets interesting and opportunities come up and loads of things start falling into place.

There is indeed nothing more exciting ,thrilling and challenging  than trying to start a venture from 0 and make it grow up the ladder towards infinity.

Mumbai Terror – Tears, Anger & Determination

It was indeed shocking to see what happens generally in places like Israel happen to Mumbai. The sight of seeing the Taj burning which is not just an hotel but the city’s and countries national pride was the worst feeling that you could get as an Indian.

I think after this incident we definitely need to analyze our entire political system and our approach towards it .Our national security advisor is god damn 75 years old , does he have any clue about the kind of technology and planning and arms that we need to put in place to combat this nuisance ? .The police officers have arms those of the times of world war 1 , what other countries have in their museums our cops have that for their defense.

Today morning it was ridiculous to read a headline like “We Salute to the martyrs….Vote for the BJP to have a safer tomorrow” . Are they so bloody intelligent that they have all the perfect plans and so far they have been denied the opportunity to execute them?.

For a government spokesperson to come out with crap statements that such kind of small incidents happen in big cities shows us the kind of attitude they possess. Its an attitude as if to say that a few deaths don’t really matter in a country of billions.

When a company collapses its the CEO who takes responsibility , whether hes responsible for it or not. We need some bloody accountability in our political system too.

After these attacks we have to ensure we don’t loose our secular beliefs,We have to ensure we don’t associate religion with it, and most importantly we have to ensure that we don’t live our life’s ahead in fear of these jokers. Their task is to spread terror and by being scared of them , we will only play the cards in their hands.

We all need to start increasing our contributions to society and become extremely powerful individuals. Its time to lead from the front and take our country forward , its time to apply a 20 -20 criteria to politics too.

This is a time when a billion of us need to stand up together , get united , and fight back.

Airtel Network – How screwed It Is These Days

These days the airtel network is all screwed up. What is funny , I was standing just outside the Airtel Office , near Vega center some days back and even there it showed a complete 0 connectivity ..LOL .

They have ads running of late , which talk about “attoot bandhan” , if the network is gonna be so screwed right outside their office , how the hell will they justify their own ads .

I guess they have payed up so much money to those actors , that they have hardly any left for putting up new towers .

My 2 summer jobs as a child …

My first summer job as a child was working as a sales boy selling mixer grinders. I still remember i would travel in the city, on my antique BSA cycle , with a bag full of coupons to convince customers to book for the mixer. It was a real wild and hilarious experience. I worked for a month and got paid Rs 500. I did an average job .

My second job was working as a sales boy in a shop which sold pipes. What was very amazing about this job was  once everyone had to go out and  I got a chance to manage the entire shop all alone. I remember that day i doubled the price of every pipe which I sold to the customers. I was a kid then , so they might be thinking , i aint much aware , about the rates, but it happened the other way round. They werent that aware .

Peoplesoft days at cognizant …. a lookback ;-)

Last year around this time i was part of the ESA product team in cogni. I was working in the timesheet module and remembered today the most screwing incident that happened in timesheet and thought of writing it here

In IT time is money and all the clients are billed with respect to the amount of time entered by employees in a timesheet. The sheet is approved by the manager for project hours and by HR for vacation hours before submitting to the client for final billing.

Some how that day there was a major bug (email me if you wanna know what it was ) in the system.All timesheets were getting automatically approved .

To fix the bug we had to delete all the entered timesheet and then automate the resubmission process. My task was to take care of automation of resubmission process and i remember my routine was something like this.

Thurday 12:30 pm : Total panic in meeting room , people in hyperactive state (obv coz timesheets getting auto approved).

Thursday 1:40 pm : I am told i have to write the auto submission process (the way i want to) and in as much time as i want , but it should be ready by 6:30 pm (common dialog in IT industry)

Thursday 6:45 pm : I am done with writing the patch, and then they review my code and say i need 2 rewrite it to make it run more efficiently  (they ( cant take names  here ) say it was taking too much time to run))

Thursday 7:30 pm : Morale down , totally irritated coz nobody gave proper instructions before starting the work and they expect me to redo. I start the redo process from scratch.

Thursday 11:20 pm : dinner of  1 sandwich and glass of juice and back to work

Friday 1:20 am : totally exhausted but loads of work remaining.

Friday 4:30 am : I need some help from DBA who are in US when i call them , they say its time for them 2 leave office as its their end of day (onsite people aren’t supposed to work overtime )

Friday 5:30 am : I leave for home , on the way 5 dogs chase me , thankfully my bikes faster than them

Friday 9:00 am : back in office , resume the work

Friday 6:00 pm : codes reviewed and passed. After the big shots made me do all the changes , there was again hardly any change / improvement in the performance. (but u cant ever say no to bigshot egos ).

Friday 7:30 pm : the code is run, will continue running till morning

Saturday 12:45 am : go out with a dedicated colleague who;s giving me moral support and we have dinner of eggs bread and juice.

Saturday 5:00 am : Codes still running, me and my colleague playing cricket with managers two stress balls (they always need 2 (one is not enuf ))

Saturday 7:30 am : I leave office, my task is accomplished.

Monday 11:30 am : I have to give a detailed explanation why i am late in office, at 10:45 am and not by 10:00 am.

Lesson learned: “In the corporate there arent any friends. People will use you to the maximum and will be with you till the time they need something from you. “

…. screw or get screwed .

iN pUrsuit oF hAppynEsS

This is truly one of the most inspiring movies I have watched in a long time. Each time when i am feeling down , or looking for motivation , I turn to this movie.

These are my favorite lines from the movie when Will Smith , the father has a conversation with his son about following your dreams.

“When you have a dream, U must protect it. When people say to you , that you cannot do something , Its coz they have tried to do it, and they couldnt. Just coz they couldnt, doesnt mean you cant. You can , and you can and you can, if you have the perseverance for it”