My first entrepreneurial venture..comes to an end

as i write this post, i am ironically listening to a song titled - Azaadiya from a movie Udaan. The thing which i started, the thing which could've given me that flight, that freedom is coming to an end. and it hurts :( 
living room canvas will soon be history, resting in peace on my hard drive in a folder titled "Entrepreneur!" 


Exactly an year ago, i nurtured this dream of becoming the first person to create an online experience of buying and selling paintings and works of arts, of providing a platform to artists, of partnerships and collaborations with art houses and what not. Even contemplated leaving job, and nearly left it in the pursuit..and actually let go of 2 mba seats as well! LivingRomCanvas gave me reasons to not do things which i did not want to. fuckin' job and fuckin' mba! i did not have a business plan and started in as immature way as anyone could have. even spent nearly 40k in the investments. the art works now hang on my room walls. they look beautiful though! 


the process taught me. yes it is cliched to talk about how failures are the pillars of success and blah blah..but what i learnt from living room canvas is what no other experience could have even come close to teaching me. and for sure no mba could have!


Lesson 1. Starting an online business is by no means an easy job. The only difference from brick-and-mortar is in the initial investment. Where i invested 40k, in the real world i would have spent 400k to get started. Thats all. Getting buyers to buy an online stuff in India is even tougher than the real world.


Lesson 2. Suppliers have the potential to bring you to your knees and make you weep. They just dont fuckin listen! and you cant do anything about it..except hope that they die


Lesson 3. You should listen to your dad. and take advice. specially when he is a businessman himself! Dads might be wrong, but then if you can't convince your dad, you wont be able to convince your suppliers or your buyers.


Lesson 4. You should talk about your idea. There is one unknown market for artists in my city of which i came to know while discussing my idea with the panel at an XLRI interview!


Lesson 5. Subscribe to a business magazine. There are some stories which you will only find inside pages. Like i came to know of a competitor in one such magazine. It motivated me (although after disheartening me) and gave me a fresh perspective of a lot of things.


Lesson 6. which i did not do. You should not give up. at least not before you have tried all means. which i am not going to do now. Giving up is for losers. period.


Lesson 7. Think Big. This is not the age of earning 10,000 per month. In 20 years, a crore would be worth only a honda city! 


Lesson 8. Market your stuff. as a friend once told me, "jo dikhta hai wo bikta hai".


Lesson 9. Lie only if you can. but dont lie to yourself. 


Lesson 10. Never go to the market without a business plan and a model. Most people (including your suppliers) are reluctant for change. They will not talk to you unless they see money. You are no rocket singh and you will not get a goodwill loan. 


Lesson 11. Dont be shy about investing. Unless you put in something, you wont get something out. but think twice before you take out your wallet.


Lesson 12. Unless you have really good friends, they won't help you. of the 25% you ask, half will think of their own interest and the rest will procrastinate. remember that you will be on your own.


Let me see how much of these lessons i keep in my mind for my next episode. I sure dont want to fail this time. The song still plays.....

Tennis is so cool

enough writing about life and death. frankly, nobody wants to care about where my life is heading anyway! afterall, how many people's life's journeys do i myself care about! let me write about something else tonite (its 00:52)

okay..so the newest passion of my life these days, apart from the website i have started, will have to be tennis - lawn tennis. :) its the first day of the week and i already can't wait for Saturday, when i would put on my tee (with the pot belly tummy bulging out) and put on my shorts (which really look short on me!) and get inside my nike shoes (my best friends forever..you see feet stop growing after a certain age :P), and pick up those 2 tennis rackets and a dunlop and a cosco ball to go the court. We started playing on the clay court and then moved to the concrete one, finally realizing why they cant beat Nadal there! and let me tell you, concrete is no easy at all. Tennis is a game which requires huge amounts of stamina. and strong, very strong wrists. twice i felt i broke mine! When the ball from the other court, travelling at a nice 80mph hits your racket, the impact travels to your wrists and twists it like anything. and you got to twist it back again to play the shot, keeping the ball low, inside the court and outside of the opponent's reach! man that is tough. so you can understand how tough a game i play these days :D

after these stamina taking, fat burning tennis games i look much better. the tummy goes inside and my glowing face takes all the attention it deserves from the female badminton players at the other courts ;) then i come home, have a plate of chhole bhature and sleep. waking up with another KG gained :P but i am loving these saturday sunday mornings..and tennis rocks!

but how long will this continue, i wonder. all things change. and all good things come to an end. to make way for some more good things :D today is the day another thing should change. I have been waiting for it. and I shall quit my present job. Gosh, i hate this word 'job'. Thankfully i wont have one after this and hopefully i wouldnt need one. God, i dont want one! I just watched the Social Network and loved it. Frankly, thats something which you would want to do. Make an idea. Steal an idea for god's sake but make something out of it. An idea without implementation is as good as dead. and so i love Zuckerberg for creating theFacebook. and i love Sean Parker. and i love those girls these lucky nerd bastards make out with. 

Sigh! Another post that began with tennis, ended with Me. :) "Its all about you isn't it", I can imagine someone saying it to my face someday. I hope by then, I am a millionaire!

the Hangover

here is a list of things which happen to you after a night long session

1. you try to remember who all were there !!

2. you try to remember what all was there ;)

3. you try to remember what all shit came out of your mouth

4. you try to sleep, but you can't

5. you try to eat, but your appetite eludes you

6. and then finally, you try to write..and half an hr into writing the first 6 lines..you give up..

reaching there..slowly..

i sit here in my room..listening to taylor swift..feeling light and heavy at the same time..wondering a lot..i close my eyes and a flashback starts..flashes of the not so distant past..and the first thing i realize is that i haven't been on a night's drive in so many months..and now that i think of going, it feels like a nightmare..who wants to get stuck in a jam..better think about it and write a post which noone would read!


life has become a routine..tasks which you do everyday..at the same time, for the same duration..how much time does it take for a person to get bored of doing the same thing over and over again?! let me see..i got bored of school in 10th..in fact i got fed up..so fed up that the next 2 years i didnt talk to anyone..i would go to school to argue with teachers, solve some physics and chase that so beautiful english teacher of the senior section, miss anjali..that drove me for 2 years..just before the boards i heard she got married..and that broke my heart..and school for me was over..


in college my excitement span lasted 3 years..though there were always some beautiful girls to chase, i gradually realised that either you were born with a girlfriend or you die without one! by the 4th year, i was desperate to get out of dce..(and now i regret that more than anything else!!..see thats what happens with me)..


i joined my first company..and all looked well..but as i realized, the enthusiasm span was decreasing further..this time girls didn't matter..ummm..well..more than that life itself started to matter..in 1 and a half years, the sulking started..i dragged on for another year and now i am at another place..


the span? well its been 7 months and the signs are showing :) 


so the picture is pretty much clear..10, 3, 1.5, 7/12..what is next? i wonder..and in that wonderment i listen to taylor swift..as another day begins..

the memories shall always remain

A Mr. Stephen William Hawking recently declared that god doesn't play dice with the world, because he doesn't exist. how do we then explain the crazy world we live in. well i like to believe that god or some super natural form does exist and whatever it is, it surely plays dice and is really bad at it! definitely not a winner. 


because my super fucked up week (a result of 1s perhaps) turned upside down (rather downside up) to a super-duper awesome week's end (nothing less than 6s i am sure), i have reason to believe that yesterday was one of those day's the "IT" was out partying with buddies playing yahtzee. and for a change, IT won! so did i :)


i am not going to write another piece about my best friends. i have written a lot. and i am not going to wish that i get such nice evenings with them every now and then. i dont. excess of everything kills it. but when i wake up the following mornings, i get a sense of that emptiness. like its over. like why does a good time have to end. like what am i going to do today! another days of 3s, i guess or 2s? whatever it is..the memories will remain. the memories will keep me smiling. :)

Some people are just lucky..others are like me!

Will someone please tell me what wrong have i done! why is it so difficult for things to fall in my place? and why is it so easy for me to be ignored? why the hell does a normal life elude me..always?!! WTF

i am chasing a dream

i am chasing a dream..
my very own..
i might be a little slow..
but the hunger is not gone.

i live life my way..
no its not a sin..
but i want to live to be the best..
i only want to win.

someday i will..

do it on my own..

one day it will happen..

before i am gone.

yes its hard..
its not play..
but then life's a hard rock..
not molded clay.

you got to hit it hard..

you got to take it on the head..
only if you give it everything..
you'll find your own stead!

suddenly something terrible

one good thing about staying late in office is that you get to travel back home during the dark part of the night..when there is no traffic..you could just stare at the road..and keep staring..thats what i do atleast..and thats when my brain shakes up..old memories, new ambitions, goals, targets and everything pops up..and also pops up the question, why me?!

i had never thought i would see this day..never ever..not even in my wildest imagination..it was all going so well..and then suddenly she broke up :( i was too possessive she says. well, when in a relationship you dont spend time with each other, thats perhaps the only thing you could show to make yourself feel that the girl is yours. even that is not acceptable.

i havent cried. i couldnt. the tears just wont come out. but how hard it is i have realised. i have no clue if she is feeling any remorse or happiness (cz of this freedom from possessiveness!) but its so god damn hard..i wish i could just cry once and get it out of my head for always. but i cant. man :(

i surely dont believe in love anymore. after giving my everything here, i have become empty now. i think its all bull shit. life goes on. you marry the girl your mom dad select, have kids and die. the girl now they would select would depend on her salary and qualifications and she would select you on the same basis. so marriage is nothing more than a security. a stability. without love. because if you show too much of it, she will run away.

why mba!

i was going through my linkedin contacts and before i could wonder why i am on linkedin in the first place, i saw a friend's profile. my DCE classmate. after 3 years he is an MBA,CFA,FRM,CIIA,6 Sigma and ofcourse a B.E. ( i don't know the meaning of half of these!). He also claims to be the director of CSI in college, a society which supposedly I revived. well, i dont recall him anywhere close to CSI ever. anyways it might have helped him get his coveted degrees. why should i mind.

what i mind is the status people begin to give to anyone who holds degrees. and these people are not our oldie uncles and aunties, but people among ourselves. people my age, who sometimes think of writing books mocking MBAs and at other times ponder on how they are the only ones left of their college gang who's not in IIM. strange. once in a mock interview (yes i prepared for mba entrances too), my panel, from IIMA and C, asked me why did i want to do an mba when i clearly had a goal in mind. "MBA is for confused people", he said. I didnt have an answer. 2 months later, i didnt submit the fee for XLRI and left the MDI seat. I didnt want to do an mba. Not after i saw the kind of people who actually got selected. and not after i actually realised that people who went were absolutely not sure of what they wanted in life. well, i am.

mba gives you a settled life. a well paying job, a nice house and a big car. and i have let that life go. I tolled hard for 2 years to get these selections. and now i have chosen the path of struggle. just like my dad did when he was my age. i guess it runs in the family, huh. (i just hope my girl supports me just like my mom did).

well, i am pretty sure i wont be remembered from college photographs or as a guy who held 6 degrees from institutes of excellence or who got placed in a large international bank as the treasury head. but i would be pretty content as being remembered as the guy who didn't join the rat race. "He did what he wanted to", they should say.

some days are just so...aaarrrgggghhhhhhh..

am i not glad this last day of april is over..but the agony sure isint yet..! wat started of as such a beautiful morning with a good night's sleep, the delhi metro, the nh8, the already short day and the friday..ended up in a thunder-storm of dust and water, a ruined friday night, a bruised ego, utter chaos, confusion and more confusion. f&*k.

ummm..might this be one of nature's ways of telling you to stop playing with ur life and doing something meaningful soon enough..or else life might become one of such aaarrrggghhhh nights....

change the typical indian

if there is one time i would love to go back to, it would be the time of our freedom. i really want to have a look at those freedom fighters. were they real? did they really stand up to the might of the british? it really takes me a lot of conviction to realise that such people did exist. and it doesnt take me a second to realise that only few are in the same league today.

years after freedom, indians have become accustomed to being ruled. to being governed. they want somebody to preside over them, to tell them what to do, to guide them, to help them at every stage. indians love being slaves. all because of stupid wads of notes.

i've been working for nearly 3 years now. the very first day i started i saw my dreams getting crushed. it was not what was promised. it took me a lot of time to quit. cz i was a slave for money. and so were the other 2000 people i met there, who used to sulk daily about their job. nobody quit. nobody had the guts to. i'm into a new job now. but those 2000 people have not left me. they're here as well. they'are everywhere. i see people getting pissed off at the work, at their leaves getting cancelled, at not getting a hike, at everything. i see people literally crying at work. what i dont see is that one person who could be man/woman enough to work and live the way he wants.

why has it become so difficult. yes we do get entangled in the myriads of friendships at workplace (yes you do make some really great buddies at work sometimes), and also the loves and crushes drag you to that office every single day, but is that all you live for? Is india going to get better by only providing service to the western guys? we need to be doing some real work for our own people. why do we have to think of joining our dream company. why cant we create one?  true there are always the bunch who only want to do what they're told. they cant question. they cant innovate. they cant even stand up for something wrong. but are you one of them. ask yourself.

steve jobs said in his famous stanford speech, "i wake up every morning and ask myself. if this was my last day at earth, would i still be doing what i'm going to do today. if the answer is no for somedays continuously, i change things". you dont have to be steve jobs to change things with your life. you only need to have some guts and a little confidence in yourself.

goa!

when an absolutely planned trip goes unplanned....
Goa!
It all started in 2006. When we began to plan out a trip to simla. goa was echoed by all - we all wanted to visit this beach country but..who in the hell had the money! :( so the plan got dropped and instead we had a simply unforgettable trip to simla. spent some 145 Rs to reach there and came back in just 137! :P

come Dec 2009. atul has already resigned. resignation on my mind too. and along with that is the thing called Goa. with no job in hand, and a wealth of free time, i just couldn't resist that this was the best time to go for it. money i had. though not plenty, but i could manage. now i just needed some friends. and thankfully bros gaurav and nipun agreed. the plan was set. tickets bought! :) and off we went. 21st jan. my first air journey to bombay (exhilarating) and then a train to goa.

day1. get a simply amazing room in a super 4-5 star hotel for free :D yes! hire the best and the newest bikes in town. yes! and the road is ours :) hit anjuna for a beach party. bagpipers and lots of girls! eat drink and be merry. in the mean-time get to know that i have cleared a very important exam. the night has just begun dudes! then i see the most beautiful scene ever. the beach is quiet and lonely. and there is a full moon on the horizon with its reflection in the waters. wow! its 12 am and we sit by the shadows and..just sit!

day2. wake up. we are late! had to return the bikes, shit! reach the store. have a fight. bikeless :( fucking wander all over goa to get those machines and just cant get any. man, is everyone in goa!! 3 pm. still bikeless. another fight! fuck! finally take a cab to a beach. realise its the worst beach! leave. reach the shores and decide to take a cruise. man, is our day finally looking up? nope. of all the cruises available, we take the most shitty one. and it happens to be the costliest, not to speak, the longest one. wow! it ends and i have had enough! i want to go home, mummy!! so we take another cab and start for our room. but wait. we have a gambler with us and a casino just passed by. so what do we do..? boy we turn around. and enter. (yes i had to be cajoled!). gaurav starts the betting. and we follow suit. i look at the watch. its 12. is the worst day over yet?? after 3 hrs, and a lot of carefully and probabilistically planned bets, we are collectively richer by 50%. :P with a hood behind us. the fucker thinks that he is losing cz of us and wants to know our strategy!! man we are scared like hell. run out of the hotel and somehow reach our rooms. euphoria! we're rich :)

day3. wake up sid! get the bikes finally. go to the beach and play some :) if you start loving the waters, they start loving you too! and boy its really hard to look away from all the 'scantily clad' foreigners on the beach!! sports over, head to baga. and man do we have an atmosphere there. its partyyyyy. everwhere. and everywhere you look its a couple you find. i mean everysinglewhere. :( yo and thats wen my head goes wtf! to top that we have a hookah. the best or the worst one ever. it takes you to 7th heaven to ground to again heaven to again ground..!! i'm yet to find out what they put in it there. now, we could go to a disc and dance? but no, not with nipun and gaurav. these dogs will go to a casino but not to a disc in goa! and my night is ruined badly. i'm missing my gf and this was the best chance i had of going to a disc and i was unable to!! god knows what we eat or drink. but the last thing i remember is to be woken up on the beach. i had fallen asleep!

day4. wake up. now what?! seen the beaches. done the sports. now what? no idea, so we hit the swimming pool at the hotel. come down, change and checkout. keep our baggage at the store and take our bikes to the DCH fort. beautiful journey, amazingly beautiful place. take bikes back to calungate, another worst beach. start to leave and then find out about the hip club 9. turn around and reach vagatore. and i get to visit the best party club i have ever been to. super rocking music and an amazing dance floor. all open air. all beside the wonderful beach and a sexy sunset. but camers not allowed :P we leave just in time for returning the bikes. but fate has something else in store! the beautiful goan roads, which took us to the beaches and the forests, take me in front of a 10 ton 4 wheeler mass of metal! i meet with an accident, while overtaking a bus. cz i am late to realise that when i had overtaken the one in front of me, there was another one coming right at me from the front in the other lane! my defective bike saves me. how? it throws me on the road and sacrifises itself inside the frontal bus' front :P what happened next..later

first, let me take you through this step by step. why did it happen. could i have been saved? 1. unfortunately i am the one who remembered the way back so i had to lead. had someone else lead, i would've been saved. 2. gaurav wanted some shot (well it was due) and we stopped on the way. had we not stopped, the bus wouldn't have been in front of us to overtake. 3. gaurav wanted some shot on the way and we stopped twice. and i lost these mfs cz while i did, these two didn't remember we had to stop twice!! had that time been saved, the bus wouldnt have been in front of me. 4. i shouldnt have tried the stupid stunt :P

still, with only 25% of my fault in the accident, i get all the thrashing from them. i am saved but the bike's damaged. and with an experience of the kind of assholes goans are, we are paniced as hell. the bike damage cost would be exaggerated by the owner, we are sure. with noone to help us out (it was 9) we decide to fight among ourselves :P somehow common sense prevails and we return the bikes with minimal cost (cz owner is drunk!). shopping, dettol, and excruciating pain! we catch our train from goa to bombay.

day5. we leave goa and reach bombay. put our baggage and visit some places - gateway of india and marine drive. and i realise in that short trip that people in bombay are nice and helpful. night falls. gaurav leaves for gujrat and we come back to airport for our flight back. but, its not so easy is it? delhi has fog and we spend the night at the airport!

day6. finally, we get the flight. i pass out in plane and we reach delhi in time only to find out my foot is fractured!
goa finally over!

so what does this whole anecdote teach you? i'll tell you what. if you're a bunch of guys and you still havent visited goa....guys get the fucking tickets!!!

kitni der tak??

have you ever tried to test nature's patience? don't. nature fucks like hell. but have you ever tried to test your own patience?

we all want somethings in life. and somethings we want real bad. how often do we get what we want? almost never. i'd say 1 in 100000 times. at least the figure is true for me. but isn't that because we stop waiting (and then stop trying)? yes. try this. the next time you want something really bad (something not in your hands) make a note of it. and wait. keep waiting. don't let that thing get out of your head. it'll eventually be yours. Must have heard of that cliched dialogue, "when you want something extremely bad, the whole universe conspires to give it to you!". i'll tell you what, its true. the problem is that the universe works really sloooooow. but it works nonetheless.

so the next time you want something, just don't stop wanting. If there is one person on this earth who should get that thing it should be you!

the reason

Friday was my last day at work. for the time being. i was looking forward to this break..even though i had already had a month long one about a month ago! anyways, this whole looking forward thing got fucked up coz of one word, which highlights most of my blogs, nostalgia. i might not have enough words for describing the hatred i had for my workplace and for the work, but nostalgia fills me nonetheless. i was there for a whole 30 months. thats a loong time u see. my first company. i still remember the ecstasy of being placed, of getting my first job. only to land up here!

but, whatever happens happens for a reason. and the reason is only clear in retrospect. so while i wait for the actual retrospective to be enlightened, i might have discovered some reasons i was sent here for, myself.

number 1 reason was to find the absolutely amazing and crazy bunch of mf asshole friends i found here. "you dont make friends at the workplace", is what i used to hear. let me tell you something, i found my best friends here..in this hole. friends so good, i never even made in college. and to imagine most of them are only dceites, is even crazier. i mean how could we not meet in our abode?!
number 2 reason was to meet 2 absolutely amazing girls (both with strange names!) who would become my first and only female friends for life. they changed my whole perspective of looking at girls - now, all females are not as dumb and allergic as they look!
number 3, i was sent here to learn to laugh my guts out. i cant recall days when i actually did that before i came here. this sucking place which made me sulk so much, also gave me a friend who taught me to laugh. and laugh i now, from the inside! and with that friend i learnt to be a kid, to be myself when i wanted to be.
number 4 reason, and perhaps the most important one, it made me realise what a big mistake i had made when i chose software engineering as my profession! i was never born to do this. naah! well, it still didnt clear up what i was born to do :P but definitely not this!
number 5. now this is stupid. this place taught me the value of patience, the value of keeping quiet when silence mattered and, !!!! the value of being nice to everyone. i couldnt have said this 2 months ago. but something has woken up inside me..dn know for how long! i had thought of fighting with my onsite manager but i didnt. i thought of writing a nice hate mail before i left, but instead i met my seniors and left with a smile! and i had to remove the attitude problem badge i carried! unlike me, huh?

is it coincidental that when i came back from the month long break and had realised all this, that i immediately got the shift i was looking for? well, i guess somethings happen for a reason.