The Year It Was - 2010

The year when our little start-up transitioned out of IIT D.

The year when we got our fair share of media lime-light.

The year when our whole gang started getting married.. one by one.. for good :)

The year when i started reading a lot about management, marketing and sales (and not technology)

The year when i really started to think and sometimes think a lot... (became over-analytical, Khera didn't like it!!)

The year when i prepared myself for multiple transitions in work life and personal life and that had a lot to do with the thinking part...

The year when i met an amazing woman....

The year when i lost quite some weight and tried to become healthy...

The year when i quit smoking..yes!!!!

The year when i realized that i can have a way with women ;)

The year when i started wearing glasses and started wearing formals to work ;)

The year when i felt the pressure of leading a funded and thankfully growing start-up :)

The year of marriages and rokas..Sareen, Bhatia, Don, Shekhar, Mishra, Rishi .. very happy for all of them..

The year when a woman actually became so important that i re-started the whole ritual of getting drunk and calling her ;)

The year when i started taking a salary!!!! :)

The year when i started thinking about marriage ;)

The year when Blogging made a comeback!!

The year when we all friends made efforts to meet more often and drink more often ;)

The year when i actually acted very funny, local, bakait and filmy - like kissing a girl's hand on a railway platform ;)

The year when we as start-up started dreaming big, multi-million dollar fundings, star studded BOD, a professional CEO, BOD meetings in five-star hotels, the works..

The year when i sometimes went on a date, bang in the middle of workday.... that was really cool :)

The year when i started drinking coffee at overpriced coffee shops a lot.. and actually liked it a lot!!

The year when i went to some really awesome places in Delhi..

The year when i started smsing a lot.. more that a thousand ;)

The year when i started selling...enterprise sales, consumer sales .. blah blah blah.. bus baich hi raha hoon ;)

The year when i used the word 'love', 'pyaar'.. quite often and quite abundantly..

The year when i proposed marriage to someone and the proposal got shot down :D, :(

The year when i started loosing hair :(

The year when i started managing my time... sometimes fanatically so :(

The year when i went on frequent long walks with my dad and had some great conversations with my mom..

The year when my bank balance went above 1 lac.. in quite some time..

The year when i traveled quite a lot.. by my standards

The year when i really became comfortable with the idea of death.. and yes, started living!! :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the year was 2010!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!!!!!!! :)

On Passion

Greeks did not write obituaries. They always asked the question - Whether the guy had passion?

When i die, i want the answer to be a resounding yes.

Passion, a strong sense of emotion.

The emotion you feel when you see your vision being realized in front of your eyes.

The emotion you feel when you do unimaginable things for someone special.

The emotion which makes you sing a soulful song.

The emotion which makes you run the last hundred metres extra fast, even though your body has no energy left.

The emotion which makes you speak your heart out to a million people, sometimes against all odds.

The emotion you feel when you puff out the smoke, thinking you finally get it.

.....

We in the course of our lives, give up on 'passion' and opt for a staid existence. Which is understandable as passion is the driving force of creative destruction. It is the anti-thesis of an organized life. But whats a life which does not get excited.

There should be things about which one should be passionate ... love, family, friends, work..

And it is not momentary flash in the pan passion i am talking about. People who were passionate for long periods were responsible for the forward surge of mankind.

Gekko said - 'Greed, for lack of a better word, is good'.. He missed 'passion'.

As part of human race, we owe it to ourselves to live a life of passion!!

Meeting a Journalist III - When Waiting is Futile!!

(There comes a time in life when you should not wait for something to happen, you go out and make it happen)

I am an impatient being and willing to be patient for things which are very close to my heart. (Two PhDs could not survive my impatience, had to drop out twice :), the company has, so you get the idea!!). Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of my lifetime.

Coming back to the journalist 'mohtarma', I was getting impatient, as i had a perfect excuse to ask her out (the confusion about dating/meeting will be cleared in future posts, so hang in there!) but she appeared to be busy all the time. (Actually being busy is a part of her Geminian charm, the mind is continuously occupied, not necessarily she is ;))

Started stalking her when she was online, chatting and fixing meetings (Dude, i should get some balls and ask a woman out, but i have my own list of excuses :() After some false starts, could actually convince her to meet for coffee. So that was it, our first meeting without work being the focus, but could not term it a date, as it was not explicitly spelled out (Professionals, can clarify the intricacies of dating to me, please, through comments)

So it was a Meeting at Barista, South Ex-II (socha ki hum bhi in coffee bars ki sale badha de, abtak to panch rupaye wali chai hi peeta tha, jia sarai ki ;) ) I was very confident that i can reach south ex in twenty minutes flat from IIT D, but thanks to my khatara car and the notorious Delhi traffic, took me cool 35 minutes to be there. To be honest, i started late. When would i stop doing that. She was already waiting and slightly angry also (by then my impression of being a late lateef has been set, which stands till date!), I was slightly nervous but that's cool. I realized then that this woman is not as fair as i am (i know i am sounding very vain, but i have this deep rooted complex that i am very fair looking guy ;)). Again a misconception, but surely she looked tired and distraught (like a damsel in distress :)). May be its the Delhi heat, her travelling, her constantly working Gemini mind or some other stuff... God knows, i didn't know it then.

This meeting again was centred around technology and her story. Its good to have intelligent conversations but I wanted to add personal dimensions and whats better way of extending conversations than 'observing and talking'. I could not stop noticing one thing.. Yaar kitna khaati hai!! Unlike girls, ek poori club sandwich ki plate chat kar gayi!! :0

On a serious note, this woman was all about observation. You can spend hours with her talking, as she has a viewpoint on all issues. She is well read, intelligent and 'deceptively attentive'... Her nonchalant independence is also heart warming. There are women who are independent but make a big issue of it, other are simply too traditional... she is somewhere at the intersection :)

One note worthy incident was when i took her hand to flaunt my astro knowlegde ( i know , this is a cliched trick, to touch a girl ;))...well very soft hands. I tried to get some information whether she is single or seeing someone.. but only got the feeling that she is having some trouble in her relationship or there is some disturbing past.. well who does not have one.. :-|

There was an incident centred around water. Out of something inconsequential, i drank water from her glass. Pat came a smart comment: "tumhe AIDS to nahin" (which was by design, as i later found out, to catch people off-guard) but in a split second i replied: AIDS happens through a different sort of fluid exchange. She was startled..(Rani, isse kehte hain nehle pe delha:D, ;))

After talking some sense and quite a lot non-sense, it was time to leave. And i offered to drop her home, which was actually a PG, in a my old and dilapidated car (I should stop fretting about it and buy a new one!!). She was very direct in complementing me that i observe and say things. She comes across as someone who is very sure of herself, the way she carries herself with dignity and does not make opinions, unlike me. I think i am quick to make opinions, draw conclusions, and sometimes over-analyze things!!!

I smoked in her company (which is very close to smoking nirvana, sharing a cigarette is actually smoking nirvana!!! :)), drove her back.. and left with a smile on my face, feeling content that i have met some one with whom i can connect across a wide spectrum of ideas...and that made me expectant... :) Parting wisdom.. beware of expectations, expectations reduce the joy of living..... :)

Meeting a Journalist II

(This is getting interesting now, and I am actually enjoying writing about these meetings.. future posts may not be in the chronological order and the title would depend upon the memorable incidents :))

After that first interaction, we exchanged some story related emails and then she wanted to pay visit to the scientific co-founder of our company, our Professor. She arrived early and asked whether i would be available. Ofcourse, I was !! (Anil Kapoor said in tezaab: Waqt hota nahin hai, nikalana padta hai :D)

After some customary small talk, the conversation went towards her hometown and the naxalism that was happening there (the Dantewada incident happened just then, though i was not really listening, just looking at her ;)). She had her hairs tied up and the her purple streak was not visible. She was wearing a kurta and trousers (which she vehemently denies today saying that she has no black trousers, though i believe my memory always, its kind of photographic B-))

So accompanied her to the Professor's office and then asked her to get back to me once she is done, as i was looking for an opportunity to extend our conversations further (Some guys look good, some guys sing,.. well i just talk (thats what i do for a living also i guess, just talk).. ab aur kuch kar bhi to nahin sakte :P)

We took time to reconnect as it was tough for her to find her way through the labyrinth which is IIT Delhi. Another coffee and a walk, conversing about her interests in reading, travelling etc. and then asked her about whether she would be interested in going to a play ( 'Run for my Wife' : fellow dude Ashish Goel was acting in it, though plays are not much up my alley, i thought intellectual women dig plays ;)). She didn't seem very enthusiastic and suggested that one of her friends would be very interested in attending. (that was unacceptable for me, as i was looking for some face time alone ;) (don't misinterpret face time now ;), I sometimes wonder how much of a loser i am, hahaha :))

Something happened then which is memorable to me, and I respect her for it. As we were departing, we started talking about TR, EmTech 2009 ( I was a speaker there ;)), when in a bout of self-deprecation, i belittled my work. She said that 'Ink is an important chemical, it is used everywhere and what you are doing will impact the printing industry worldwide.' (my memory might have exaggerated it, but the essence is the same ;)). I guess journalists treat all their stories with respect, but for me it meant a lot. Seriously. (:))

So that was the second meeting, again based on professional grounds, but I had established the 'communication beachhead' (management , hhhhuuh !!) on FaceBook and her mobile number was handy.

Smses and babbar shers are great ice-breakers which i used abundantly. Also got a lot of dope to interact by stalking her facebook profile (cheapster!) and was amazed to find that she is a Sherlock Holmes fan. A woman who reads Sherlock Holmes is very attractive. Tried to trick her into meeting over exchanging Sherlock Holmes novellas but she is smart enough to see through it.

Next came unabashed hitting on her through smses ( damn i was very quick, by own standards :), impatience is a virtue, but not with women i guess :)). One noteworthy incident centered around her 'kissing prowess' which didnt go down too well with her. She blasted me saying 'is it right to hit on a woman you just met like this'.. though i felt defensive, but being dramatic i am , i responded: 'DIl to Bachcha hai ji'... (well i thought that was very clever :))

Meeting was no where in sight and she was busy completing the story, which was very important for us also. So tried to lay low and wait till the story got over. Nonetheless, dispatched her the Sherlock Holmes DVD, which was kind of well received. (somehow i feel i can make women happy ;))

Had to wait for nearly a month and we were looking at April end. Then came the TR story and the worldwide acclaim it brought. It was bigger than the TechCrunch coverage (again re-inforcing that am not much of a loser professionally, getting covered in TC is huge for Indian start-ups and we are in the mundane business of making eco-friendly printing inks.. oops green chemicals is a better positioning :)) I couldn't be happier and thought she deserved a treat for doing a fabulous job!

I sensed that now is the time to ask her out on a date ..errrrrr!! I was horribly mistaken.... To be continued!!

Meeting a Journalist I

There have been many unpublished posts from my end in the blog, but this one needs to be sent out.

I realized around Dec 2009 that my life had become quite unidimensional, with Company being the sole focus of my being for past 3 years. Having raised venture capital, I was assured the Company wont die (though growth is still a struggle :( ) and wanted some distraction before immersing myself into work. Being an entrepreneur you only meet three Fs: Family, Friends and Fools (like yourself ;)). After constant prodding from Mr. Ritesh Khera, I thought of replacing the third F with one of the most distracting and interesting species - 'Females'.

Though the avenues were limited (time is a scarce resource, and money was also), i thought of interacting with any female i came in contact with, pretty much in line with the marketing strategy of 'creating customers in uncertain markets' (damn, i hate throwing management jargon all the time, seriously i need a life ;)). Being part of an all guy gang (rapidly shrinking one too!) didnt help either. All the contacts were professional - Designers, customers and ... journalists (this shows that I am not much of a loser, and EnNatura is a media worthy startup;))

So one day in March i received a call from the Technology Review (MIT's Magazine on Innovation). One the other end was a 'fidgety, though confident' female voice seeking appointment. Ofcourse, when someone from TR calls, you give appointment (as if i had a choice ;)) as the coverage would worth millions in advertising spend (million Rs., not $ :)). There was some strangeness in that voice, a mixture of old world comfort and modern chirp, and i was intrigued enough to check out the FaceBook profile of the caller. Again an intriguing 'profile' pic in sepia shade.

I was in anticipation for this meeting, both as it was from the TR and also because of the intrigue of the person. Have also asked her to email me the list of questions, so that i come across prepared (this tactic though came in handy later, for a different purpose ;))

So she arrived on time and I was in the TBIU (IIT D's Incubator) parking to receive her. All jazzed up with sunglasses, red top and black jeans. But it was her gait that caught my eye. She apparently put much effort in walking ( may be she was exhausted, physically or may be mentally ;)). She instantly came across as someone warm and friendly and we started talking, while climbing stairs.

I talked about her educational background (is there any better conversation starter!) and she replied something related to IT ( i was like yawn!!, you are here to write about my high tech, advanced chemistry based printing inks :), yeah right, inks and high tech, dude get real ;)). Then how come she is a journalist and pat came the reply, that she made a career choice late when she switched from IT to journalism ( I was impressed, that this person is doing stuff by choice and willing to take chances, that resonated with me).

As we settled down and started the interview, my preparation came in handy, as i was able to take her very easily through all the presentations and answer her queries, while my mind was busy observing and taking notes:

• A ring on her hand, some sort of astro-related stone
• The purple streak in her hairs
• She was kind of itchy and restless :)
• She had a limited attention span (though this should not be mistaken with lack of smarts, it was all getting registered, even though she comes across as someone lost with that contemplative look in her eyes)

I talked about the stone and she said that her parents are concerned about her career choices and based on some jyotishi's recommendation, have asked her to wear it. An amusing story though i sensed some discomfort which i thought would probe about later.

Then as we finished, i switched to my typical UP bhaiya language and aksed her about her 'purple rangbaazi', she was a sport there and she responded in same lingo, which was very appealing to the UP heartland in me (people say this about biharis and punjabis, but u can also take a bhaiya out of UP but not the UP out of a bhaiya :D). Here was a techie journo talking in 'khadi boli'... 'are rajja!!'

I took her for a stroll around our 'garage operation' which she admired (more brownie points to her) and then for a coffee below IIT D's library. We were talking about her college in Noida, her friends among UP wallas, IIT campus life etc. as we walked. But there was a moment of embarrassment in store for me. As we reached the coffee shop, i realized that i have only 22 bucks in my wallet (!!!, reminiscent of the days when i was broke, though not any longer, my company was paying me a handsome CEO salary now ;), though i think this comes from the my parsimonious habits of the past ;))

She ordered for an Iced tea (Rs. 12) and that left me a cool 10 bucks to order a 'Ditto mango' (my all time favorite at IIT D library). Oooohh! what a close shave.

I changed the topic around where she stays and what she does on the weekends. I was very happy knowing that she stayed in Lajpat Nagar, very close from my place and stayed at a PG (meaning that would be available for dating probably, ;)).

So I said goodbyes to her, ending the meeting with some small talk about story and all. We parted with the customary, 'be in touch' and 'nice meeting you'. Though i realized that it was very easy to strike a conversation with this woman. May she was just plain warm and friendly.

Little did I know that this episode is gonna turn into something so dramatic :)............