We - The Achievers

The desire to expand the horizons never ceases
And hunger to outdo competitors never stops

What a dream was before has become a habit now
How can we live without it how can we leave without?

Though down this road we have traveled many times
It looks so new so fresh every time

When asked about hobbies we say without a pause
Climbing the mountains and reaching the top

When all mountains are done and no peek is left
We shall build our own, the highest and toughest

They call us achievers, the toppers the great
But this is our life and success is our breath

Entrepreneurship: A thoght

The human mind has always been attracted towards unpredictability. Life becomes mundane when you know everything about your future. A sane person loving to earn a fix monthly salary through employment may sustain the predictability of the routine job, but a true entrepreneur loves to make his life unpredictable even to the extent of not knowing what will happen tomorrow.
The human race has a normal tendency to get carried away with the flow. E.g. a child has a tendency to become a criminal when it is grown in a company of criminals. Similarly a student while planning his future gets influenced by what his classmates are planning. If the trend is to work hard to get placed in a good company and earn a fat salary every month; the human mind which by this time has got used to think with the flow; hardly try to find other ways of shaping the future. That’s why people always raise eyebrows when someone chooses entrepreneurship over placements.
What could be the reasons behind someone opting for entrepreneurship? How the entrepreneurs are different from others? What are the qualities of their personalities which are responsible for their choice of unknown, unpredictable way of entrepreneurship over the regular safe way of placement?
There can be many answers to these questions. Let me mention some of them which are very close to me.
One of the reasons that the entrepreneurs don’t want to follow the trend is that they feel so common doing so. Either they are not common or they don’t want to be common. In either case they wont follow the trend.
Another way to look at it is the fact that you struggle a lot to achieve something. But when you actually get it, the importance of the thing you were struggling so hard to get gets lost. So cracking a competitive exam is the most important goal of your life at some stage, but when you crack it you ask yourself, ‘fine you cracked it. What next?’ When you are a student of a top B-school, its not at all challenging to get placed in a good company. Everyone in your class would be getting placed. So what is challenging?
The answer is entrepreneurship.
There is a phrase in hindi – ‘Khudko aajmana’ – to test yourself, your abilities. When you get placed in a company everything is already planned for your there. Sure, there are some challenges in any job, but a system is there to help you, to guide you, to support you. But in entrepreneurship you have do everything from scratch. Entrepreneurship is more challenging especially when you don’t have anything except your brain to start with. So the entrepreneurship here becomes a question: do you have a potential to generate a successful business from nothing?
Sometimes down the line everybody asks this question to himself: what have you achieved in your life? A successful entrepreneur looking at the business he has generated, the employees earning salaries from his business and the satisfaction on the face of his customers will say, ‘I may not build my own army and concur lands, but I can become a king of an empire where people earn their living with satisfaction and which helps to bring a positive change in the lives of many people.’

Kunaas thauk kasa pan sharyateet gela sasa

Kunaas thauk kasa pan sharyateet gela sasa
saglya kaasvaanna mage katun pahila ala kasa

Circuswale mhanale gaaL ghaam
Deto tula duppat daam

Sasa sasa aikto kasa
Swapn pahile zaala pisa

Tyala thave jinkayche kase
Kasavanche ata to kartoye sase...

Two eggs and tiny wings

I go my home in Nashik every weekend. Last time when I returned to my room in JB hostel in Mumbai, I saw a nest of a pigeon in my room. And I saw a pigeon constantly sat in the nest. I suspected that it would have laid eggs. That was true. The next morning when the pigeon went out - may be to have some water - I saw two eggs in the nest. I wished I could help the pigeon with some water. I found a small bowl in my room, filled it with water and kept it near the nest.


Our lectures got canceled and I decided to go back home. I had to close all the doors and windows of my room before leaving. If I had done that the pigeon would have died in few days. So I kept the nest alongwith the box on which it was built, in the gallery when pigeon was out. It came back and sat on the eggs. I happily went my home.

I came back after 6 days. I was more than curious to see the small chicks just came out of the eggs. I opened the door and was astound to see the view. The nest was destroyed and when I searched for the eggs, there was one egg in the corner of the box, the other was missing. I picked up the only egg and saw that it was broken. The half hatched chick had shade its blood even before coming out of it. The scene was unbearable to me.

Who would have done it? There are as many crows as there are pigeons in the area. The crows always try to find where the pigeons have laid the eggs, and then they eat them. May be one of the crows would have done it.

Was it my mistake to keep the nest outside the room? If I had kept the nest in the room and had left the back door open for the pigeon I would have seen the little chicks. I could have seen two new lives taking birth and growing up. I threw the egg as long as I could possibly throw it.

I know its the law of nature. But still I cant forget the perseverance with which the pigeon had sat on the eggs, without making a single noise lest I found it out, without moving even a bit for hours. Its dreams could have come true had I not kept the nest out in the gallery.

I still cant remove the small stains of blood in my gallery which could have run through the tiny wings when they would have taken their first flight...

Diwali Vacations

Today, I went to my aunts home in the same colony. She has just migrated in the city with her family as her son got a job here in Nashik and her husband got retired. They left the small town called Lasalgaon, forever. As these are Diwali days we started talking on how we used to spend this festival years ago.

Her town was really a cool place to spend days of holiday. All of our family, my mom, dad, my sister and me used to visit her place in every holiday. They had a small colony where all of the families were so close to each other. The whole day all of us children used to play around the house or in the colony. When in home we played cards or watch movies on VCR. When we were out, we used to play hide and seek or go to the riverside to catch fish.

Every evening people from different families used to gather at her place just to chat. All of the children used to play either cricket or a very interesting local game called ‘Lingorcha’ on the colony road. And when it got dark, we played badminton in the street light.

Every evening a ‘kulphiwala’ used to come and served ‘Matka Kulphi’ for 25 paise. It was so tasty that we never missed it as far as we stayed there. My uncle was a professor in the only college in that town. The college had a basketball court. Sometimes we used to go to the campus to play basketball.

The town also had a railway station. It was 2 km away from her home. Sometimes we used to walk to the station. There was hardly anybody on the platform. I used to enjoy looking at the trains speedily passing the station. A steady silence, then sudden disturbance for few seconds and again the same steady silence. I still remember the smell of burnt coal which I used to experience on the station.

In the night all the colony looked like the milky way in the sky. All the houses were lit with hundreds of small oil lamps. Nobody stayed home. Everybody was seen chatting on the street or on the steps of some home. (Mobile phones were not available then).

Before sleeping, my uncle used to tell us Tarzan stories. We used to go to sleep with the images of Tarzan jumping from tree to tree with the chimpanzees. How fortunate we were to enjoy all this in our vacations!

But as we grew up, going to their town became rarity. And now they themselves have left their home and are here in a big town where people hardly know their neighbours. Now we can just remember those days.

My cousin brother is married. We just thought where will he take his children in their Diwali vacations?

Assembly Elections 2009: A Marketer's Perspective

I am home and just returned from the voting booth. I did not vote for a particular candidate or a party. The only reason I voted was that I wanted to feel the sense of responsibility. Being a responsible citizen, its my responsibility to vote.

As a marketer if I think of this issue from the perspective of a customer, going for vote is like going to market for purchasing a product. Comparing to my case, the customer does not really want any particular brand. He even is not very enthusiastic about purchasing a product. But it was made mandatory to him to purchase something. And this mandate was the sense of responsibility he wanted to experience.

Comparing to the real situation of purchasing a product, customer goes to market because she wants the product. Here the motivation is the ‘need’. But when I went for voting, the motivation was the ‘responsibility’.

It is the responsibility of the democracy to change this motivation from ‘responsibility’ to ‘need’. Need to bring the government the voter wants. We can compare here the ‘democracy’ with ‘industry’. E.g. It’s the responsibility of ‘Skin Care’ products industry to create the ‘need’ to use skin care products in the mind of the customer.

It is also the responsibility of the different political parties to change the motivation form ‘responsibility’ to ‘need’. Need to vote to bring that particular political party in the power. We can compare here the ‘Political Party’ with ‘Brand’. E.g. It’s the responsibility of ‘Garnier’ to create the ‘need’ to use their skin care products in the mind of the customer.

I think the political parties in Maharashtra were hardly able to do so. A dismal 60% voters turnout explains everything.

Good bye 2008

Yesterday, on 31^st December, I went to marine drive to bid the year 2008 goodbye. It was the first sunset I witnessed in the past 5 months of my stay here at marine drive. I thought the sun would set well before reaching the horizon but it dipped into water till its last point.

I was sitting on the pavements and watching the sun setting. He was talking to me asking me few questions like an appraiser. How was the year? What did you achieve? What did you lose? Were you upto your reputation? Did you carry forward your legacy of achieving success? What is your agenda for the next year? What do you want to achieve by the end of next year?

When I was working for Infosys, we had annual appraisals by the managers. That was to check the progress of an employee. But do we have such process on personal level? Every person asks the above questions to himself depending on whether he feels the need to do so. The setting sun could not resist appraising me before it disappeared.

What was my major achievement this year? No doubt the top rank in Maharashtra state (ohu) in MBA CET. This could have been my all time greatest achievement. Even though getting NTS was tougher task to accomplish than cracking CET, I was among 700 achievers all over India in NTS. This success in CET completely destroyed the question on my ability to achieve great success. The three years after graduation were insipid without any significant achievement. This success created some enthusiasm in life.

On personal account I lost few good friends and got some new ones. In Infosys my friend circle was very limited. Through JB I got a bigger circle of friends. The intercollegiate events and activities got me some new friends. Through 24 hr net, I came in contact with few forgotten friends of past.

First semester at JB was totally new experience. Getting so many experiences in such a less time span was indeed a great thing that happened to me. Though I am not satisfied as far as knowledge gaining is concerned, I am happy that I got a platform. In the coming year I can use it to fill the gap.

There is only one major reason that I came to JB. I hope I will have started that dream run and will have run a few hundred meters on the path by the end of next year.