A call for the good!

A lovely morning to start; light nippy drizzles, cool breeze to wipe out the tiredness of my face, lush green trees showing its beauty to the whole world, walking amidst the silence of the nature, feel of the fresh air, people with different stories in their mind, kids playing their best, experiencing the extreme anti-stressful moments, relaxed expressions, effortless actions, some old stories, perhaps! A new makeover; company of a good person to share feelings, funny moments, tears to feel better, rub-rub-rub sound of the running shoes, clear blue sky, welcoming rays of morning sun, heavenly prayers and beautiful smiles…

Well! Which place do you think I am talking about? It’s the Cubbon Park! Yes! It’s the park I like the most in Bengaluru. What I have written is what I experienced this Saturday morning. Sound’s awesome isn’t it?

After one stressful week, all of us would like to experience the same. We will just try to look out for any opportunity to feel good, laugh good or at least we keep smiling to come out of what happened at work! I am sure weekend is a real break for most of us to come out of it. And you do it the way you always like to do. Some people enjoy it with friends, family and relatives, some of us will hang around with friends, watch movies, eat good food, spend some peaceful time, relax and keep doing things which does not require you to apply your mind!

Think about it… how many of us will get stuck during the weekdays not thinking about the things we really like? We keep hearing the statements like “hey dude… am a little busy, can I call you back?”, “am getting into a meeting, can we talk later”, “I was waiting for your call last night, but…”, “hey am really sorry I could not return your call”, best part is, whenever I call to check on how he/she is doing, I get a response like “hey I am very busy, can we talk later?”. That will be the end of it. Sometimes I feel, nobody talks to me peacefully, rather none of my friends in the past one week chatted with me peacefully.

Why? Are we all so hooked up to our jobs that it is not letting us to express things? Or is it just that during the working hours, we cannot think of anything else? I feel worried and I get scared whenever I listen to my friends when they tell me they are extremely busy. If this continues, we will forget everything and lead a very lonely life. Hopefully, at least the team we work with in the office should be good which can give good comfort level for us to come out of stress. I every day try speaking to my closed ones just to try coming out of it.

Whenever I call someone, I just need to know how they are doing, what is the new excitement in their life, what is it that they are struggling with? All these questions I ask because with this, I will be able to share my thoughts and feel good and also it gives them a comfort level to feel better after having shared their feelings. How much time will it take? 3-4 minutes? may be less than that. But I seldom hear what I expect to hear with all the people I know. After the busy week, there will be so many personal commitments during the weekend and our conversation will never happen again.

Sometimes I feel, I myself should offer to meet all of my friends and get them a good coffee and chat for a few minutes. (I can only pay for the coffee folks ;)) I am ready folks, I will do it. So if you are getting bored, feel like sharing something to feel better, to get to hear some dirty PJs and laugh for few seconds, hear about my stories, share happy news or sad news, now you know whom to call… just pick up your phone and give me a call. And yes! If I say “I am busy right now”, do not feel bad, I will definitely return the call without forgetting it. That’s my word!

While I was thinking all these, the thought that came to my mind is to go to Cubbon Park every weekend. So I and Sup planned to meet at 7 am and jog for a while. It was a good morning, we jogged, chatted, laughed, stared at people, discussed on some inspiring stories, planned a bit on important actions, felt good and returned home. It was absolutely a great idea to meet at Cubbon Park. I even got some hunt for my shooter!. There are many people like us who visit this awesome place every day. It’s a place where people of all ages, all professions, all religions walk, talk and enjoy. It is a place where many teams have their meetings, discussions, entrepreneurs who meet to develop their idea, businessmen to think and work or their business, money deals, family matters, and ofcourse I forgot to mention; it’s a place for many people to share their love! You cannot find them even though they will be inside the park. That good and thick the park is!!!!

So, you now know where I will be during the weekends (mornings). Trying another good hobby! So if you want to meet me and enjoy some good time, come and join me at Cubbon Park!!! Come out of your busy life for a few hours! Let’s enjoy!

Srik

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Fear Factor!

A fear to begin the journey...
a journey of a fearless life!
A life without expectations…
for an unconditional life!

Being yourself! a fear of belief,
being believed! a fear of trust,
being trustworthy! a fear of commitment,
and commitment! a fear of honesty…

Fear factor in you and me,
a fear factor in every person…
Fear of expressing the worst…
and the fear of accepting the best!

Anxiety of losing good hopes!
preparing for the worst than the best,
mixed feelings in every heart beat,
a journey into the chaotic world!

An opportunity being tested,
the momentum being gained,
our senses being validated,
all for the good show…and out of fear!

A hidden fear for the success,
a result that can hide our fear!
A driving force for all our actions,
that’s the fear factor within us!

Perhaps! The fear factor in you and me!
a feel good factor for you and me…
to drive us out of the fear,
for a fearless journey of an unconditional life!

Srik

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Visioning Life!

For most of us, what we see is life… but for few others, what they cannot see is life! Strange isn’t it?

It all started with the reading on the recent developments of ‘Point return’ and an argument which i read from one of my friend's blog that read as “How many of us know Rakhi Sawant? and How many of us know Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar?. The duo co-founded The Banyan, a trust that works with homeless and mentally ill women.”

Luckily I knew both of them and their great work for the cause. It is an inspiring story if you want to know about ‘The Banyan’. It all started with the objective of helping one woman because there were no organizations that were ready to help that one woman. These two great hearts did it and they are doing it now in a bigger scale in Chennai. So it was for one life, these two accepted their life as a service for other lives. They chose their lives and it did not come to them?

And since I was the regular follower of the goodnewsindia.com which is managed single handedly by D V Sridharan, I was also following his new initiative of Point Return. The point is to return – is what he is trying to achieve. It is inspiring to read the developments and the challenges that are being faced by him in developing the agricultural land he is working on. And he is working alone. His primary objective is to restore a tiny corner of abandoned India into a sustainable resource for water, energy, food and cash. The first step he is working is on a 15 acre land which is located 100 km from Chennai. Readers of this post may want to visit these two websites for more details and get inspired. So Sridharan could chose his life?

As I was working tight with my busy schedule worrying about a lot of things which I did not wanted to but I was forced to, I got a call from one of my mentor. The whole discussion was good in terms of discussing about what actually is the driving factor for us to do something different. Also he used the term “electrifies” which was appropriate at that moment as we all are tired of routine work and to get the motivation, something should really electrify us. He was enquiring about our great Himalayan trip and we ended up with an objective to dedicate our lives to the Nature. I always get inspired to talk to him because he is the inspiring factor in my life to do something different as he is doing extraordinary things and achieving his goals one by one being physically challenged. I salute his spirits and I am sure he will do whatever he wants to do for the society.

My conversation with my mentor, the latest updates on point return, and the Banyan made me think a lot and gave me enough kick for the whole day. As I was thinking I did even share my thoughts with few of my good friends and I am sure even they would’ve thought about it in the same way. The thought which was lingering in my mind was do we have enough options to chose in life? Or are we taking the life the way it comes to us?

Well… I have the question unanswered yet. While this thought was lingering in my mind, I got to know that one of my good friend’s dad was no more and she was taken aback by the whole process. The one statement which came from her made me think a lot again was, she said “Life is not the same anymore”. So again my question was “Do you have any other choice?”

To add to the same, if that was the case, during our Himalayan trip, because of the Nature’s play, two people lost their lives. Did they have any choice? Having all the other team members with them they could not come out of what they encountered.

So life is to be taken the way it comes? Today morning while I was travelling to my office, one handsome gentleman got in to the bus at the residency road stop. I did not look at him properly as I was interestingly reading my economic times. But after a few seconds I heard a loud noise and as I looked at it, it was the stick of that gentleman. Yes! He was blind and he was struggling to get on to the seat. I was observing him as he got onto the seat and opened his physically challenged bus pass and with the great difficulty he showed that to the bus conductor. After settling down on the seat, he took out his comb and started combing his hair and cleaned his face with his hand key. He was comfortably sitting and listening to the FM in the bus. But I started feeling uncomfortable looking at the way he got ready, combed his hair just to make sure that he looks good to others. He must be around the age of 25-28 and he looked like any other handsome professional. So that is his life. Whether he chose to be that way or he just accepted the way it came to him. But hats-off to him for his brave act of moving around in the city of Bengaluru without any fear and like a normal human being.

That’s when I thought, for us, what we see is life and for him, what he cannot see is life. I realized that he can see what we cannot see and we cannot see what he can see. It is not about just seeing, it is visioning life. Sometimes I get nightmares thinking about my mom and her difficulties. But I have accepted it as she has accepted it the way it came to her. I just wish her to see my face at least once. But I know, she is seeing me every day and she has the vision for me and my life which is more than the sight.

Having accepting the life the way it comes to you, you tend to vision yourself around what you see or what you cannot see. Now to decide whether we are lucky having got to see things or unlucky having got to see things which we did not want to see is again a vision around us. Envisioning the hard facts around us and the plenty of opportunities for us to work and make the society livable is the biggest challenge again. We can say we may not be lucky because we are seeing and encountering such hard facts on a daily basis but we are lucky because some of us have chosen to work with the hard facts which can make a difference.

Now again my question to you is… how do you envision your life? Do you have options to chose? Or take it the way it comes to you? And either ways, what is the difference that you can make?

Srik

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It's raining startups in Bengaluru

It just feels so wonderful to hear about start-ups. To add to this excitement, we attended a startup event on 6th June at the Nimhans Convention Center. This event was organized by one of the largest professional network called as ‘Silicon India’. I sincerely thank them for organizing this event to support and empower the budding entrepreneurs who are trying their best to make a difference.

It all started by reading Hari’s mail about the Silicon India event and without second thought, all of us (Raghu, Sup and I) registered for the same. Even though Hari is in Pune, he also registered for the event to be sure of his seat if in case he is planning to visit Bengaluru. I also invited few of my other friends who were interested in start-ups and perhaps potential entrepreneurs (potential team members).

It was on 5th that we received a formal invitation from Silicon India with the details on the event and the program schedule. We got even more excited as we looked at the list of speakers for the event. Most successful entrepreneurs in India like – Sanjeev, Ajit and Sanjay were the speakers of the event during the morning session. For those who do not know who is who; Sanjeev Bikchandani is the Founder of Naukri, Ajit Balakrishnan is the founder of Rediff and Sanjay Nayak is the founder of Tejas Networks. So after looking at these three names, we could not control our excitement of participating in the event. There were 100+ start-ups who were supposed to present their business plan in front of about 50+ venture capitalists and angel investors. So it was an opportunity for us to meet the legends and work on our ideas having looked at many business plans.

We reported at the venue on time and got into the auditorium for the morning session to begin. As we walked in, we saw the auditorium jam packed with 1000+ entrepreneurs. Wow! It was just inspiring and awesome feeling for us. Any entrepreneur will feel proud and happy to be a part of the entrepreneurs mass.

The most awaited talks started as per the program schedule, one after the other. First Sanjeev took us through his journey of Naukri.com and then Ajit took us through ‘the art of re-inventing’. After a couple of other sessions, it was Sanjay’s talk which gave us the meaning of true entrepreneurial life. I have even made a note of the important points they all shared with us and I will post the same in my next couple of paragraphs. The whole reason of me writing this post is to let everyone know that these three are the legends of Indian industry and they are living their bigger dream in life. There is nothing that is impossible to do and if you dream big, you are big enough to achieve the same. We, being budding entrepreneurs, or perhaps! Starting to experience what exactly entrepreneurship is, found it awful that we are late by a decade. Well… that will be the feeling of all entrepreneurs. Only hope for us is that we have started somewhere and we are now bootstrapping to get whatever we have planned for.

After the inspiring talks during the morning session, there were presentations scheduled for the startups that were looking for the initial and second round of funding. They were all parallel sessions categorized based on the domain and the technology they are operating with. There were categories like, Internet, Mobile technology; Wireless, Embedded, Education, Health etc., and we wanted to attend the presentations of companies which are into the internet domain (www, e-commerce, e-business related). There were about 14 presentations in this category out of which there were about 3-4 companies which were really good. I can name a few which I personally liked, Web Bazaar, Craftmygift.com, web vivah and vidteq.

Summary of Sanjeev’s talk is as under:

He presented on the extremely important traits of an entrepreneur:
1. Know your customer / Speak to your customer often.
2. Are you solving an unsolved problem?
3. Are you a first mover? or at least an early mover?
4. Are you doing real work for real money?
5. Be Frugal – you are only in control of your costs.
6. If you become an entrepreneur primarily to get rich, - QUIT NOW.
7. Most important quality of an entrepreneur is ‘Persistence’.

Ajit’s talk was on ‘The art of periodic re-invention’. The way he explained the concept of it was impressive. He took the example of initial Ford model and described on the rest of the re-invention process. As per him, there should be a re-invention every two years. After listening to it I could relate to the constant changes we used to observe in Rediff.com.

Sanjay Nayak’s talk was the best talk of the event. He took us through his journey of Tejas Networks. We were surprised to know that Sanjay and his team took 3-6 months finalizing on their first product. His talk was focused on opportunities for the startups in the current scenario giving the comparative advantages over the other countries like China. He also spoke about the India advantage: the vibrant domestic market available in India; creation of disruptive business models; scope for R&D in India which has an innovation advantage; Partnership oriented approach one can build with other countries and MNCs. Overall, Sanjay showed us the road ahead for us and highlighted on the challenges one can encounter in the journey.

I sincerely admire at all these legends who have already succeeded in achieving their dream and creating an inspiring future for all the young entrepreneurs. For more report on outcome of the event, please visit

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Tech_startups_awarded_at_siliconindia_Startup_City-nid-57752.html/1/1

So that was one more story from me. And from the time we have come back from the event, we have been working day and night to get some things done.

Nights are becoming longer, exam tensions, studying, writing, planning, long telephone calls… it’s chaotic! Phew!

But…I’m loving it!

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sarpass!

We came! We saw! We conquered!
we mean it now…
by experience and by heart!
I never thought I would experience it;
the way we experienced
and we conquered!

It was a dream for all of us
that… we will reach high…
Some day when we feel we are lucky!
and… Lucky because we dreamt it;
but never thought we will live our dream
that you and I conquered!

Together all of us,
no matter what the situation was;
giving hand in hand
climbing tough and dreaming tough!
doing the unbelievable
trusting every decision to be conquered!

It was the day… that…
our dream turned true
and… we did realize our dream!
the way we had dreamt
was the way we did it…
and we the ones who conquered!

A pass that we had to pass
And it was Sarpass…of Himalayas!
We did pass…we reached high!
It was the pass of life…
for those lives who wished to pass
Finally the Sarpass… conquered!

Very beautiful to see
and tempting to go over it…
Did not seem like what it was
when we did go over it!
A scary walk and a steepy terrain
facing danger every step!

It took many lives…
and it called for many lives!
we had to go through the tough…
giving up was not worth the dream!
we were tough and we were steady…
We decided! We will do it!

Our dreams lived our dream
It was a dream to be in our dream!
the only dream of the twenty one
to conquer the peak!
not just by dreaming it!
but by doing it!

Yes we did! And we did!
we did it what we dreamt..
we reached our destiny
It was a feel for life; feel for heart!
all together as a team
We conquered it!

We came! We saw! And we conquered Sarpass!
Dedicated to the all 21 members of Sarpass SP-7 2009

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