Starterpreneurship!

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve made a post, or had written something. It is quite trivial to say that, “I’ve been a busy bee these days”. But, apparently, yes! Got a job, had to work pretty hard to get noticed in a company where at least 60% are quite good in terms of technical skills. Along with that, there has been one more thing that made me busy efficaciously, the word ‘Entrepreneurship’.

I’ll be pretty frank. It kept me busy, but it was so simply intricate that it can take a moment to solve the whole set of jigsaw as well may take an eternity to digest even the simplest ideology of Entrepreneurship. I’ve been working hard, I doubt not it. I had put many man hours into it. But, I failed even to start something. I’m motivated like all the entrepreneurs out there. I was watching biopics, motivational speeches by the finest of entrepreneurs in the world, reading books about entrepreneurship suggested by family, friends and everyone. And, note it, I’m not lazy too. But, I realized that the thing which was inhibiting my passion turning into a real deal was lack of perseverance. I know that this was the flaw, this was the loose wheel which was making my car go awry. This isn’t all of it. There are still more problems why a ‘wanna-be entrepreneur’ most often than not fails to sail the entrepreneur-ship successfully.

I want to start by sharing one of my story of many stories of my unsuccessful launches. I was in my engineering, and I’m a Computer Science student, good or above average with coding, and communication skill set along with leadership skill set. You need to be excellent, darn! We can improve it later. So, as usual like any other hostel room, I, along with a bunch of friends was involved in a useless discussion, and suddenly a topic of Entrepreneurship made its way. I tried to keep everyone involved in the topic, and we all landed on an idea, which we thought was quite niche, and the idea was to start a HyperLocal services. A kind of handyman services, and most importantly, we all thought that it was so niche. We discussed about it till 3-4 A.M. in the morning. It was not yet the time for the motivation to dilute, we started doing the market-research and came across some already established doppelgangers. Still we were pretty adamant to accept the fact that we don’t even stand a chance. We did not even know how stuff works, what is a USP and why is it so important. What business model, revenue model to craft that suits our startup.

As the days went by, we started doing wireframes, more or less unstructured, and I already started developing stuff, made our homepage, used the outdated PHP and learnt some new frameworks. And, then what happened, it all went downwards from there. We were not able to persevere the idea.

Let me tell you, I know we wasted our efforts, but I realized certain good things that can be extracted from this experience. First, the company cannot stand together until atleast one of them feels that it is worth pursuing the idea, and by believing, I don’t mean that, just believe it, one has to purse that idea with perseverance. And, it is quite common to realize that the idea will just fail and we cannot even implement it. But, still you need to cling to it firmly. Secondly, unless you have a good team, you cannot build a good product even though you believe it could be next Apple, or Facebook or Twitter, or the other way around is to become ‘Mark Zuckerberg’.

If you notice the above mentioned list of companies, all are Silicon Valley’s. Not even one of them is from India. And, you cannot find even a single Indian company that is as successful as one of those. This was one of the most important things that I’ve learnt. Indians are intelligent, far more than any average American, or any other European, but why we have only a handful of startups that are not stellar, but are atleast in that bandwidth of mediocre companies. The companies I’m talking about are Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm, OLA, OYO and etc. The reason is lack of guidance, and proper awareness. No matter how many books you read about entrepreneurship, watch biopics and TV shows like Silicon Valley and pitchers, until and unless, we have a structure, a stipulated curriculum of approaching a startup, building and pursuing an idea into a product, our country, cannot produce any stellar, world changing stuff.

It is quite evident that our country, is slowly inclining towards entrepreneurship, but until we have a structured and continuous motivation and guidance, we will be like this. It is okay to shout slogans, “Startup India, Standup India”. But, the problem I have and many of my peers have is that everybody is telling what to do, but nobody is telling how to do it. We all have the potential to create a new Google, Facebook or even next Apple, but we all are scattered. Most of us are obscured and blurred with the extreme pragmatism, inhibiting the very risk-taking ability. I’m too a culprit of it.

You cannot do anything, without technology, that said, if you juxtapose our engineering curriculum of CS with that of any American or European one’s, it is quite apparent that the code we learn to write,  they write much better code when they are in 6^th , 7^th grade. That should change, at least the technical entrepreneurs should learn new frameworks and start indulging others too.

I’m pretty confident that every person, at least, at one remote corner of their heart, want to work for themselves, not to fulfill some random guys’ dream, but to fulfill their own. Let us all start working on small things, let us make something for us, then make something for our country, then make something for our whole humanity.

We are working on a project that could get together all the entrepreneurs with great ideas and wonderful passion along with the technology to build something so stellar and make our nation, our country, and our people proud. And, strictly it is not always for the lucrative reasons that you should try and want to build something.

Prejudiced Perceptions

This is an established and dominant trait (it seems as such, at least) of our society, to delude ourselves onto an unreasonable conclusion based on our meager conventions and convictions.

It’s pretty intricate and intriguing that, how much people are interested in peeking into others’ lives, rather theirs.  We want to know what others’ kids are doing, whether they are getting a new vehicle this month or they had postponed it to the succeeding, whether they’re playing poker this night or on a sabbatical to Wonder Land.  Everyone (even me), are so particular about the status updates we do on the public forums, such as the Facebook, etc. We now click photographs in the most ridiculous expressions possible, to not to revere, but indeed to upload them, anticipating and speculating to be liked/commented/re-tweeted.

Ages changed, societies changed, orthodox routines have become a cliché. But, there is one simple thing we haven’t changed ourselves at, “Perception”. We still perceive the things the same conventional way (may be, it is posthumous). Plainly, we have become mural-dead, dismal, with all the prejudicially conceived notions, which are of no good. And, ironically, we still think we’re right, always!  

We, in INDIA, consider the Engineers to be the masters of the tomorrow’s world, architects of the enlightened universe, but let me tell you something, “Hell with it! They are not, what you think.” Majority of the Engineers in INDIA, don’t even understand what Engineering is! The so called, ‘savvy brains’ of INDIA,  IIT’ians, who honed their skills for 4 years are working in the foreign, holding a six digit cheque in their hands at the end of each month, working in, guess where, they’re working in Banks! .

This is the true ‘Brain Drain’, I guess. 

Every Indian family, irrespective of religion, region, caste, want their children to study either in an IIT or in an IIM, immaterial of what they really want to do. We are coaxed rather with the facade of the competitive world. Considering the fact that parents want their child to be unique and distinct among the society, they are, in fact, also being curbed with the swaying air of this conjured prestige; how useless.

This perception, is what responsible for the stunted lateral and unconventional thinking in INDIAN students. Why isn’t their another Zuckerberg, next Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs in IIT’s: because we don’t have enough entrepreneurs? , no not at all, it’s because we’re terrified of being called jobless for some time, because our schools demolish all the non-radical ideas we have until they have become mere carcasses; utter ‘non-sense’. This is the repercussion of our own deeds, of our own, “Perception.”

We, have become entirely nocturnal, endorsed with the dreariness of our preconceived, undoubtedly, mistaken conclusions about others. We, don’t have a social life, we know not of real pleasure of sharing, except for sharing in Facebook; we judge everybody. We, resent always for the things that are long done, always find excuses.

Not the children, or the parents are the culprits, but rather they are the scape goats of the consequences and the after-math of this condition. We’re, the Society, which is responsible for this devastated ruins. We, defined certain notions and ideologies which confined and constrained the ‘live-differently’ concept, altogether. Now, the whole world is convoluted into a turmoil. Inferno everywhere. Eventually, we succumbed to the obsessions of few. Nonetheless, from the movie Batman Begins, I quote, “Why do we fall, so we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

So, lose no hope.

 

– Anand 

It was that day…

It was a day, usual as others, I was born on a bed, out of a womb, having a string attached, called placenta. I felt life for the first time. Then, I saw a face, baring a laudable smile, more of pride, ingenuous. It was that day when I saw, ‘My Mother.’

I was en-capsuled for 9 months in her womb. No doubt, she was burdened. I shared her air, blood and food, I chastened her inside. She was never resilient, but rather she was happy. I bulged in size, making her outfits, now useless. She was never upset. I amassed weight, each-day. She added up my weight to her’s. I made her sleeping positions constrained. She made adjustments accordingly. And, when I wanted to come out, I tortured her with no ‘mercy’. I eared her crying and screaming, but she never wanted me to get aborted.

And, the day I was out, was only the day, ‘When I cried and she laughed’. She was benevolent, caring, and perhaps, ‘motherly’.

Days passed by, I started walking, I fledged like I was a bird, I was in a haste to grow up. I forgot the past. When she advised me, I concluded them to be the restraints of my freedom. I was young, or rather wore that vestiture of being obstinate and ridiculous. I made arguments unhealthy and insensible. I was cajoled by my fake senses, with which I did no good.

I become a man, still I did not realize that she was always ‘correct’, for I was in a delusion of, ‘Im-always-correct’. I lost job, I was alone. I made life a mess that could never be forgiven. I lost myself in the obscurity of individuality and freedom. Retrospectively, my life was ’empty’.  I finally, ‘gave-up’ .

But, she did not. When everything was falling apart, when everything was a carcass of my life, she has supported me. When I started walking, she held my hands and paved my way; when I cried, she wept; when I was in a quarrel, she took my battle; when I went capers on her, she laughed along; I humiliated her, but she was modest; I took no care of her, she took of my shoes when I was asleep; I never thanked her, she always wanted to help me out; I rejected her, she still cleansed my utensils, cooked me food and fed me when I was hungry.

I was such a ridicule; she was always a ‘mother’ .

I missed her birthday, for I was sleeping at my friends’. I did not help her with house-hold work, for I was too busy wasting time on facebook! But, she never resented, never complained. I have never been a good son, but she was always at her best.

Atleast now, I could say, “Sorry! And, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!”

 

– Anand

Reckoning..

Many are days that passed by, leaving aloft many dreams,

Unfulfilled, incomplete, miserable some and aren’t others.

Some made merry and some incurred themselves to death and fury,

Lest these days return by, we make revelation, ‘make them liable to mirth’, rather not like hitherto,

Is one common plea of everyone.

Traversed many lands, scared many roads, but pertinaciously unchanged,

Not ready to give up on the beastly vesture of human-being.

Ghastly wars occur, pathetic deaths become stupendous, at every probe of a second.

Melancholy everywhere, lavishness made people suffer.

Scarcity invaded and tailed human everywhere.

Still, forth shall it come, a ‘New Year’ with many surprises still uncovered, undisclosed.

Wonder I! What shall lay behind this, what shall be witnessed ergo?

Shall the savvy become the masters, or shall the orators make it?

Or, shall it be a two sided coin?

Shall the atheists make through the argument, or shall the catholics wipe them off?

Viability of time, shall it ask for ransom to be the slave of human?

Or rather ask for his life!

All this answers still unanswered, not reckoned. Let it be this ‘year’,

That shall play a game with the ahead.

Many are days that passed, and many are days that are to be passed!

–          Anand.

Nothing Changes

Clouds move faster, from dark to bright, and

again become dark sometime.

plants bud up from the seed to a huge tree,

and then iterates in the reverse order.

Footprints get swept away continuously by the sea, and

are imprinted again.

Air sometimes breezes and stays steadfast sometimes,

Sun rises, as very same it sets daily,

clock ticks from 1 to 12 and starts again from 1,

People die and are born at the same time,

some get married and some get divorced at the very moment,

some are prey and some are hunters at the same second,

some where it rains all-time and never at some where,

It is the same air that everyone is living in,

it is the same blood that is in every living being,

its a cycle of life, that never ends,

nothing changes, nothing,

except the thinking,

The attitude.

-$@$ Anand Shugor $@$

“Eureka! It’s my day”

Some awoke at dawn,

While others arouse when it’s noon.

Brushing is quicker and bathing becomes much rarer.

Televisions broadcast all ‘interesting’ garbage’s,

And people stare at it, without washing their cars at their garages.

A day on which busy bee’s become lazy snails,

A day on which laptops become just masses,

And, a day on which mobile phones go life-less.

Lunch becomes tastier, and family becomes nicer.

Same day, an hour appears as a second,

And, Usual is the scream, ‘Holy Christ! It’s already 10’O clock in the night.’

Tomorrow is never wished, neither is today being completed.

It’s the very same day as every day,

But, people call it specially as ‘my day’,

And, it’s apparently  a  ‘Holiday’.

– $@$ Anand Shugor $@$

“Happy Valentine’s Day”

Red, blue and yellow,

Everywhere I can see roses lying low.

For some, in grief tears flow,

And others say, ‘Hurray!’ and their faces glow.

People roam till mid-night,

Flooding every park that is in range of their sight.

I heard one say, ‘I love you’,

And, I think the answer was, ‘me too!!’

I saw a girl and a boy walking through,

A sub-way and again I heard, ‘I love you.’

When I stopped and had asked them, ‘What’s so special?’

They replied, ‘we call it Valentine’s day and,

We celebrate it, this way.’

I guess something special is this day,

As lot of people I can see ideally sitting at bay.

Hugging and kissing they spend all day,

And I can feel the wind too swaying that way.

Chocolates and cards saying happy valentine’s day,

But I guess, producers of them are making money that way.

Whatever may be the day,

It is the same sun rises and sets everyday,

For all of you, I want to say,

‘Don’t waste time saying happy valentine’s day.’

–         $@$ Anand Shugor $@$

A HAPPY NEW YEAR – “To Myself”

Lights blinking like eyes,

People running all over the place,

Shouting, celebrating,

They roam in the happiness of something,

Which is simply an abstract noun on digging.

And when asked, what is it?

They answered it shouting, “HAPPY NEW YEAR.”

 

I see all, with all,

But, I see me, with only me.

I think I’m jealous of all,

But, I’m sorry to me, I can’t help it at all.

Always when I hear all crying, “HAPPY NEW YEAR”,

I cry, nothing new in this year.

 

Everyone made resolutions,

“I’ll be something, I’ll do something,”

But, I did nothing.

I miss the enjoyment,

I miss the party,

I miss the birth of a new year.

 

If it is so, then let it be so,

I have myself,

I can talk to myself,

I love myself.

Now, I claim to myself,

“A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.”

 

–          $@$ Anand Shugor $@$

Tears of Heaven, no more.

Tears of heaven, they fall, yes they do.

They make abstract designs,

On roses, on leaves, on everything they touch.

They make an imprint, that can never be retouched,

That can never be drawn again by some mortal.

 

Tears of heaven, they fall, indeed they do.

That divine odour it gives, inundates heart with happiness,

Travelling all the way, from heaven to earth,

Brings back the life to life, which is lost to the buzz of the metro bees.

 

Tears of heaven, they fall, from heaven,

They leave their home, from the coalition of gases they fall,

Showing varied ways to light, witnessing wonders,

Whose reach can never a mortal reach.

They lecture us every moment, on what it means to be alive,

On what it means to be alive in this beautiful green and blue planet

Of which never even we understand one.

 

Scared am I now, for greedy we are,

Ruining the reasons for this gift,

Now,

Tears of heaven, they fall, not anymore.

– $@$ Anand Shugor $@$

Exams Time

Oh god! It’s the exam time,

Rushing is a routine,

You have to amass a lot of protein.

Waking at 4’o clock will help only a bit,

But, sleeping at 9’o clock is just a wit.

Oh god! It’s the exam time,

You got to rush, there’s no chance you can rest.

Wake up my friend! Wake up!

It’s already 6’o clock and you are not awake yet?

Take off the sheet over your head,

You are just wasting time by lying on the bed.

Don’t you know, it’s the exam time?

Relaxing now will give you a lime!

This is a span of time,

Where you can really shine.

No matter how intelligent you are,

How genius you are,

Hard work is the fact, which decides,

Your fruit will be sweet or sour!

It is the exam time,

No time to rest, nor to waste.

 

– $@$ Anand Shugor $@$