Life – Page 5

What I want in life. Part 2.

Note: This is part 2 in a series. What I want in life, Part 1 is here.

After struggling for all these years, I think I now know what I want in life.

Before you get excited about my new found power of thought and clarity of mind and decide to hire me to help you, here is the spoiler. There was no divine intervention that made this discovery possible. And it did not come all of a sudden. Its been cooking in my head for some time and it was about time the cookery thing got over. And, as a result, I think I now know what I want. Here is it.

I want to write, travel and sleep.

And when I wake up, I want to go play Poker. Yes. Poker. That card game. I know, it sounds outrageous but I want it. And I want to do it for the rest of my life.

I no more want to rule kingdoms, buy fancy houses, drive around in cars. Really I dont. I am too old. I now merely want to write, travel and sleep when I am tired. And play a hand or two after I wake up. That’s it. Its that simple.

Write. Travel. Sleep. Poker. Sleep. Travel. Write. Poker. Write. Travel. Sleep. In any order. And repeat. Repeat. Repeat over and over again.

So now that I know what I want, I ideally ought to chuck everything else and just spend my time working towards these things. I know I would start at the bottom of these disciplines and age is definitely not on my side. I dont mind the age, I am a fast learner. I dont mind starting at the bottom, I already said that I am a fast learner. Everything looks ok. Except that small hitch. The Money one. Thing is, writing and travelling do not give you money. Not even the kinds to be able to pay your rent. And knowing my track record at poker and my ability to remember details, I know poker is not an option. And I dont have the talent or seed to bootstrap these things. Sigh.

So bottom line, I know what I want in life and its a tussle between head and heart. Pragmatism and dreaming. Left and the right. Old and the young. And, the sad bit, I know who is gonna win. Remember the split personality disorder that I spoke about the other day? I think I need to add more types in there.

So what do I do without the money?

What else? Chase it like a mad dog and get back in the rat race! Too many animals.

🙁

Now that the pragmatic head has won, I know that I cant chase these things. But I can at least talk about these things to make myself feel good about em? Right? Here.

A. Writing
I am not sure if I am a good writer. I know I love the feeling of fingers dancing on the keyboard and words forming by themselves. I love getting lost in my tiny laptop screen and the large world I weave in it. I love sitting at a local Starbucks and working over the din of people around. I love lying on my tummy and typing till odd hours in the night. I love it when people tell me that they loved what I’ve written. I am happy when something I write entertains people. I love creating stories. I love telling those stories. But then I dont know if I am good at it.

If the number of readers on this blog, number of comments, number of interactions, Klout score, any other metric is to be believed, I am not. I am like that irritating voice on the other end of the loud speaker that continues to blare incessantly, even when the voice knows that no one is interested in listening. And increasing the volume will not really help.

If the world at large starts liking what I write, I may be able to make money from it. But I dont think that unless you become a Chetan Bhagat or a Amish Tripathi, you could be a full time writer and make money. Of course there are journalists that just write and all that but then I am not talking about that kind of money. I am talking of the kind of money that people on this list make.

B. Travel
Travel is awesome. I can fill copious volume of texts talking about travel. But then, I shall try to be faster here.

So there are a lot of lucky people in the world who have been given an opportunity to travel for free and all that. There are ways to become that but I haven’t been blessed with any of those skills or attributes that are required to become a travel-for-free kinda guy.

So alas, I would have to pay for my travel. Unless I can become a good poker player. Which is kinda tough, if you ask me. Or unless I go back to working with an events company again. The kinds that does a lot of international events. Or become one of the umpteen porters for a celebrity.

C. Poker
I dont know how to play poker. As simple as that. I just know the rules of the game. But then if just the understanding of the rules made you good, everyone would be like Sachin. I dont understand odds and I hate probability as a concept. And I have a tough time concentrating.

And if I am so bad, why do I play? Because I love the “feel” of being on a poker table.

Being the fool I am, I want to play and because of everything that I’ve mentioned above, I end up losing a lot of money. Money that I dont really have. Money that I hope could’ve been put to better use.

I am losing so much money and time on the game that I have made up my mind to quit if I dont get better at it. And how would I know if I am getting any better? I would win more often than I would lose. Its a simple metric. Update. As of 20th Oct ’13 I quit playing poker. Not quit, but I am taking a break till the beginning of the next year.

The lucky ones who’ve made poker their profession, I am so jealous of them. So very jealous. They have money. They get to travel (for free). And they get to write about their game and all the places they travel to. If I could get lucky and make a career playing poker, it would be awesome. Because I would become that artist that I have always wanted to be (read this post). Funny how a lot of posts in the recent days have been around work and love and passion and dream.

D. Sleep
I will not talk about sleep. Just that over a last few weeks I have realized that sleep is an integral part of what I am. It makes me what I am and allows me to dream and think and stay creative. I want it. At least 7 hours in a day.

End Notes
Finally, the wishful thinking bit needs to end right now and I need to get slightly pragmatic. I know that I need to get back to zameen. So I know that I need to finish the Nidhi Kapoor Story by end of this year. And then either make one of my startup ideas to get working or find a real job. A job that may make me a corporate bitch but yet pays me money. And a lot of it. In 2014. Enough to buy comforts and not get bored. And not get bored means I would not have time to think about fuckeries in life. I sincerely believe in that “ignorant are the most blessed” adage.

How I wish I could live life in a dream where I am paid for being me. I am paid to merely exist and not move an inch. But then I am not Abhishek Bachchan or Ranbir Kapoor. I am not even a Bryan Adams. I would have to work hard. I will. Once I am over with Nidhi Kapoor Story.

But then, apart from a job that gives me a lot of money, or a startup where I make meaning, I really want to chase Kwan. The “Love, respect, community and money too” from a character in the movie Jerry McGuire. Whatever I do in 2014, I will ensure that Kwan happens. And while we are talking about Jerry, do read this post as well. It talks about what I really want to do in life. I am serious. Apart from writing, sleeping, traveling and poker that is.

And in the end, do pray for me.

P.S.: Written sometime in Sep 2013 and publishing in end of Oct 2013.

What is it to be free?

Before I get into a long drawn rant, I want to show a picture, if you guys are interesting in reading this. So, I dont know who sent this to me. Or may be I found this on the Internet somewhere. But its am amazing picture that I would want as a background on my phone / laptop.

And you may want to read this tweet that I sent out today morning.

So coming, to the post, this friend and I, we met over lunch today and we got talking about life and times and careers and money and opportunities and other such things that two wannabes talk about. We also spoke about the fact that we are on the wrong side of age now. He’s 34. I am 31. We were at Breeze and while he was busy getting drunk at 11 in the morning, I was content with a mere Red Bull.

So the thing with Breeze is that, on your left, you can see Bandra, Andheri and the sea beyond all those hazy buildings. In front of your eyes is the Powai lake and Vihar lake and the mountains, all these hidden by those multistory towers of Hiranandani. On your right are more buildings by Hiranandani and the hills. Its probably the best view of Mumbai that poor us can afford, second only to the view from AER.

These views, the bird’s eye views, its like being on top of a miniature city that someone built and then abandoned. From such a vantage point, the city that never sleeps looks like a ghost town. You can only see the hazy outlines of buildings and the geometric continuity that these buildings seem to make in the distance.Of course there are cars and trains and other things that you can see but these are mechanical and scaled down. You don’t see the detail, the very detail that brings the world alive for us.

Anyway, that is not important. And that is not why I wrote this.

I wrote this because we had this interesting discussion about being free. Free like birds that we could see flying among those tall buildings and going up and down at their whims. Free like that wind that was blowing at that height and was free to chose the direction it went in. Free like those thoughts that run amok when you are on a drive. Free like that free man that Morgan Freeman talks about in Shawshank Redemption. For the uninitiated, he says,

“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain…”

We, the friend and I, we talked about it. About being free.

And then an amazing realization dawned upon us. We could be free as well. Free like those birds. Free like a man on the start of a long journey.

And all we needed to do was to hold our phones like we were holding a cricket ball. And then extend our arms all the way back. As back as it goes. Even bend backwards while we are stretching the arm back. Take a deep deep breath. Place our feet on a firm footing. As firm as they come. And then fling the arm, the whole upper torso towards the emptiness below us. And just when the arm is out there, travelling away from our body, let that deep breath escape from your body. The breath that had been trapped all this while. You let it go. And with it, you let go of your phone. The one that you were holding like a ball. The one thing that has been stopping you from letting go and being free.

But we did not. We did not have the balls or money to do so. We had he money but we weren’t free. We weren’t ready to be free.

The route is out there. Its simple really. Its only about doing it. Some day soon. I promise to myself, that I would be free. Free like a free man on the start of a long journey. Soon.

Jerry, Micky and SG!

Note: This is part 1 of a series. What I want in life, Part 2 is here.

I now know what I want to do in life. And unlike all previous times, this time I am serious. So serious that I am going all-in this time.

So before I talk about it, have you guys seen Jerry McGuire? The guy who magically gets Rod Tidwell another contract, just when everyone else had dismissed him? And if you dont know Jerry, do you know Micky Goldmill? Rocky’s manager? In the Rocky series? The guy who gets Rocky to perform those magical things in the boxing ring? The power behind Rocky’s famously powerful punches?

No? Ok, so Jerry is a celebrity manager and is supposed to manage professional career of athletes. Micky is supposed to help Rocky with his fights.

Either man has no direct correlation to what their clients make their living from. And yet, by their mere presence around the character, they impacted the careers and lives of their clients. And what if they are fictional characters? The dreamer in me refuses to believe that these characters can’t be for real!

I did my research and my experience with Gravity came in handy. I realized that a very similar profession does exist in India as well. We call them artist managers. However unlike the western counterparts, we don’t really manage careers or impact lives. All we do is sell their time and carry their bags around when they are jet-setting the world.

And that, my friends, is what I want to do in life. ~~Manage a superstar and~~ carry his/her bags around the world as we s/he performs all over the world at exotic locations. And nothing else.

I in fact tweeted this a few minutes back.

I know what I want to do in life. Carry bags of a big film star on all her shows. The ideal place to work would be the likes of @CAA_KWAN
— Saurabh / SG (@saurabh) October 12, 2013

I thought after this tweet, I would be inundated with job offers from all parts of the country. I even wrote apology letters to the ones who don’t select me.

But alas, no one replied. May be today being the middle of the weekend, people did not see it. May be you, dear reader, could help.

So, if you are a superstar and you need a brilliant porter to carry your coffee, tea, bags, puppies, phones etc around, you know what to do. I can speak English and Hindi, I get visas easily and I hold a MBA degree. Oh, I have about 2000 twitter followers and once you hire me, I assure that the number would only swell up. This could come handy when we you are performing somewhere and want your fans to take a note. Do call me for an interview and I can show around my talent with bags and visas.

And, most importantly, here are my contact details.

Wipeout!

Wipeout.

Thats the word that comes to my head, to explain the kind of day I’ve had today. Woke up at 8, ate, slept. Woke up again at 10, ate and slept again. Woke up at 6 and now I am writing this. I am clocking more sleep that ever these days. 15 hours on an average.

Come to think of it, not just today but last few days, have been like this.

Is it because I have just too much inaction in my life right now? Or something’s wrong with weather? Any other plausible explanations? Why am I lethargic these days? What’s wrong with me? Any medical professionals on my TL?

The weekend trip to Goa

Panaroma – en route to Mumbai

I think my first trip ever to Goa was in 2007 when I passed out from college. Those days, after you finished your college, it was in vogue to gather the whole jingbang, go to an exotic destination for few days and hopefully create memories that would last you a lifetime. But for me, there is nothing home to write about it except the painfully long train journey and scorching heat that made us all fight for every single breath.

So since then I have been to Goa like a million times with friends and for work. And each time I went with friends, I either ate and slept or spent time in a casino playing poker. For the records, I am a teetotaler and I dont eat sea food. When I went for work, I was largely confined to the hotel I was organizing the event at. Over time Goa became a place that to me meant two things and two things only. Work. Or poker.

Now that I am out of work, the travel-to-Goa-for-work-bit is ruled out. And for poker, since I have realized in the last few ~~days~~ weeks that I am not really as great as I thought I was, I have stopped looking forward to Goa for poker. Of course I havent given it up as yet. I will play smaller games (micro stakes) and then see how things go. I can afford to lose some money I think.

So Goa, has become a place where I dont really know what to do (its sad when you order vegetarian french fries on a beach – even the waiters smirk at you). I am anyway not a huge fan of how native Goans treat people like me (more on this sometime later). So most trips to Goa are now instigated by friends. And I go there for the sake of merely going there, spending three days away from email and computers and coming back. No real pleasure to be honest. I could do as well by merely not stepping out of my place.

But then ~~this weekend~~ a few weekends back, I went to Goa and the trip was way different from other trips.

This time I was in Goa for less than 24 hours. Like all my previous trips, I did not do my regular jig of dinner at the beach, binge at the casino, long car rides at night etc. But, spent one whole evening on a beach and talked with my friends about an idea that we are working on.

The noteworthy thing is not the conversation or the dinner; but something that happened on the beach.

Picture this. You are on the beach at night getting drunk on Breezers and Red Bulls and then out of nowhere, it starts raining. And raining hard. Cats and dogs. The kinds that you are helpless against. You cant run, running would be futile, by the time you move even an inch you would be drenched. You cant stand, its raining so hard that it hurts. And there is no protection. Its you and water. Hard, thick drops of water. Falling with enough force to go deep in your skin. Tear your skin. And you touch your heart and soul. And open you. Open you for contemplation, for thinking and for lot of other such things that I dont really have words for.

I dont know why but I headed to water. I dont know how to swim. And I was not drunk. And I play it very safe. And thus I stood right at the point where the ocean and the earth battle it out to claim turf. There was water pelting on me from up above, trying to hammer me into earth. There was water splashing at my feet, sometimes reaching upto my knees, trying to drag me into the sea. And there was winds, fast enough to sweep you off your feet, trying to take me away from earth and the sea.

Three forces of nature, furious forces, all trying to dislodge from where you are. All three forces trying to tell you to go find a shelter. All three forces getting fiercer by the minute. It got really scary after some time. But I stood there. I help my ground.

And then suddenly most amazing thing happened to me. I dont know why but I let myself go. I loosened up my body. I submitted to Mother Nature. I just wanted to be one with her. I left myself to her discretion. I spread my arms and I looked up. I could not really see any child Gods at play but I could see some stars, playing hide and seek with clouds. I couldn’t see the moon but the clouds had some kind of faint glow on em, as if someone is smirking at me for being ignorant. Or as if someone was dismissing me with an all-knowing smile.

Meanwhile rains, water from the sea, winds, everything was still playing but they were not strong anymore. They were gentle. Like they want to give you a massage. And cradle you like a baby. Like you were their baby. I suddenly somehow knew that I wasn’t going to get harmed or get hurt. I knew there was someone looking out for me. I knew I was not alone. Like a friend says, God was with me.

Except that I dont really believe in the concept of God. Whatever it was, it definitely was not a divine intervention or something. It wasn’t any hand from any God. It wasnt the light that is supposed to show me the way. Its just a stupid coincidence really. Nothing. And yet I want to read a lot into it. I want it to be some kind of a sign – like I want to hang onto anything that I can lay my hands on, when I am out of breath in the swimming pool where I spend a lot of my mornings.

So, let me park this bit here.

The second thing to have happened was that I chose to drive back to Mumbai, rather than taking the flight. We took a combination of some state highway and a national highway and the outcome was a drive that lasted more than 12 hours through roads that were as flat as steel plates, as bumpy as battlefields, as curvy as a Jalebi (there was this particular bend that looked like an angular Z), as straight as a ruler that we used in school. And then there were numerous places along the way that were so scenic that a good photographer could actually click postcards out of those places.

We passed trees, green stretches of land, forests, waterfalls and other such places that we hardly get to see at our concrete jungles. Since this was for the first time that my mind was unoccupied by random thoughts about work and life, I could enjoy these things.

We stopped at numerous such places and spend time soaking in the energy from nature at work.

There were pure shade of greens that made you feel great about just being alive. At those places, you forgot everything that is cluttering your head. You became thoughtless. They were so soothing that you felt as if you are starting your life all over again with no baggage.

There were amazing waterfalls and the water was so fresh, so clean that it could remove all the dirt from even your soul. Like that dip in the Ganges. Just that this time we were on top of some mountains in the Western Ghats. I had never expected water to be this cold. This penetrating. This sharp. This heavy. I did not have the guts to actually take a shower. A friend did.

And finally, there were clouds. Passing right through us. Its a wonderful feeling to have a blob of cold dense air pass through you. You know you can hold them if you stretch your hand and yet they remain elusive.

So the rain on the beach and the drive through the most breathtaking scenery I have seen in some time, was something that I hadnt anticipated at all. More than anything, it was the first time when I felt Mother Nature’s awesomeness. I mean I have been to mountains and other such places but I have never felt this touched. And I realized that I havent been kinds to think a lot about nature. In fact, on the contrary, I am an energy and convenience hog.

But after this trip to Goa, something has begun to change. I have become lot more conscious. I mean I dont think I can survive without AC but I will start to being that shift in my thinking. It wouldnt happen overnight. It may or may not even happen. But I will make an attempt.

I am glad that I went and great that I could see the immense power of Mother Nature. Lets see if this sticks with me.

Oh, and the biggest lesson? That ~~I am~~ we are insignificant. All the stupid things that we attach to ourselves, ego, emotions, all of it is frivolous. Over rated. And hyped. Need to start living in harmony with nature.

And Yet…

The other day I was reading about famous authors, I do that a lot now a days, and I realized something about myself. Nothing profound. Simple to be honest. I realized that I am everything that I did not want to be and I am not a single that I have wanted to be.

Here are some examples.

I wish I could design and yet I cant draw a single straight line

I wish I could sing well and yet I don’t even qualify for being a bathroom singer

I wish I could stand out and yet I am drowning in the sea of mediocrity

I wish I could travel the world and yet I am stuck in a nondescript neighborhood in Mumbai

I wish I could stand out and yet there are times when even I fail to recognize myself when I look in the mirror.

And few more things like this.

I think its because I want to be a lot of things at the same time.

Of course I cant be good at everything that I do. And before I decide what I don’t want to do, I want to try those things out. And after I have tried them, if I don’t like, I want to move on to the next set of things. Let me call this “discovering myself by process of elimination”. This process sounds like a brilliant plan, on paper. Except one small hitch. We, humans, have limited time and in my case, half of it is gone already. If I do discover what I want, at the age of 60, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

So, to do that thing that I’d enjoy doing and to make a dent (assuming that dent would happen once I know what I love doing and I am good at it and I keep doing good at it for some time), I need to find it fast. And fast means really fast. Faster than that fleeting glance that I just made at that woman in red on the next table.

If life was like a shop full of tools and machines, I could do quick prototypes and decide fast, on what I wanted. But then life is not a mechanic’s shop and it takes forever to learn a skill. And it takes even longer to realize that you are not good. And still longer to admit that you aren’t anywhere close to where you thought you would get, if you put in time. You get into denial and all that. More on it later. But bottom line, it takes forever to realize what you are good at and what you are not. All you get is “drifts”. But to be able to sense those drifts is the tricky part.

Let me digress for a bit. There are some people, I know quite a few of them, that are somehow aware of what they want, from the time they were kids. And now by the time they are as old as I, they are doing really well in life. Then there are some people who get into lucky accidents, they hit the ovarian lottery (as Warren Buffet puts it), and get to know what their calling is. And rest of the people, they just keep doing what they get handed out randomly in life, they keep doing it, get good at it and assume that that was their calling. That was their purpose. That was what they were put on this earth to do those things. All the while they don’t even realize that they are spending their entire lives chasing someone else’s dreams and living someone else’s lives. They do make a lot of money and build large comfortable houses and move around in cars as big as their houses and drink wines as rare as their opulent houses and develop a ego that is larger than all of these tangible things (money, houses, cars, wines) put together.

I know quite a few people like this. Belonging to all three categories – aware ones, lucky ones, rich ones. And none of the three kinds is as unhappy as I. Unhappy not in literal sense but figuratively.

Coming back to the time it takes to understand yourself and continuing from the unhappiness bit above, I just have one question. Isn’t the journey supposed to be more rewarding than the destination? Everyone but me seems to have their destination in sight already. I, on the other hand, am having a tough time figuring out the road that I am supposed to take.

Funny?

And while I write this and read this for review, I realize that I am smart to be able to put this in words. And yet, and yet I am unhappy. Figuratively.

God Mode vs I Don’t Give a Fuck Mode

All my life, actually since I’ve played Q3A, I have often dreamed of a real life God Mode where I could get immortal and do whatever I want to. ~~I have written about it in the past as well.~~ I thought I have but I havent. Anyway the other day I went dinnering at a friends place and while talking about life and other things in general, we started talking about a guy that we knew some years back. According to my friend, that guy was irreverence personified and stood for everything anti-establishment. I thought that he is talking about that guy being in the God Mode.

Fast forward, while driving down a highway, most of my best ideas have come in while I was driving, I was thinking about the conversation and I realized that I was wrong. God Mode and the mode that that common friend seemed to be operating in, the I Dont Give a Fuck Mode are two distinct ones. Let me elaborate on them.

God Mode is:

When you are not scared to take risks because deep down you know that you can’t die and hence there is nothing that can touch you.
The mode you get in when you become the part of higher management at a large organization where you are just a number.
When you fly. You fly as in fly. There is no Gravity. There is nothing to hold you back. You can soar. Soar like a hot air balloon. And then then soar some more like something that is in orbit. And then may be even escape the orbit. Fly like that.
When you know that its temporary and God Mode can end any instant. You merely live for the adrenaline rush that the God Mode gives you. The rush that you may get addicted to, like a junkie.
And because you know that God Mode is temporary, you try to make the most out of it. You run faster, you fly higher, you gather as many power ups, you back stab more people and so on and so forth. Because its all temporary.

I Dont Give a Fuck Mode is:

What August operated in, throughout Upamanyu Chatterjee‘s brilliant debut novel.
When you know that Dont Give a Fuck Mode is a perpetual state of mind. You know that you can get killed in an instant but yet you dont give a fuck. You are not scared to die. You dont welcome it either, but when life or death is immaterial. What is important is the flight of fancy. Important is you doing things as per your whims, not because someone else expects you to do something else. Heard about not being part of rat race?
The mode that you are born with. The mode that you are hard wired to have. You either know about it since forever, or you realize that you have it as you go along. But its there.
The mode that is evident in all your endeavors. The mode is visible to everyone around you. You may or may not know that you are operating in such a mode but its there. Its screaming out loud from your entire countenance. You know that swagger some people walk with? That. Of course it could get you killed if you met someone else with an even bigger swagger but that’s the point. Right? Of I don’t give a fuck?
And finally, when you do NOT have to work hard to develop and operate in the I Dont Give a Fuck mode. Its there. Or it isnt.

And all my life, I lived in the delusion that I operate in God Mode and hence I was untouchable and I could do whatever. But I dint realize it, till I sat with my friend and discussed with him about the common friend, that I was so wrong. So so wrong. Wrong like fuck. Actually, fuck is not wrong. God Mode is. Ok, now I am just rambling.

But I do have a coherent question though. And a pertinent one at that. Which mode do you operate in?

Credit Note. Starting this post, I shall try and include these credit notes. For this one, thanks Parijat for inspiration. Thanks AR, the common friend that I have talked about. Thanks James for this post. And I used Inkscape to create the header image.

Yet another july evening

This day, in 2009, I quit from Creativeland Asia. And in 2007, on the 8th of July, I quit from my role at GE Money. For the curious cats, this is what I have done in life (my linkedin profile) so far.

I dont know whats with July, but from this day onwards, in 2013, I am taking a break from my full time employment at Gravity India. To work on a few personal projects, that include the Nidhi Kapoor Story (other things are listed below).

However, unlike the other two July dates that I mentioned above, this time the break is temporary and I am hoping once I have done things that I have planned to do in this break, I am accepted back at Gravity. I think they call this sort of an arrangement a sabbatical.

So, while I am on this sabbatical, I want to focus on the following…

Achieveing the goals I setup for myself in the beginning of 2013. Some may be almost impossible, for all I have is five months, but bring them to closure for sure.
Finish Nidhi Kapoor story. And publish it. Even if it requires me to publish it myself.
Travel as much as I can. In fact I am willing to work for free if I am given an opportunity to travel. See below.

Thats all I want from the next few months. Simple.

Oh, for the concerned, I have enough savings to see me through till
the end of the year at least. So I think I would be comfortable. But
then you never know with the money matters, I can only hope for the
best. To mitigate the risk, I would indeed try and take up few freelance assignments with things that I am professionally good at, 1 – Brand Planning and 2 – Events conceptualization, ideas, planning, management. Apart from these two, startups and writing excite me as well. I thus want to explore opportunities to work with, 3 – marketing / product management with startups and 4 – writing (anything and everything).

I do not want to compromise on free time available to me and thus I would look for temporary arrangements only. If you are looking to hire a freelance professional to work on any of the disciplines listed above, please do write in and I’d send my credentials (here is my Linkedin profile). If you cant
help directly, please do point me to leads, inputs, tips and anything
else that you think I may need to know while I am by myself.

My contact details are here.

And thats about it. This is the second time I am taking a leap of faith. First time around, it dint really work for me (in the hindsight, we were doing some good things but we were doing a lot of bad things as well). I am not really anymore wiser this time around but this time, Inshallah, the leap of faith would help me take off, rather then send me crashing down a steep hill.

I am alive!

I am alive.

Not alive as in experiencing the Icelandic colds or doing the African safari or living the American dream etc but alive as in breathing and standing on my feet. If the past few days are any indication, I would’ve been dead by now.

What started as a bout of fatigue from a long drive in the hinterlands on a car clearly not suited for the purpose, turned into a case of acute diarrhea and I suddenly found myself shitting all the time for almost 5 days. So much that it hurts to even sit again on a pot.

And since I dont trust doctors in general and dont go to them for minor ailments, I suffered the attack of the bowels.

Thankfully I was forced to take medications and I am on what seems like the road to recovery. I am finally able to work on my computer again. This means I would resume work on Nidhi Kapoor’s story and the new idea that I have had. And this does not mean that I have started to trust the medical profession again.

This post, is to let everyone (whoever cares) to know that I am back. Thank you for asking.

Rant. On Writing.

I have heard from a lot of people that writing is one of the most strenuous and lonely pursuits that us humans can undertake. Of course its not as extreme as tight rope walking or mountain climbing or cross country swimming but its a very taxing thing to do. I have been (posing as) one for some time now and I can totally vouch for the lonely and stressful bits.

And unlike mountain climbing or tight rope walking or tennis, the rewards of writing are rather scarce, to say the least. If you have conquered a high peak, you are at the top of the world, literally. If you have walked on a tight rope, you have conquered, not one but two of man’s greatest fears – height and nature (gravity, wind, nerves etc). If you have endured a long swimming route, you have pushed your physical limits and placed yourself in top 0.001 percentile of all humans to have walked on the Earth.

But writing, even if you manage to finish a short essay, what do you achieve? I dont understand at all why would someone want to write. Take me for example. Why do I write?

One may argue that once your have finished something, you get a shot at immortality. At least temporary immortality. This is true for all artists actually. If not for The Count of Monte Cristo and other such brilliant pieces of work, no one would have known Dumas. If not for Godfather amongst others, no one would have known Puzo. So on and so forth. So writing gives you an opportunity to create something that outlives you. And if you do it well, it can outlives your next few generations as well.

I, being a religious follower of the Society for Hedonist Indians, believe in instant gratification. And I know that things that give me fame, money, notoriety, etc after I am dead are of no use to me. So what could the pursuit of writing get me in this life time? From a few friends who have been able to do so, I think the right answer is audience. In this connected world, where every human has not just one mouth but multiple outlets and platforms (blogs, twitter, facebook etc) to rant about things, being a writer gives you access to certain audience. And that audience allows you to create something that may outlive you, even when you are alive.

There are no guarantees mind you that there would be audience, glory, riches or anything else. For every piece that gets successful, there must be 1000 others that rot in anonymity. But I think that shot at immortality is too tempting to let go. No?

Can a visit to Nirmal Baba’s Samagam help?

Today I had some free time. I went to my Evernote and looked at all the things that I thought I would do. Going back to 2005. And I reazlied that although I am great at planning, I suck at implmenting. No great surprises here. Thats how I am. But then of all the parkedIdeas and other such conceptual things that were supposed to make me rich, there was something very very real. With goals as tangible as money in your wallet is. The goals around money.

Being an Indian, and a lower middle class Indian at that, money has always been a fascination. Its always at the back of my mind in everything I do. Making money, spending it, wagering it, saving it, looking at it, am constantly thinking about it.

So I thought, I’d make a list of my “tangible” money-related goals over the years and see what I expected an what I got.

And since we are talking about money, I remember most of the numbers. So, without further ado, here is a quick and dirty list. Please note that I am not talking about specifics here. If you are interested, write into me and I would get back.

When? aspiration around money
When I was a kid and played cricket all day long? nothing
When I was in college and wrote awesome code with C? Rs. 10,000 a month (Rs. 120,000 a year)
When I read about Bill Gates and got inspired to start something? Richest man on planet
When I entered MBA and was told that I could change the world? Rs. 10,00,000 a year
When I ended MBA and I realized that time to change the world has come? Rs. 50,00,000 a year
When I got my first salary and became the part of rat race? More than what my batchmates were making (Rs. 30,00,000 a year)
When I finished 7 years of working after my MBA, having changed 4 jobs, dragging my career alongwith? – Financial Independence (The NPV of my financial independence at INR 1 crores)
When I retire? I dont know yet.

So, I did try and plot this in a chart. This is what I got.

Comparing the aspiration vs actual money, over the years

Like all my analyst friends, I also believe that charts hide more than they reveal. Though in my case a few things are quite clear. Here are these…

The greatest jump in my actual money came in when I finished my MBA. After that it has stayed on a steady growth path, except the last few years when it slowed in its growth and has come to a stand still. This may tell analysts that I fucked my career like anything and I am stuck with a glass ceiling.
With age, people tend to get closer to their dreams and grow faster. I on the other hand have been going away from my aspirations. My growth has also stalled in the last five years.
My thinking about money changed drastically at three points in my life. One was when I learnt that there is someone called Bill Gates. Two was when I started comparing my salary with my peers (and when they started buying fancy cars, houses etc). And three when I turned 30 (this is when I thought I would chase larger goals in life, rather than a house etc).
If I am to bridge the gap between the two lines, I need some kind of a giant windfall gain. Ofcourse I dont have the balls to go loot a bank or something. So it has to be something that I start or something that I could be a part of. Where I put in efforts now and hope that in next five years, when the gap would widen even more, the efforts result into large returns.

Thats about it for money right now. Does remind me that a pandit, once upon a time told me, I would struggle for money all my life. Half of it is over and looks like the prediction is actually true. I dont know what to do about it. May be I can go and seek Nirmal Baba’s blessings at one of this samagams?

On The Road

Thanks to Prateek, he got me this book, I have stumbled onto apparently one of the most important non-fiction books of our time. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I started reading it today and I am stuck on page 7. I cant seem to go beyond it. There is this piece of text on that page that I cant get over with. It reads…

Image Credits: MWW

In plain text it reads,

I shambled after as usual as I’ve been doing all my life after people that interest me, because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

This piece of text, sounds fancy but is brilliant. The easiest thing to say would be that I am the maddest person I know of (I want everything, I dont say commonplace things etc) but I am not. I have lately realized that I am not mad or out of ordinary. I think as I am growing older I have sort of reached a compromise with myself. I will not shine like Steve did or all the other mad people I know of are on the verge of. No time for sob story, this is an exciting book and I am glad to have got a copy. Thanks once again pattice.

I then thought, if I am not mad, do I know some mad people? Are there people who inspire me and I “shamble” after? Are these the kinds that make you go “Awww”? Surprisingly the answer was not one but many. In fact most people I tend to make friends with are the kinds to have the mad trait. A small list would have Killa, my boss, Ashu, piyush, meghna, Solo from my workplace (wow! so many mad people there) and otherwise, Suds, RR, Huz, #sgMS, the other SG, Radhika, Nikita, Vijesh, Ankit, Agony Aunt in it. Ofcourse I have tons of non-mad people who are special to me, the guy who tolerates me more than anyone else, the guy I share my place with, the woman I have a recent crush on, they’re all comparatively sober. What I need to do however, is transform all these people into mad ;P

Anyways, coming back, I am really looking forward to reading the book. I can easily relate the state the country is in right now to the things Jack talks about. May be I shall write the Indian version of On The Road someday. I dunno. But for the time being, I am going over the Page 7 over and over again.