I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which words were used partly for the sake of their sound. I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees …
Author Archives: Atul
Scent
Has the scent of agarabaati reminded you of your mother’s evening prayers? Or has it remained you of your ex, the fragrance of perfume at the client’s meeting? I wonder why our brain acts this way by throwing our past. Everything comes to a halt. Positive association of it brings a smile. We end up …
Lipstick
I have been getting advice from people who are successful in selling or marketing. The problem with me is that I am not a believer in either. I apply the JTBD approach to sales. It is popular in product development. I have written about “Jobs to be done” earlier in detail. Pillers of Jobs to …
call
How many times in our life does it happen that a close friend calls you after 5-6 years? I received A’s email after five years, our last conversation he was teaching at an engineering college in Hubli. Fast forward now, he is a married man and on top of that a lawyer. I was happily …
opportunity
I got lucky that someone trusted me, gave me the opportunity. I would not have reached this far in life without it. My mother was adamant seeing me go to Delhi for higher studies. Coming to Delhi, making great friends, and amazing teachers helped me to learn and grow. As I grew in the profession, …
ownership
I understand ESOP is the hot cake in our industry. But is money the only indicator of ownership in an organization? What about responsibility, feeling on oneness, and belonging to the organization? A company has to provide radical freedom and fearlessness to its team. That is when they will experiment, question, and come up with …
sleep
I have not been sleeping enough. I felt groggy and blamed it on getting less sunlight. It affected my habit of reading and focus. Last night I was in bed by 9 pm, had good 9 hours of sleep, and I am feeling all charged up. After so many days, I was able to spend …
equality
I was in a conversation last week with my friend, who is running a successful business. She was in jobs while doing engineering, learning building her life, unlike most of us who were partying. One thing which she told later was that even after all the hard work, setting up a successful venture, people are …
method
I keep reading tweets and hearing from others about how to build successful startups. The thing is most of these are someone’s experience or playbook from some university professors bestseller. These are unique and, 9/10 times will not fit with your journey. One sentence we keep repeating ourselves among us is: nobody should die in …
cult
We, humans, are conditioned to live in a society and worship a leader. A leader can be a politician, caste leader, or religion affiliated godman. We humans will bow to a leader and, that keeps the leader’s aura in place. Leaders lose the moment they lose the respect of followers whom he rules. Leader unites …