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I have been talking to many of my friends who have been working from home for some time. The adversity of COVID has given an opportunity. Most have accepted the fact that working from their hometown, village and, farmland is a reality.
Industrialization accumulated talent and wealth both. It resulted overnight and making a city cosmopolitan. The reason for population migration was factories: your presence is needed to operate the mills.

The trend continued even in the case of the software Industry. The wealth and opportunity exist mostly in metros. Every graduate would aspire to be in Bangalore for a software job.

With COVID the mindset is shifting. A lot many youths are working from home for their companies. Some are even realizing to run their business from their hometown. Some are running and creating wealth in these small cities and towns of India.

We are far away from seeing the distribution becoming a trend but nevertheless, it is a good start.

Will I be packing my bag and move back home? I think one day I will.

Bakri

Budhiya ka dimag kharab ho gaya hai, screamed Renu.

Budhiya is Boodhi Dadi; she celebrated her seventieth birthday last month. A stout lady with a potbelly, showering all her elderly love on Gulabo, her dear goat. Gulabo, the goat, is the purpose of her life. The love and care Boodhi Dadi has for Gulabo are way more than for Prem, her grandchild.

Boodhi Dadi’s husband died four years after their marriage. Their son Mukesh was only two years old then. It was during the time of the cholera outbreak. Many lost their lives in north India. They had enough land to take care of themselves.

Mukesh grew up as a handsome, well-built, and hot-headed individual. He ended up joining the army and returning home after retiring early. His days go in farming and gardening. He is in limited conversation with his mother. Other aunties in the village blame Renu, Mukesh’s wife for, the mother, son feud. The mukhiya of the house has turned into a tenant.

Boodhi Dadi followed a strict regimen of waking up at 5 am and taking gulabo out for a walk, feeding fresh grasses. She would devote the rest part to praying god and daily chorus. Should make half a dozen chappati for the day. It would later get mixed in hot milk with jaggery. That has been her diet for the last few decades. On some occasions, weddings, festivals, and poojas, she would eat anything else. During holidays kids and cousins would visit Boodhi Dadi from the mentors bringing sweets and sarees. I wish she would have shown the same love to Prem, her grandson.

Winter came early this year, and daadi broke her bones as she slipped from the chapakal(handpump). She was bedridden for a few months. In the last few weeks of her life: Daadi went on fast and repeated Hanuman Chalisa and Durga Saptasati. She has rejected taking medicines and died in pain. It was Gulabo next to her crying: meh meh meh when she took her last breath.

In an unprecedented turn of events roughly three weeks from mother’s death, Mukesh sold Gulabo to a butcher in the adjacent village.

reach

There are many people we are connected via our network like LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. We have not personally met them. We are added to them for their wisdom, domain expertise.
As a founder, we are always on a joyride with things screwing up now and then. I was looking for some help in marketing and ads and reached out to few folks. I had a call with a few and a good conversation.

I have always been an extrovert, and it makes me feel it is good to reach out for help from people better than yours. People are generally good, kind, and helpful.

Havells Story

I picked Havelles: The untold story of Qimat Rai Gupta. It is another rags to riches story. One guy works hard to build an empire by going against all the odds and uncertainties. 

It reminded me of the MDH group and Haldiram’s founder’s journey. The risk-taking attitude, perseverance, and persistence. 

I think I have found the algorithm for writing these inspirational books:

  1. Talk about the poor upbringing.
  2. Talk about the grit/perseverance and all the failures.  
  3. Talk about family fights and division of the company.
  4. Talk about how government and license raj
  5. Talk about the company’s near-death experience and the risk-taking appetite of the founder. 
  6. Talk about how well founder treated their employees or vendors, or distributors.  

You have an inspirational book about an Indian billionaire who made it big from the rags. You can replace Havells founder with all the other family houses that made it big and whose generation is enjoying over the wealth created by previous generations. 

success

The secret sauce of success is sold and glamorized by media and best selling authors. What most don’t tell you about the sufferings one has to go through to achieve the invisible. Tesla, Gandhi, Beethoven, Rudyard Kipling, Helen Keller, Ada, Charlie Munger, Ruskin Bond, Van Gogh, Epictetus, founders of Haldirams, Havell’s Electric: the list is non-ending.

Success comes with sufferings, failures, losing loved ones, and getting ostracized by society. It is a journey and full of rough edges. One has to be courageous and should have self-belief, conviction, and a small bunch of believers.

want

How much time do we spend thinking about what we want from the world and the people around us? It is like a checklist of expectations from the rest. We build our imaginary castle, and when these expectations are unmet, we turn sad or become violent. In certain instances, we stop believing in humanity altogether and start living as an isolated individual.

How much does this hurt us in the end? How much do other care about it?

positive

We are living in a world where being positive is supreme. We have been sedated and pumped up via coaches or best-selling authors why we should think positive. At times I feel capitalism thrives under the cult of positivity.

I have been told time and again how acceptance and positive belief does miracles. I understand about the therapy of affirmation.

We have turned into a positivity zombie without finding enough time to introspect about ourselves, accepting or thinking negative, not acceptable.

This post: “The Art of Negativity, On Rejecting Positive Thinking” and got me thinking again. The sermon of positivity and fake smile trumps over broken within.

Technology

“Necessity is the mother of invention” is an English-language proverb. We are living across the continents, connected via technology and fighting against hunger, health, poverty, and illiteracy.

Internet is no less than Renaissance or the Bhakti movement. We are all on the same rocketship. An individual sitting in a remote part of the world know the power of togetherness. Technological revolutions have overthrown dictators and changed regimes. It has bough the world together during a pandemic or other natural calamities.

How many innovations of Ramanujan or their predecessors or someone in a small town in India or remote Africa would have died because there was no easy way to share, collaborate?

Technology is a great equalizer: a developed or developing world are all on the same pipe, interacting, learning, and sharing.

The technology should flow free without any interventions or ban.

Makhan

Makhan was village mukhiya’s son. A tall, lean kid full of anger. He was the only kid for his parents and, It gave him the power to act like an asshole among his peers. People would call him junior Mukhiya Ji and, it will make his head high with pride. He was an eccentric and would go mad over petty things. He beat the village grocer because he denied giving free chocolate to him. On another occasion, he forced the entire marriage party to take another route for the trip.

I was with my grandmother in our village to enjoy summer vacation. The daily routine was simple: eat, play, roam. Grandma would make some breakfast, mostly aloo paratha(my favorite), and with my cousins, I would be out, stealing mangoes, playing Gilli danda, lattu, or participating in buffalo race.

We kids were playing cricket at the school compound one day. Madhav appeared from nowhere and asked us to bowl him. We said, join us for a game, to which he declined. All he wanted was to bat. We continued bowling with him for over half an hour and, he cheerfully made the best of it. When my patience went for a toss, I shouted at him and made him leave the ground. He resisted in the beginning but gave up later and left the playground politely.

The next day morning, we found our playground dug up. We got to know later on that the same night he created a big uproar at home. He forced Banshi, his helper, to take his tracker for this act.

I still wonder can someone be so stupid?

Raju

Raju was seven years old when his father got remarried. He had lost his mother a few years back due to tuberculosis. She was the only person who took care of him. Raju was born without legs. Polio was at its peak, and children with deformed bodies were a common sight.

As fate has it, a few months after the remarriage, his father passed away. Raju’s stepmother sold all the properties leaving nothing for Raju. She moved back to her parents and made Raju penniless. He had no option but to pick up begging.

Raju has been in this business for almost a decade. He says most people have been empathetic to him. He finds schoolkids among the ones taking most care of him. Some would feed him their lunch or others some chocolates.

Raju speaks in broken English, and his confidence can be addictive for some. I remember him telling me one day: Atul Babu, Bhikari aur Baniye me koi farak thore he hai. Dono dusre se paisa he to mangte hai. I spilled my chai and laughed uncontrollably. Another day I met, he was unhappy over the alcohol ban in Bihar.

Aamiro ko hamesa Daru mileage, garibo ko das guna Dena padega, said Raju. I felt pity for him. Alcohol has been his best friend; he would call it god’s nectar to sideline the world’s misery. I always thought Raju is a Khabri(secret police eye on the street), feeding all the news. Raju’s negotiation skills have won him many friends. He would be the go-to guy to settle any vendor’s fight at the sabzi market.

Last week I heard Raju passed away. Many say COVID made him isolated from the rest, as most of us stayed indoors. There was no one around to talk, fight and share chutkulas, gaalis with him. He had lost weight and could not survive the winter. I think it was isolation, not COVID, which could have killed him.

The police found 12 lakhs of cash from his hut[old and new notes], a lot of many coins, and a family photo of Raju with his parents. A letter written in broken English said: Anathalaya ka paisa.

RIP Raju, you had a post-death plan: Making life better for the poverty-stricken with your saved money.