Zindgi

Zite gaye hum zindgi apne, mast hue madmast hue. Jhumte gaye apni duniya me, bekaauf, bewaak, beparwaah.

Zindgi hai hamare, zina hai hame, kiske panah me zaye hum, asaara le hum kiska zab hai ye zindgi bus khud ke liye.

Zindgi koi khel thore he hai zo kaat diya ya zor diya. Ye zindgi to bas zine ki hai, bina soche aur madmast hue.

Ho kya gaya hai zamane ko, kyun zindgi ko zine ka zariyaa dhunde lage hai sab? Kya uperwale ne bata bheja tha hame ki zineee kaise hai ye zindge hame? Zindgi ko zahaanum banane me waqt he kitna lagata hai, judaai ya jillat auroo se he to milta hai. ka ye zariya he to hai, warna kya padi hai hame zindgi

Kaante, tanhayee, ruswayee, judayee sab to zindgi ke pehlu hai? Kyun sisak padte hai, kho zate hai zillat me, gumnaam ho zate hai hum inme? Aise kaise zindge zite jate hai hum?

Zindgi hai jiye zaa rahe hai, julmo aur sitam ko liye za rahe hai, zaher he sahi piye za rahe hai. zindgi hai ziye za rahe hai

insecurity

Is born as a female comes with baggage? Has our society created such a divide where women have to suffer? From birth till death, she has to live in fear and insecurity? How can we get over this divide? Is equality, feminism just thing for the media and PR? The fear, insecurity gets fed from the early days. Brother is always right, and a husband knows best for the family? Why a mother, sister, or wife has to surrender and treated an inferior race?

When well-read, successful women in our society are living with such fear and insecurity. It will not be difficult to imagine how bad the situation would be in a remote part of Bihar or Madhya Pradesh or Jharkhand. The pre-pregnancy test still gets conducted, abortions are still happening and, women are married to a man because her parents have no money to feed her.

“We keep hearing charity begins at home”: have we observed how we treat our kids differently?

If our society continues the way it is, the only male will be left inheriting this planet.

switch

I got to know the last day that one of our early adopters is moving on. We got sad because he was there with us from day zero. Our second cheque came from his organization. He was there with us when no one believed in us. The market I am in, there is a constant influx of new members coming and old leaving for their team.

Change is the only constant: the sooner we accept it, the better we become. We have to delight all our users and work, give enough delight that we find more believers.

Running a startup is like a rollercoaster ride or playing a video game. We have to cross all the goalposts and, the challenges can be surprising and sudden. We need more believers because they act as a catalyst. Their advice, faith helps in sailing to the course.

interview

I had an interview scheduled with a successful founder last day. I have revived aroundstartups podcast and mostly talking to founders.

What was supposed to be a pre-interview conversation went on for an hour. We later realized it was an interview, not a coffee conversation. It was more like two listening and learning from someone who had this journey. I forgot about recording it as the conversation went on very personal and fascinating.

Has this occurred to others too? Instead of going on for a formal interview for the show, it ended up being a life learning session.

We think successful people have it all on their platter, but we or the media never talks about their day to day ongoing struggle in the journey. Each one of us in our life is struggling and fighting our own battle. It is illogical to conclude or make comments about someone seeing the externalities.

Growth

One matric which I consider for growth is how people in my team are growing and how they are maturing and getting ready to fill in our shoe.

We had a good discussion with one of our early hires, the feedback we received as a founder was an eye-opener. I see growth as my team members are gearing for taking some leadership roles. They will impact our principles well to the newcomers.

A leader should be a good listener and follow radical openness and independence. As a result, the team will become more creative and grow. Growth is not binary or a zero-sum game. It happens along with the journey of building the company at every stage; it is like a compound effect.

I am getting old and happy with my team’s growth. I can happily transfer some more responsibility without worrying much. I feel our company and team is growing.

The Impressionists

I was watching the documentary and got to learn about: The Impressionists. A half a dozen of misfits going against odds and creating a new style of painting. Most of them were poor and; not part of the existing elite and, selling their artwork via Salon was not an option.

The Impressionists came up with a new kind of paint brush and colors. Freedom was utmost to their virtue, painting nature, farmhouse, orchids, ponds, or faces. The got it all in their paintings, going against the defined existing norms.

The Impressionists got acceptance from the local crowd, ordinary people. The Salon accepted them later. They were the misfits who lived their lives seeking freedom and creativity without worrying much about the status quo.

Van Gogh is not part of the Impressionists gang. But his liking for nature, his love of the countryside, and experiments with colors, he would fit in.

communication

With a group of great people when you are on the journey of building something, communication can make or break the ship. The other aspect is the expectation mismatch.

If the product team is not explaining correctly to dev leads about customer’s pain and the sales team are not indicated on realistic feature releases. It will result in a deadlock. The overall result will be losing customer’s faith and falling morale of individual groups: sales, development team.

The clarity in communication is must have attributed to every team member. Imagine the heart and kidney in our body not communicating clearly: will it not result in an ailment? How is the scenario not different when it comes to running your company with failed communication between sales, marketing, or product development team.

revisit

Have you ever spent some time revisiting memories of your school, college days? I spent last evening going through my school websites, checking on the archives, and all. It was like I am there in those moments: hostel, playground, mess, tuck shop. I could find myself everywhere, just a little lost and clueless, ignorant of the present.

I looked at the faculty list if I could find any familiar faces, school days I could not, the college I could a few.

It gave me goosebumps like transported in my past and realizing many things have changed: hostel rooms with more light, reading chairs, and a table. Playgrounds got smaller because of newer buildings.

I imagined myself with my friends playing, shouting, fighting, and faces gearing for a world ahead of us all.

I will try to visit my school, college on a trip to Delhi.

Being Hindu

In his last India visit, Akshat Sir gave me this book title: Bing Hindu. I was not keen on reading it because of the title. I was cynical with the book title.

The book talks about our golden age, history, and many intellectuals. It also talks about how westerners came, plundered, and erased our past. I could not understand what the author was trying to imply with the book.

My definition of being Hindu is above any religious bindings but more on the way of life, Independence, self-realization, and caring for nature. I do not incline towards the bigotry paddled via various establishments claiming to be the flag bearers of our religion. A Hindu is not attached to a temple, sect, or political affiliation but how he thinks, lives, and cares for overall humanity. The violence, loot, and worshipping of any persona is propaganda and lies for the interest of a few. It is not Hinduism. The media is biased; the action of a few for their self-interest should paint entire others with the same paintbrush.

Hinduism never sent evangelicals to destroy monasteries or convert the universe under one roof. It does not preach about salvation or moksha by converting others to a particular religion.

People who are associating Hinduism with a religion, sect, or ideologies are doing it for their personal gain.

Animals

Are we a social animal or the herd? With the progress in civilization, we have gotten domesticated. We took shelters and created our identity with religion? Our daily work defined our social status. We moved to live in a bucket and society construct. Our identity got associated with the family we were born, caste/social status became the prime.

As we started domesticated ourselves with decades of adjustments, we seek for others around us. We can no longer live alone in isolation. We went on from being an alone worrier to attention hogging wreckless animals. We started craving attention, approval seeker, by the crowd.

The society we created is biting us now. Can anyone live alone all by himself in isolation? Those were the days when saints and sages would go to the Himalayas, forest for mediation. It is a rare occurrence now.

Our developed society is crowded, overpopulated, and full of faith. The advancement in technology, the internet, and mobile phones have added a materialistic persona to us. We are no more who we are; we are now what others want to see in us.

The construct of cosmopolitanism is just on papers. We are more divided and alone than we were a century ago. We want attention for that; we create fake personas for the external world while being a hollow from the inside.

What have we achieved? Are we not back being an Animal? Violence, rape, fights, and constant destruction of mother earth?

Our individuality was long missing and looks like it will go for a tragic death in the future.