( This is the second part of my Freedom Ride, read part-I )

So, the D-day had come & I had to do what I had thought of, to set off on my long awaited ride. A coconut was brought in advance for good omen. Morning went by even before I got to know it. Turned off the alarm, got ready with my riding gear, woke up all my roomies to bid farewell. Anupam was the chosen one to crack open the coconut (he had been, hands down, undisputed pavitra person amongst us). Took some customary photos with friends & Dory’s odometer. I felt a bit of emotions running through me while setting off for a new road in life, I had to take leave of people I had spent a good part of my life with. But soon, excitement of the ride took over that feeling. The ride was scheduled to start at 0630 HRS, practicing the standards of IST (Indian Stretchable Time), I started at 0720 HRS. With Ik Onkar and Aarambh in background, we set the pace.

Day 1:

Bid Adieu Maharashtra

The fuel was tanked up at a nearby filling station (I later discovered about station’s duping on fuel, felt agonized). In the moment of excitement (and as a habit), I carried on at NH4 and missed the turn to Nashik. After riding for almost 10 odd KMs, I realized my mistake, took a U-turn and we were back on track. It was the very first of missed turns in the journey.

Just the first few KMs and I could already sense the enriched level of self confidence, thanks to the good riding gear. The onlooker’s stares added to the glamour quotient . Since I didn’t have any breakfast before leaving, the first 15 min pit-stop came soon after 60 odd KMs outside Pune. Riding again, I realized that the Maharashtra stretch of NH3, although it has got only two lanes, is smoooooth, with dashes of Ghats in between. The ride on those roads was a pleasure.

Reached Nashik around 1:00 PM. The ride so far had been steady and smooth. Spotted a lot of marriage parties on my way to Nashik. It seemed to be an auspicious day.

Just after crossing Nashik, I couldn’t believe my eyes, an awesome four lane highway which showed destination in three digits for the first time. That was the right time to have lunch. A dal khichdi with masala chhas, twitter status updates, couple of calls and a photo upload later, the ride resumed. Riding on that four lane road was awesome. The traffic was negligible on the road and thanks to my lunch, I felt certain sleepiness, sugar cane juice was the way to stay hydrated and to take another break.

While enjoying the good roads and the soothing music I glanced to check how many KMs I had cloaked so far. Something didn’t feel right, OH NO! the speedometer was dead! DAMN! This isn’t good – how will I have a perfect ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture of the speedo-meter after finishing the ride? With milestones and earlier sneak-peak of speedo-meter, I made a simple calculation how much I had ridden with the broken odometer. I cursed myself for not carrying a spare cable… huh. All I thought was to carry a spare clutch cable, but even for that, later changed my mind. I was told that a Bajaj Pulser clutch cable can be used in case of emergency. With a hint of hope that Dhule was near where I may get a spare cable, had some deep breaths and I was back to normal. After I reached Dhule, I asked for a mechanic at 5-7 places and even went further inside the town. Unfortunate for me, it was a Sunday and every automobile workshop was closed. Once again, the ride continued & so did my cursing, on my irresponsibility. To add to the woes, the awesome four lane highway turned into ‘work-in-progress’ four lane road. You ride on one side of the ride for couple of KMs, with construction on the other side, take a diversion, ride on the other side of the road, and take another diversion, repeat. It started getting darker and thanks to the mechanic hunt, we lost some riding time and that flip-flop, right-left changing of lanes was making it worse to ride.

In one of the many vehicular takeovers on that under construction NH3, as I over took an 18 wheeler, I came face to face with a lot of gravel on the road. I was at a moderate speed and somehow lost balance on riding those gravels! Before I could know it, I fell towards my right and chhhhhrrr… the same 18 wheeler somehow managed to stop almost one & half feet away from my face. I could easily feel the warmth and smell of its front tires (talk about, about to have out of body experiences!). After some shock, I composed myself and gauged the damage to Dory. Thankfully, nothing major had happened, the head lamp’s cap was broken, the crash guard bended on the right side and some fuel spilled. I was most afraid about the right rear mirror but thankfully it was fine.

Thanked God and after a small break, we resumed the ride to the almost dusk. In an attempt to reach Shirpur early (my first night halt), I overshot the turn by 8-10 KMs, took a U-turn and rode back to Shirpur.  In Shirpur, again I looked for a mechanic but there was none for Royal Enfield and yes in town there were several marriage processions so it was only wise to abandon the search for a mechanic. I checked-in to a hotel and retired early,  post the tiring ride of more than 500 KMs.

Day 2:

Plan for the day: Get speedo-meter fixed as soon as possible. Today’s night stop should be at Guna, ~500 KMs away.

After a good sleep, I hit the road at 0630 HRS in the morning. The wind was cool and riding felt good. From Shirpur, a very bad stretch of road started, two lanes, with dashes of potholes and ghats beside the road.

After a few KMs a very long queue of trucks & trailers greeted me. Maneuvering among halted trucks on THAT road, that morning didn’t come easy. Out of nowhere a policeman emerged, and thus started my 20 seconds of being a VIP . He got the road cleared for us (all hail Dory!).

Madhya Pradesh Main Aapka Swagat Hai

One and a half hours later, an almost non-existent board greeted me with “Madhya Pradesh main aapka swagat hai”. The construction on that stretch of road was on as well, however, after some 50 odd KMs, we saw a smooth mouth watering 4 lane highway.

Madhya Pradesh’s famous Poha-Jalebi was my break-fast before we continued the ride. While in food-joint, the owner had approached me to ask about my ride. He doubled my fear of bad roads when he mentioned that the roads we were on since morning were very good in comparison to the roads ahead, “you should have taken the Rajasthan route”, he said. Had my roommates been there, I could have been charged with some serious sections of IPC. Contrary to my fear, the road till Indore was very good; it was 4 lane mast highway, a real highway.

The little Indore experience

I had made a mental note to get Dory checked in Indore. While asking directions for a mechanic shop, I got a chance to interact with local Indorees. Rajiv Nema’s Indori videos were so right , I had to ask for directions from at least 2-3 people to understand it correctly! The name of the area, Chhoti Gwal Pedhi, made it tougher. It was only after reaching the area, I could understand the name of the area. Since at it, I saw a sign which pointed to Jabran Nagar in Indore . I got hold of a Royal Enfield mechanic, finally speedometer wire and head lamp’s cap were replaced. I bought a spare speedometer cable, just in case. I so much wanted to have my lunch in Indore but things weren’t as per plan and no matter what, the ride had to continue.

The milestones which were showing distance to Agra as 500 KMs till Indore, added extra 50 KMs after Indore and showed as 550 KMs! Either I was riding up the hill by 25 KMs that was not taken into account by the earlier milestones or it was simply a mistake.

Lunch was done after Dewas, riding continued. After almost 50 KMs, the bad and constantly bad roads started. A quick re-calculation of distance and time left in the day made me realize that we were behind schedule and it might even get dark by the time I reach Guna! I continued to ride for hours with stops only for water & pee breaks. The roads were very bad, so bad that the speed could not get pass 40KMs/hour. Just before the dusk, I passed Bioara, a town ~90 KMs away from Guna. Then, it was certain that I would have to ride couple of hours in dark under those conditions. A small break and before I could know, it was dark. I took off my sunglasses and put the helmet visor up for more visibility. The average speed on that road was 25 KMs/hour, thanks to the dust and insects that made it even more difficult to ride with naked eyes.  Adding to the road conditions, the headlight wasn’t lighting up the road properly, the Indori mechanic didn’t attach the wires correctly (another thing in the show stopper checklist, wow). Those two hours of the ride were the most difficult stretch of the entire ride. I counted every KM to Guna. Strange enough, I noticed that milestones in MP were on the right side of the road, it wasn’t easy to read in pitch dark. Finally we saw a 4 lane toll road and an exit to Guna. A mix of excitement with a wrong sign board and we continued on toll road. Realized the mistake after almost 10 KMs, another U-turn and with a very tiny exit, we reached in Guna. Finding a hotel near highway wasn’t a tough task. Got an OK one, checked-in & ordered food. While waiting for food, I felt the pain in parts of my body. It was partly because of the ride and mostly because the body parts hadn’t moved enough. I spent a total of 15 hours on road that day with no more than 2 hours at halt. In that pain, it was relaxing to see sign for Agra, showing 325 KMs . Good Night!

Day 3:

Chalo Bhaiya Agra Chalo

Ahaa… the good night sleep, that one gets after every hard riding. I had a morning walk for a couple of KMs in Guna to fight the stiffness of body and I tell you, walking never felt so good .

On one of the greyish pink cold mornings of February, we covered 2 KMs of by lanes of the still sleepy town. The distance to Agra was just above 300 KMs so I decide to start a bit late that morning. The ride resumed at 0800 HRS. After crossing school going children, wandering cattle and a lot of tempos, we were on an empty NH3 highway.

Now, after two days, I remembered all the songs of the playlist and was almost tired of it. So, I played some intermittent games with myself, to have fun, marta kya na karta. Like, “let’s count the Dhabas in a KM” (Observation: Dhabha had name of the cities, may be the place where owner/workers of dhaba come from. E.g. Yadav Dhaba, Gorakhpur, Baliya, Behraich) – “play a song, mute the sound, match my song time, unmute the sound to check if the song finished” – “what is the average distance between two petrol pumps” and many more silly games and observations.

Well, the condition of road was average between Guna and Shivpuri but in Shivpuri, I saw the most horrible stretch of road of entire trip. There were potholes of several feet!(you think I am joking, go take a ride) After we passed Shivpuri, the roads got better, in fact they got to an extent of Very Good . Those newly laid roads were almost empty, had a lot of dry greenery on both the sides. That stretch of the road could have made a perfect location for some Bollywood masala movie.

In that nowhere of smooth ride, with my small, silly games in my mind, suddenly the engine misfired. Yes, the fuel did hit reserve. Because of the broken odometer cable and the fuel duping at Pune fuel station, the fuel calculations had gone for toss, the entire ride. The game distance-between-two-fuel-station of morning came to no rescue; it was played in radar of civilization & not in the middle of nowhere! Had no idea how far the next fuel station would be in that jungle (Oops). A reserve fuel warning in middle of nowhere was very scary. I had never ridden Dory in reserve fuel to check the mileage, but my good old calculations suggested that we should comfortably cover another 40 KMs with little fuel left in the tank. To have better mileage, I kept an optimal speed of 50-60 KM/h; there was not a single soul, correction not a single human for several KMs to check for the next fuel station! But even if anybody had been there what purpose would it solve?. Gaadi ko jitna chalna hai utna hi chalegi . After almost 25 KMs, I saw a shepherd and stopped to ask for next fuel stations, “it’s just 2-3 KMs away” were the beautiful words. Phew, I heaved a sigh of relief. I said to myself “if he said 2-3 KMs that would mean, that it shouldn’t be more than 5-6 KMs”. HP fuel petrol pump – 4 kms These were the most beautiful words I read that day. After another 6 KMs, HP petrol pump welcomed me. Bhagwan hai!

Gwalior! I reached Gwalior around 1400 HRS in the afternoon and planned to have my lunch but before I could know, the struggle with potholes for several KMs, had us already out of Gwalior on a 4 lane mouth-watering highway. Gwalior- left behind, Morena – crossed, Dholpur – passed. But riding was taking its toll. Now, the stops were more frequent. Since, the distance was very less now; I was very excited to reach home and skipped Lunch. That stretch of highway was very good except for few patches of construction.  A call from Het reminded that I must not forget to get gifts for home. A small divert after entering the boundaries of Agra to quickly fetch some gifts & deliver them home… sweet home.

58 hours, ~1400 KMs,
3 states, dozens of cities,
hundreds of curious stares,
one near fatal skid,
an awesome experience later,
I was again at home.

P.S. There are few learning from this ride, which are

• Never overtake from left side on a highway, come what may.
• Always avoid and ignore a bike rider who rides with pointed toes. Dangerous!
• Don’t keep a target of KMs to be ridden in a day. Just ride until you feel right and then rest.
• Don’t underestimate the power of boxer shorts. On a day long ride, they are bliss.
• Avoid carrying a touch phone, with gloves on, it’s almost impossible to do basic operations.
• Carry a small point and shoot camera. I couldn’t take more pictures because of my heavy camera. Stopping for taking picture required, taking sunglasses off, removing helmet, taking gloves off, and taking camera out from bag. After taking pictures, put everything back on. So, taking picture was an ordeal of 15-20 mins.  Point and shoot camera can be easily kept in your pocket.
• Always make sure if data roaming is turned on in your mobile settings before leaving home network or else you’ll have no Internet.
• Take milestones distance with a pinch of salt. It can easily vary 10%.
• Enjoy the ride including the not-so-good incidents, have fun. It’s the ride which matters not the destination.

I could not think of any better way to start this post without expressing my gratitude on your response, to my last blog posts. Trust me, I mean it.

You read W’s & H’s in my last post, now you will read how the journey started, literally!

After quitting my job, I was settling into the idea of packing my stuff & moving back to where I belonged, my home. As one might stumble upon a diamond in sand, I stumbled upon the idea & sensed the opportunity to ride Dory (my Royal Enfield Classic 350) to Agra.

When I shared my plan to family & friends, almost everyone freaked out! And as expected the first response(or question, :p) was “Are you insane?” followed by the suggestion(again, as expected) “ship the bike through railways and travel peacefully in train”. But, I couldn’t think to ship Dory through railways post reading Harshad’s horrible experience. I almost had nightmares, thinking of my innocent & peaceful Dory in hands of Railways!

Anyway, without paying any heed to anyone’s thought, I started planning my Freedom Ride (yes, you got it right, that’s the name for the journey back home #freedomride). I started collecting the facts. On Google Maps, the distance between Pune and Agra showed up to be approximately 1200 KMs. Riding this distance in a single attempt, was possible but remote, so, I decided to cover the distance with two nights’ halt, en route. Shirpur (Maharashtra) and Guna (Madhya Pradesh) were zeroed in as halt stations. I tried to distribute the distance equally which was around 500 KMs, in a day. Finally, I decided the date as 20th Feb, Sunday, just a day after my last day, as corporate employee .

I also started inquiring about the road conditions from my friends/colleagues hailing from MP and all of them swore by MP’s roads. I was relaxed about my ride until I met Harshad. He told me that he has heard about the roads in MP, which to contradiction of others, aren’t good and because of that, I will not be able to cover 500 KMs in a day (ooops). He suggested going via Rajasthan, although it would add another 250 KMs to my route, at least the roads would be better.

After this new piece of information, I went back & confirmed yet again about the condition of MP roads and again, I was assured by my friends that roads are nice in MP(dilemma? I don’t know… huh!). During this time, another friend, who is a native of MP and who travelled during the same time, updated his status on Facebook, quoting “I’m surprised!!! MP roads are better than MH ”. I thought that things might have improved and I shouldn’t face any problem, or so, I imagined.

The next task was to purchase riding gear. Yes, my riding gear, it was exciting, come-on that was my first ever ! List:

• Jacket;
• Knee protectors;
• Saddle bags;
• Full-face helmet; and finally
• Gloves.

After doing a fair amount of research on Internet, I bought Cramster’s Breezer 4.0 jacket, Bionic’s knee protectors, Cramster’s Colt saddle bag(all totaling to Rs. 9050).Vega’s Full face helmet and gloves from Pro-biker, Pune (both amounting to Rs. 1950).

While moving out of Pune, I had to take care of my luggage and carrying that on my bike wasn’t an option. So, I started my own garage sale(without a garage) and even after selling most of my stuff, I was left with one big suitcase of cloths(clean cloths, mind it!) and one mid-sized bag full of books (my companions in solitude). Thankfully, one of my cousins came to my rescue and he volunteered to get this luggage to Agra, whenever he travels.

Next Scene: Ready to hit the road.

With all my stuff settled off, I was ready for the ride, but the most important thing was still left. Dearest Dory needed a last checkup before she could thump on NH 3. The day before the ride was decided for final check-ups. Mr. Umesh Pawar (Sadguru Service Station, Sinhgad Road, Pune) who has been doing all services of Dory so far, declared that she is perfectly fit. He changed the rear brakes linear and topped up the engine oil and confirmed that now, Dory can even do 2000 KMs without any problem.

Mr. Pawar have been a well wisher and naturally he cautioned me about the road conditions in MP. “You know Sudhir, the roads are not at all good and some stretches are not even OK, you better change the route”, he said. However concerned I was, it was too late to change the route, I had to start the ride in less than 12 hours!

I trusted the words of my friends from MP.

I was more than excited about my first, very long ride. Even though I have been riding on Pune-Mumbai (NH4) and have enjoyed these rides a lot, however the thought of riding alone for a 1000+ KMs ride, was giving me tHrIlLs. But this thrill changed to a concern soon. One last time, on my farewell dinner with roomies, they told me that MP roads are not very good, but it was too late to rework on the route.

With concern and excitement, I retired to bed with hope, about the ride of my lifetime.

The ride continues in next part…..

Why

I started my SAP career 5 years back and the journey has been more than interesting. One thing which fascinates me about SAP is that there is so much to learn every day that you are always on your toes. Having said that, as you might know, that even though India is most favored offshore destination, sometimes the scope of work can be limiting. It can be to an extent that your learning can get over shadowed by the monotonous work which serves no real value or no new learning to your career.

After working for almost 3 years, I realized that the work I was doing had limited scope, as a result, I was unable to challenge my limits. Learning also took a hit because of the same reason. It is a fact that once you get comfortable in your job it gets very boring, if you are thrown a challenge then you realize that you are rusted. To challenge my limits and also to venture into unknown territories of SAP, I switched company.

Joining a new company is almost like writing on a clean board. You might have certain experience with you, but still you need to prove yourself, among your peers. You could be an achiever in your previous organization, but in the new organization you have to start from zero. I enjoyed this initial phase after the switch. After that the story used to be like regular Bollywood masala (minus the masala ). There was no fun because the work was more or less the same and sometimes I felt that I was not doing anything meaningful, although it was valuable to the company/project.

On the other hand, I had started joining sessions about start ups and was reading loads of stuff about entrepreneurship (as I’ve written earlier). So, it was facet time for me. I was not finding my regular work enticing & challenging enough and at the same time I had developed heavy interest in start ups. My interest in start up was supported by the projects that started flowing in for my brother’s startup, which I helped him setup.It was like an icing on the cake.

So, here I was, on a crossroad of life, where I’m in a well paying job with sufficient experience in certain technology, ‘settled’ as they would call it but still something unsettling about the job and on other hand a non-walked, challenging, adventurous but might satisfy the unresting something in me with a feeling of starting something from scratch.

I chose the latter.

What

I’m joining GenXsource, as a co-founder. We plan to make awesome looking websites, web apps that should & would change our client’s world for better. Apart from this, some really interesting ideas are brewing in our minds, which are raring to be live. I am joining this venture full time starting this month.

Where

As of now, we are based at Agra because that is my hometown. Starting up in Agra isn’t easy because finding potential resources with vision is a lot of problem. But considering the proximity to Delhi, it should work as an advantage for us. There are some other advantages as well, like infrastructure and recurring cost, which is low as compared to metro/tier-1 cities. The man power cost is low (if you can find them).

Also, while starting up it’s very important that you be emotionally strong to deal with daily hiccups of your venture. Being with your family certainly helps so you hold your ground for good and for sure.

I know it’s not going to be a smooth sail. I might stumble in this effort of starting up, in romancing the idea of doing something meaningful, in being my own boss.

But what I do know is, I will not dread Mondays, I will not do something which I don’t like, I will not hate my job and still keep working because I have to pay that car or home loan EMI.

I’m Escaping From Cubicle Nation, I am Changing Status-Quo, I’m Trying, I’m Starting Up.

Please wish me luck

To answer all these questions and more, I thought it would be good to answer all these questions/concerns on my blog.

This is going to be a long story so I’m going to break this post in two parts. I formatted this post in the form of one H and Five W’s (but, in my own order )

How

After completing my computer graduation, I started working as a system administrator in Agra.. I had very little interest whatsoever in programming, however, I did like the web related stuff. Be it surfing website, trying my hands on creating websites or even finding new websites. Even though I wasn’t good enough in web designing but still, I liked spending my hours surfing on net of nets, internet. I was so fascinated by websites, that I used to go to surf internet in cyber cafes, for as high as Rs. 60/hour. Mind it, it was the time when the broadband wasn’t available and people had fixed line dial-ups (remember that annoyingly amusing tone which phone modem used to make while connecting to internet ?).

Being a network administrator, I touched base with Linux, and before I knew I developed interest in Linux too. After reading “Linux For You” for months, I decided that it was time to move to Linux. It was easier said than done. In Agra, there were no Linux institute back then. So, the only choice I had was to move to bigger city and Delhi/NCR was an obvious choice.

Quitting job to switch to Linux & to a new city wasn’t a viable idea. Moreover, I had to plan for my accommodation and course fee in Delhi, too. Joining a weekend course in Delhi, while working in Agra didn’t interest me. Let’s join a BPO!, Problem Solved. Getting into a BPO was comparatively easier, would fetch me a decent salary to survive and I can quit BPO as soon as I finish my course.

Came Sept 2004, when I joined IBM Daksh, as an e-support specialist. Man, this place was something. The energy at workplace was humongous. People coming across from different states of India made it even more of an interesting place to work in. And since it being my first experience of corporate environment, it was too good to be true for me. Soon, the energy, the unusual schedule took over me. There was no time for anything, except for going to office, completing my contributions to my work, dumping my body in the cab, coming back to my place, sleeping and the following iterations.”REPEAT” had become my life. (I was warned about this by my friends, but who cares !) The Linux infatuation couldn’t fight this schedule and before I could date Linux, we broke up.

However, one good thing happened there. I got plenty of time to indulge in my hobby of browsing internet. Got introduced to Blogs, Photoblogs and different kinds of websites/tools/web products. That was the era of Blogspot, Orkut, Hi5, Myspace. It was here, I acquired my now (in)famous googling skill among my friends/colleagues and became an early-adopter among them for web services/products.

I look back & it makes me believe that it was the time when unknowingly a foundation stone was laid for what is today.

When

In Aug, 2009, a friend had setup a software company and he got in touch with me to help him. This was a golden chance for me as he was starting from scratch and I could help him in setting him up his venture. I was offered a partnership in this venture, however, I didn’t join as a partner.
For almost six months, I gave a lot of time to this venture.From deciding the name of the company, to making hiring decisions, strategic planning and even getting the customers. It’s very exciting to start a company, the adrenaline rush, the feeling of building something from nothing, it is just awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed devoting my time to it.

However, later I realized that our visions were very different for the company and it wasn’t possible for us to continue together. So, I parted my way from this venture after learning my lesson and wishing him luck.

Since my college days, I was involved in couple of ventures. I started two ventures with my friends but unfortunately, those never took off. The joy of starting a ‘real’ company was something completely different than to work in my job, which to me was always unresting..

This was the time when my brother was about to finish his Masters in Computers. After fiddling with the idea to have a start up of his own, he started his venture and it was again an opportunity for me to help build a company from the scratch .

To be continued….. ( part II )

Howdy 2011! What you’ve got for me?

It all started in 2008.

I used to read a lot of blogs and one of them happens to be Youth Curry. In Sept, 2008, her book Stay Hungry, Stay foolish was launched. I knew this phrase from Steve Job’s famous commencement speech at Stanford University of 2005. The book is about 25 stories of entrepreneurs with a common thread of IIMA alumni. I wanted to read the book as soon as it was launched but during that month I was in The Netherlands for my office assignment.

So when I came back to India in Nov, 2008, the first book I wanted to read was obviously Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. I had heard about most of the entrepreneurs featured in book or about their companies, this made the book more interesting. I finished the book in two sittings in a single day. The stories were inspiring. interesting and fascinating. This was definitely not the first trigger for my entrepreneurship dreams because I have long been reading stuff about entrepreneurship but yes this definitely made me more ‘wannabe-entrepreneur’. After this book, I developed interests in reading books and coincidently got to know about Flipkart at the same time, ordering book was more easy now and a pleasurable experience, it translated into more books being read. I started reading a lot of stories and journeys of entrepreneurs.

I joined Twitter in Jun, 2008 and like most of the people, I also have same question ‘whom to follow’ and what to do with Twitter in the beginning. But after reading about entrepreneurs, I started following them on Twitter, got a lot more resources to read than ever before. One link led to other and got to know about initiatives like Startup Saturdays, Lpad, which further fuelled my aspirations to be an entrepreneur.

Fast forward to Dec 2010. I mustered the courage to quit the rat race. 20th December 2010, I have resigned from my day job and will be walking the aisle of entrepreneurship full time

At this point, I just have these lines in my mind from the movie Udaan.

(Very loose translation of the lyrics)

is this the end of the story or a new beginning,
Is it a new dawn or it’s going to be another night,
will the future be my shelter
or will I come across another crossroad,
nobody knows

More follows soon in next post. To be continued…

P.S. If you are just wondering what does the title of this post mean, it’s a track from the movie Rang De Basanti. Listen it on Google Music

The first thing is employee referrals. I believe the employee referral schemes should be leveraged for healthy and more productive work environment because when team members know each other well then results can be real good. But we don’t live in an ideal world and in my opinion employee referrals are sometimes used as a vehicle to get your known person get a job anyhow, whether s/he deserves it or not is a different thing. I believe if the interviewer knows (by a reference or directly) the person who has referred the interviewee then there will most certainly be some prejudice involved. I don’t want to imply that every employee referred candidate is not worthy of his position but the person will enjoy some discount which non-referred candidate might not.

On the other hand, I’m aware about incidents in some companies where a referred candidate will not get an interview call from the company but as soon as the profile is forwarded through a placement agency, the person will be interviewed. I have experienced it personally.

In an another incident, when I was looking for switch last time, I received a call from a company (which claims that they deliver high performance), the very next day of uploading my resume. My interview was scheduled promptly and I did not get an interview call even after 3 months but I did receive 2-3 calls about scheduling my interview but needless to say the interview was never conducted. I do receive an email from the same company after every 3 months that my profile has been archived in their system and I can use the reference id to appear for an interview in future. My other colleagues got their interviews scheduled at least 4-5 times and then they got call for an interview, some had to appeared for interview twice/thrice in the same company.

I just wonder if there is something like non-prejudice, unbiased and uninfluenced hiring which really judge the skills of a person and how s/he can contribute to company growth rather than who does he know?

Apart from referrals, there can be other biases as well. Can I claim that I conducted interview in an unbiased manner after I knew that the interviewee hails from my home town? if the person worked with me in one of my last organization and I hated him? if the person is real good and I think he can be a threat to my position? She looks good, should I select her? I have also experienced two cases where a person was not hired because of his religion/cast.

From interviewee point of view, there is a other side, what if the interviewer doesn’t know what kind of questions to ask? what to look for in a candidate? He is not competent enough to judge a good candidate. What if he wants to show his own authority, ‘dude, see-how-much-I know-and-you-dont’ than what the candidate’s real knowledge is?

There are so many such questions/situations which bothers me and that’s why I don’t truly enjoy to get involved in hiring processes partly because sometimes I feel that I don’t do justice to the person being interviewed ( impostor syndrome?) , and partly because I feel that I cannot be ruthless to reject a person if a person has potential but doesn’t has the credibility in his resume.

In one of the Startup Saturday Pune, someone ( was it @mhegi?) suggested that look in for commonsense, adaptability and learning ability in a recruit and rest can be taken care of. But then hiring for a startup is quite different than hiring for an MNC.

What has your experience been in hiring? It would be interesting to know your experiences.

Disclaimer: I’ve been interviewed as an employee referral on two occasions and I do like to believe that it was unprejudiced on at least one occasion.

After running my first Half Marathon in Mumbai in 2007, I wanted to run Delhi half marathon. The thought of running with thousands of people on Rajpath in a misty morning with India Gate in background used to give me goose bumps. But even after registering for two consecutive years, I could not participate because it did not sync with Diwali holidays. However, this year the day was in perfect sync with my holidays and I registered for it dutifully.

As compare to my last 3 half marathons, I was best prepared this time. I was comfortably running/walking 10+ kms couple of times in a week in Pune and I was expecting to complete the run in 2 hours but things always do not go as you plan .

After reaching Delhi, the first task was to collect Bib and goodies bag from the expo. Participants were required to submit one identity proof and the organizers made sure they get to mint some money out of this. One photocopy of the identity proof was being charged Rs. 5 (that’s 5 times the market price). The goodies bag had some interesting things like pav bhaji masala, chhole masala and maggie .

The Saturday evening was very chilly in Delhi and I was  sceptical about the next day run but Sunday was not that cold as compare to last day. First 1 hour in the run was pretty smooth (except for the loo break after 1 km which was forced by consumption of 1.5 litre of water before run) and Endomondo was helping me to keep my pace constant. I completed 10 kms in first hour but once the sun started rising the temperature soared and by the time I reached Rajpath it was pretty hot. After completing 14 KMs it was pretty difficult to run because of cramp but I continued jogging/walking with slower pace. As I finished my 18th Km (I think), the Delhi dream run was started and last 3 kms were the same for both runs. The enthusiastic dream runners with different kinds of fancy dresses and banners, hoardings made these last 3 kms more painful. The half marathoners were literally wading through the sea of dream runners. When I reached finish line, it was 2:43:07 since the starting gun was fired.

I have participated in 3 Half Marathons in Mumbai and had high expectations for Delhi Half Marathon but it was no match for Mumbai experience. The people’s participation is quite high in Mumbai where people will line up beside the road and cheer you up, give you biscuits, juices and fruits. Audience were completely missing in Delhi.

There were other things which were not well organized in Delhi. Baggage counter was the biggest problem. The participants had to wait for more than 1 hour to get their bags. The finishers medal distribution was not properly managed as well. Some runners even staged a small protest about this. Later, organizers promised to send the finishers medal by post. The route planning could have been better. The dream run route should have been different than half marathon route, like it happens in Mumbai.

I was surprised that how Procam which puts a great show in Mumbai Marathon can manage to have this mediocre organized Delhi run.

I enjoyed my Delhi Half Marathon run but the experience could have been more enjoyable if the things were more managed. But still I look forward to run in Delhi next year and I hope it would be another memorable experience minus the mis-management.

If you live in India, chances are you know the pain of getting a confirmed train ticket to your destination on a desired date. If you book a ticket months in advance and you are lucky you can get a confirmed ticket, however, most of the time you get a ticket in waiting list. Going online every time (and wading through the pop-ups of Indian Railways website, even after pop-up blocker) to check the PNR status is such a pain.

Tada, enter myPNRstatus, just enter your PNR number along with your mobile number and forget about checking your PNR status every few days/hours. myPNRstatus will send you an SMS as soon as there is any change in your PNR status, did I mention it’s F.R.E.E. It will also keep you updated about train timings, if there is any delays or change in timings of your train.

No Internet? no problem, you can still use myPNRstatus service, send MYPNR <Your 10 DIGIT PNR NUMBER> to 9220092200 and you will start receiving your PNR status information SMS. The number is a non-premium number so you will pay your normal SMS charges. Remember, the service is still in Beta so you might expect some bugs.

While, there are free services which provide you PNR status for free, e.g. Google can send you PNR status on your mobile for free ( send your 10 digit PNR number to 9773300000) but you’ll have to send an SMS every time you want to know the status but if you are using myPNRstatus service you don’t have to do anything after submitting your PNR number and mobile number. The service will automatically send you SMS as soon as there is any change in your PNR status.

From usability point of view it’s a very good service, however, from business perspective I suspect how long it can sustain without revenue generation. Presently, the site has Google Ads which might generate some moolah but how much and for how long? If the service gets enough traction then SMS cost will rise and it would be interesting to see how myPNRstatus.com plan to generate revenues.

Go, give myPNRstatus a spin.

Thanks @shankargan

So, here are my observations about Pune.

The very first thing you’ll notice when living in Pune or even passing by it, is the real estate hoardings and billboards. The Pune real estate market is booming like Dot Com of 90s. In fact the only billboards you will see will be that of buildings only. These ads make sure that you are teased every few KMs that you can’t afford a home (at least holds true for me). In these ads, you can see some real interesting and creative ad which makes you at least think about buying a home.

The other very common site is, girls walking/riding like bandits. They’ll dress up and all but will cover their face under a veil. So, it’s kinda boring to drive when all girls have their face covered . I believe the pollution level in Pune is far less than Mumbai or any other metro but still girls might have their own reasons to hide their pretty faces behind a piece of cloth. Also, I haven’t seen so many girls riding a motorcycle in any city but a girl riding a Royal Enfield remain to be seen though.

Something which amuses me most is the names of places in Pune. Some are lovingly awkward to pronounce. For eg. Bhosri, Dapodi, Ghorpadi, Pimpri, Pimple Saudagar, Wakad, Khadki, Pashan and Hadapsar are to name a few (Tip: Pashan (stone) is one of the posh areas of the city ). During my initial days in Pune, it was pretty difficult to remember the places’ name. I still struggle to reach from point A to point B without asking for direction when Google Maps doesn’t help.

If you travel through auto-rickshaw then be prepared for a dual surprise although the auto rickshaws do have fare meters, they hardly ply by it. If they do then fare is calculated by a formula which I have no idea about. But, you can improve your bargaining skills by hiring a rickshaw.

Pune is not a cosmopolitan city and practically has no night life. As most people in Pune are from Maharashtra, you can earn some brownie points if you have basic knowledge of Marathi.

The city has well laid cycle tracks in most of the part. Cycling on a dedicated cycle track is fun. It’s a different thing that when traffic is on it’s peak these track work as additional road for motorcycles and auto rickshaw and sometimes mini vans too.

If you love visiting new places during weekends/holidays then Pune is the best choice. You can visit beaches, forts, plateau and hill stations; all not more than 150 KMs away from Pune.

Still, 6 months is not a very long time to get to completely know a city like Pune. I still find something surprising, amusing and fascinating about city every day.