A few weeks back, on a fine Sunday afternoon I was seen tweeting about help required around Goregaon / Malad (Mumbai) to take a fraudulent Auto-rickshaw driver to a nearby Police Station. I had promised to share more details on my blog and here we go!

Yesterday Mumbai saw a flash strike by auto rickshaw drivers which apparently wasn’t called by their union. Newspapers are reporting hundreds of rigged auto meters lying at workshops as auto-walas panic to get them ‘un-tampered’ given the recent RTO drive against them. As my friend Sandeep RTs above … Only in India you can dare to go on a strike, justifying an act of cheating.

What happened that Sunday was a simple story. I took an auto from Andheri highway to Goregaon Oberoi Mall. The auto driver wasn’t in uniform and while that was least of my concern, as we reached the destination (Oberoi Mall, Goregaon) I realised he was trying to overcharge me. The meter reading was 4.80 and the auto-driver asked me for Rs 64.

I happened to knew the formula for calculating the auto-fare after the recent change in tariffs (Thanks M4Mum/Raxit). So when the auto rickshaw driver asked mr for Rs 64, I got a little suspicious and casually hit the calculator on my mobile. For the ones who want to note, the formula is x13 -2 (multiply the meter reading by 13 and subract 2 from the total.)

The calculation in my case came to 60.4 and not 64. A small difference. I confronted the auto wala and he showed me a fare card. It was certainly a fake one, for fares above Rs 80 his tariff card showed amounts higher by Rs 10 or more. I told him that he is cheating & he suggested me to forget the 4 rupee difference as a loan and asked me to go. Yes, WTF.

I took the fare card and told him to take me towards the mall on the opposite side, where there were quite a few police vans given it was near about independence day. The auto-wala realized that I am not going to relent and Read the rest of this entry »

Back in March (2011) I disappeared for a month to UK and while I spent a month there, there are only two significant things I did. The First being a visit to Stone Henge (picture below) and the other being ‘Startup Weekend Cambridge.’

Startup Weekend is this 54 hours madness that brings together business folks, developers, designers and jack of all trades like me to build a startup over a weekend. Ones with an idea pitch it, voting follows and teams are formed organically. These teams have to come back with a product / prototype / demo / whatever by Sunday evening and present to the judging panel. In march, Startup Weekend, which has as of today done over 100 cities and 250 action packed weekends, came to India.

My friend Pankaj Jain was (he still is) passionately spearheading the India leg of SW and I decided to jump in and help organize Delhi and Bangalore. Events were planned, dates final, lots of pre-event work done and then UK happened at the same time as SW Bangalore and Delhi. And right then, Pjain pointed me to Startup Weekend Cambridge and I signed up for it immediately. So as the folks in India were organizing Bangalore, I participated in Cambridge. Left home with a view of seeing startup action in UK, getting a feel of the event, floating around multiple teams and chilling over the weekend.

What happened was crazy. Read the rest of this entry »

In his talk ‘In defense of the indefensible’ Srivatsa Krishna goes on to show multiple examples of Government employees / ‘Babus’ / public servants doing great work, within the same political structure that is currently hit by a new scam every week. While many around me (include me to an extent) are at loss of confidence, doubting India’s prospects and can only vent their anger of Facebook / Twitter, here is a video that raises such hope!

YouTube Link

Thanks Hari Kotian for sharing this

Came across this really inspiring post on OpenCoffeeClub. A couple of college (hostel) girls and their tryst with entrepreneurship.

This is the story of two students in University of Delhi. Happy studying Statistics and Literature with bit monotony was their life. ‘A’ was really passionate about cakes and chocolates. She could bump into any bakers at any hour of the day. It was the only thing she cooked with lots of grace while she was at home. And ‘S’, her dearest friend loved experimenting and encouraging ideas. ‘A’ baptized her virtual Bakers store as “Indulgilicious” with the slightest idea of this coming true. Then comes A’s cousin, the enthusiastic, the illumination and an entrepreneur. ‘A’ blabbered her dreams (Indulgilicious) to him, which would have happened sometime in the future she was not sure about. But her cousin, so like himself, became really serious about the whole thing and they had a long discussion on the same issue. ‘A’ was big time inspired and full on motivated. Then what? Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Post by: Anonymous!

A guest post for Annkur Ji. Hope he bears with this vexatious writing.

We all live, act and take decisions as per our discretion. The righteous listen to their conscience, the evil look in for their benefits. But sometimes and maybe always, we are bound to take decisions irrespective of how these  will effect people, friends and even us.

It is best to listen to our conscience when we get into these tricky situations. Whom to choose, the good or the right. The good will expect us to go wrong (either professionally or personally), just to become infinitely good and lovable. The right will get us all the condemnation from everybody involved. It becomes difficult to stand up alone being the right.

But the question is: How to discern what is being right?

The most difficult task is to strongly believe that our decision is right irrespective of all the ups and downs. A lot of times, we keep getting confused, trying to change and mend the situations around. Although not perfect, but there is a small solution. Sit and think, for as long as you can, debating with yourself about everything involved. Think putting yourself in others shoes. Think why somebody is acting in a particular manner. And then take your decision. A well thought decision taken from your conscience will never be wrong.

It is not necessary to be righteous, or rather thinking that everybody should think of you as the right. Support of the masses, is never possible even for the best of leaders. Forgetting family, friends and loved ones and their feelings during the process of decision making is the worst phase. But people around are not for always. In our whole life, we keep meeting people, keep losing people. The only omniscient factor throughout is our conscience.

So be right to your self. Do what you think is good. If confused, give it a good thought sitting in silence. Take a decision and pursue it with your might.

(This is a guest post by Anonymous, hope anonymous would interact with you below in comments)

Each one of this is worth printing and putting up on the wall!

Guest post by my lovely sister: Anchal

Our journey to Delhi (coming back from Agra) was adventurous. Highly frustrated with the long wait at the Agra Railway Station…OMG our train was over an hour late. Bearing the heat was the biggest fear. We managed to find a seat in an air conditioned waiting room. I doubt if the AC was switched on. Anyways, after a long wait, we went to the platform to discover a non Indian chap even more frustrated. Hehe and Annkur couldn’t have missed clicking him; and, why not? They make movies on Indian slums, we just got a picture.

Read the rest of this entry »

Though the video is a Red Hat promotional its highly inspirational.

First they laugh at you,

then they ignore you ,

then they fight you ,

then you win …!

Source

People are
unreasonable, illogical and self centred.
Love them anyway.

If you do good,
people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful
you win false friends and real enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today
will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness
make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

People favour underdogs
but follow only top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.

What you spend years
building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help
but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have
and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you’ve got,
ANYWAY

But…  don’t I (we) deserve better?

Via Dilip Uncle’s Desk!

Hope its worth it! Anywayz