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 snatched the fake fare card from me. He agreed to go on the opposite side but insisted on holding the rate card with him. I had to choose, either hold on to the tariff card or protect the iPad in my hand.

I allowed him to hold the tariff card, but remained seated in the auto. As he took a U-turn towards the mall, he hit the right lane and went towards the highway, ignoring all instructions to stop at the mall. I panicked and called a Murtaza (a young entrepreneur) who was going to meet me at the mall. He was holding on to the rate card  until we crossed the mall but it had disappeared by the time we reached the highway. I quizzed and he told me its in his pocket.

Luckily I found a traffic constable at the highway right where we stopped and shouted for him to help. As the constable took stock of things, suddenly two original rate cards came out of the auto-walas pocket and the story changed to me not having enough money to pay him. I couldn’t believe that such inauthenticity is happening right in front of me. I called in my friend Murtaza to the highway and asked him and a friend accompanying him to look for the rate card that he might have thrown on the road near the mall. While I argued with the auto-wala, Murtaza and his friend returned 10 mins later with the fake rate card in their hands. Bingo, we had the proof now and we were 3 vs 1.

The auto-wala still remained arrogant and denied the charge. We insisted the constable to take him to the police station and were surprised when he just took his license and gave it to us, asking us to take him to the Police Station ourselves (the auto wala was expected to drive us down.) A couple of mins later the constable suggested that we leave him as he will get f****d at the police station. He even made the auto-wala apologize. I insisted on booking him.

We three took a seat inside the auto and asked him to head towards the police station. He moved a little ahead on the highway and started pleading us to leave him. Offered to take no money for the ride from Andheri and a little later even offered to pay Rs 200 to us. We told him in no unclear terms that we are all headed to the police station. He didn’t comply, took a U-turn on the highway and tried to drop us at Oberoi Mall.

Luckily we again ran into a couple of cops (this time not the traffic ones) and asked them for help. They gave the auto-driver some good gaalis, questioned him about the missing uniform and handed his badge to us (his license was already with us.) He asked us to be firm and take him to the Police station. And there we go again. The auto-wala tried his best on the way asking for forgiveness, stopped a couple of times, but it took a little polite gyaan that ‘the more he wastes our time, the more he will suffer’ for us to reach the police station.

At the police station one of the cops just asked us to drop him there, leave my contact details and go away. No report, no paper work, nothing! We knew nothing about the regulations. They said he would be fined. We insisted on knowing what action they are taking and after spending some 20 mins at the police station, we left. Last we saw was the fact that he had been taken inside and they were in process of charging him. We were told that he would be made to wait there for several hours and it makes no sense for us to wait there. Guess we had enough for the day already …

The total incident lasted little over an hour, was intense and I was scared on multiple occasions.  If it was so much effort to just take a certainly corrupt auto rickshaw driver to Police Station, I wonder what happens in bigger cases. God bless the system.

Special thanks to Murtaza and his friend (guess Gaurav) for the support.

Things happened in a hurry and this is the only photo I could manage to click in between the chaos. After we reached the police station, I was out of time to click any more.

As always, most commenting on the post is on FB. You can see it here

]]> http://annkur.com/2011/09/the-day-i-took-an-auto-driver-to-police-station/feed/ 6 http://annkur.com/2011/09/startup-weekend-cambridge-to-hyderabad-the-experience/ http://annkur.com/2011/09/startup-weekend-cambridge-to-hyderabad-the-experience/#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:04:01 +0000 Annkur http://annkur.com/?p=1011

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. I pitched an idea in UK, got enough votes, failed to make a team. Another interesting fun gaming idea by Fabian got enough votes and I followed Joe to join that team. Before even we got started with the idea on Friday night, the model failed during our discussions and we came up with a new idea: a geo-social network it was. Didn’t go back to London and worked at the awesome St Johns innovation center to make this a reality with a fabulous team. Pitched it on Sunday evening… no we didn’t win. But the madness was an experience of its own.

Fast forward to Hyderabad, September 2011, I am again with Pjain and gang, organizing Startup Weekend Hyderabad. Jumped forward, bought a ticket, participated. Pitched an idea, didn’t get votes, no team. Joined a simple yet determined guy Sundaram for his ideas around Kirana stores and remodeled it to make it a reality. In Cambridge we were 5 geeks sitting on a PC, designing, coding, conceptualizing and making a ppt. In Hyderabad, we were 3 in all, 1 developer and 2 business folks. We spent almost all our time travelling, taking to street vendors, hawkers and trying to understand the ‘grass root’ level of entrepreneurship. Finding easy ways of automating things, understanding how society sustains thousands of these small entrepreneurs everyday.

We made a delicious pitch. Decorated the hall with mosambis, lady fingers and did a live demo of a tool empowering hawkers. Shot a documentary style video and showed it in-between our 5 min pitch. Below is the video, the viability of the project was tough, business model was difficult and not a big surprise that we didn’t win. But yet again I went to a Startup Weekend, expecting to chill-out, sit on the fence and co-ordinate work with my team in Mumbai… well that didn’t happen. Startup Weekend somehow always manages to put me in action, brings the best out of me and I am glad I joined Sundaram and did this with him and Sanghi (our champion dev for the weekend.)

Across Cambridge and Hyderabad, I have met and worked with some amazing folks and at this point it is so very likely that I might not meet a lot of these people every again in my life. Yet they are a part of me, whenever I want a little dose of energy, I just remember the moments spent in Cambridge and Hyderabad. Looking forward to many more such weekends!

Video Link

YouTube Link

Thanks Hari Kotian for sharing this

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?

She chucked an internship at a high profile Mathematical institute, lost every chance of recommendation by them, then blown by friends and so on. ‘A’ told ‘S’ about the whole scene and ‘S’ was very supportive, encouraging and even more excited than ‘A’ and promised to be an equal partner in the new business which did not exist. It was 27^th Feb 2011 and the idea commenced.

Guys, I am talking about nobody else but Anchal (myself) and Shagun, from the neighboring hostel and a friend since graduation (we are post graduates nowJ).

Unbelievable it was! I and Shagun sat the next afternoon to plan out things including the recipe, dishes, etc. None of us were aware of business techniques, so please excuse my non technical writing here. Out for shopping, no money, weird plans, nothing on papers…. we bought every ingredient and dishes required. Fortunately my hostel had a microwave, so things seemed to be easier.

PN: We paid extra 12.5% at every store to get the bills. We were loyal to our customers as well as government rules. Second morning of March on the Shiv Ratri, we baked our first cake as a trial. Trust me, I was shit scared but Shagun was optimistic about the taste. And, the taste turned out to be awesome… BUT…. the cake was as hard as a stone. I was very depressed but Shagun was in good spirits and then we realised that the microwave we had used didn’t have the “Convection” mode which is used to bake cakes. Let me list a few more problems we had faced:

1. We planned to buy an OTG, and checked Tata Croma and finalised the model. But we didn’t get permission from the hostel authorities to keep an electrical appliance.
2. Renting a flat was the next idea. Though expensive, we still had to stick to this because there was no other way. Grishma supported with financial help.
3. Getting in touch with property dealers and assuring electricity and water throughout the day was really tough.
4. Meanwhile, our friend Shweta came up with the idea of baking in a cooker. Awesome idea, we bought a cooker too.
5. Hotplates in hostel could have been used but the regulator was not working.
6. We sneaked in a gas cylinder in Shagun’s hostel room finally to carry on with our plan.

We also bought chart papers and colours from Nayi Sadak, Chandni Chowk, sim card, mobile handset (borrowed from a cousin). We made teasers by 10th of March but we had to slow down because of my mid semester exams and my parents trip to delhi and then further delay on account of Anna Hazare’s fast which was supported by Shagun. Came 8th April, when we had put up the teasers on the under graduate hostel boards with the help of Puja and Rashmi. Messages started buzzing in on our new number. People were pepped about the name… then we had put the posters, we covered all undergraduate college hostels of DU in North Campus.

Then happened something which none of us had expected….. Calls started coming for orders. God, calls after calls…. we became too busy overnight. We also made a delivery at 6am for a Stephen’s girl. Amazing time it was, we managed to cover the entire cost we had incurred……From buying stuff to taking calls, baking cakes to washing utensils, managing stock to delivering cakes and to handling finance and so on was done by me and Shagun. In all probability we have put our final semester exams on stake here, we await the results.
Colour code followed by us was PURPLE and SILVER. We made cake boxes using purple-silver handmade papers.

The idea behind Indulgilicious was simple; we aimed at HOSTELERS who wanted homemade cakes to be delivered at their doorsteps @ reasonable price. It was a pain that we ourselves felt being out of home in a hostel world for years. We were successful in delivering the same and feedback from most of them delighted us, this motivated us to continue working.

After the initial stint, constraints like finance, space and an end to college life stopped us from continuing the same. As of today I am working with an analytical company now and saving money every month to come back with a bang. Shagun is likely to start preparation for civil services exams.

Last few months made us learn a lot in terms of organising, planning, time management, firefighting, jugaad etc. Those really were the most adventurous days of our life. We promise to come again and serve the hostellers to re-live our 5 years of hostel life … forever.

Waiting for the dream to come true soon….

Anchal & Shagun
IndulgiliciouS

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.

And then the conversation began… Mr. Ohio truly inspired by “Jab We Met”  (that was the last Hindi movie he saw ) booked a train ticket to the capital without realizing the difference between an AC coach and a General Coach. But then, the sight of 200 people traveling together in the same coach in this heat scared him. And annkur inspired by Aamir Khan helped him get out of this. Hmm… negotiations with the TC fetched Mathew a seat… point to be noted: I and annkur had to share a seat. Mathew somehow managed to fit into that berth…I don’t know if he was too giant or the berth was too small.

Nice guy he was, studying films in Bangalore… This gave us a point to discuss; movies ranging from Jab We Met to Dev D and Deepa Mehta to Mira Nairji.

I hope that he has got his camera repaired by now. Lets see if he meets Annkur on the 19^th of this month when he lands in Mumbai.

First they laugh at you,

then they ignore you ,

then they fight you ,

then you win …!

Source

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