Interesting Moments from Jan – March (Q1 2009)

April has arrived. OMG! Yes, its already April. But it just feels like last week I had a blast celebrating the arrival of 2009. I am making this post as a reminder to myself and to relive some of the interesting moments in the first quarter of 2009.

January

Celebrated the New Year in Powai by the lake side. After relishing on some crunchy chicken at KFC we headed to the Powai lake alongwith the Ice-cream Sundaes their combo with the homemade Aloo parathas was just perfect.

January, also began on a very interesting note for SocialSync. We had the opportunity to discuss some investment opportunities and set our milestones for the next few months.

Running and completing the Standard Chartered Mumbai Full Marathon was another big high. I must say here that unlike the last time when I ran the half marathon I was a tad bit smarter. Although, I did practice for the Marathon and was pretty regular back in September/October 08; I lost momentum and form as December arrived and by mid-December I was in a very bad shape. It was around early January that I made up my mind to run the Marathon smartly by re-accessing the situation based on my limited practice. A few more practice runs and I started feeling better. On the day of the Marathon I feel I did a fabulous job of recognizing my limitations but stretching them enough to complete the Marathon.

February

February was in its true sense an eventful month.

I finally made a trip to Bangalore. Overall I kinda liked the city; wide roads, footpaths on both the sides of the road :),
parks, pleasant weather and row houses. Public transport is bad and very costly at times.

The first day was really long and now I sincerely hope it had never ended - all thanks to the fantabulous escort. Walking the streets of Bangalore and discussing Haute Couture to some unheard and for some unimaginable interpretations of God idols would remain etched in my memory for ages. God save God. Need I say, there was a tomorrow and then yesterday was just memories to treasure.

I won the 'Best socially mobile hack' at the Yahoo Open Hack Day 2009 !!! OYeah!

David Filo, the co-founder of Yahoo had come down specially for the event and was also one of the judges. You would probably not even notice his presence in a crowd of 10 people; he speaks less and comes through as a honest and humble person. The event was very well organized and the atmosphere was ecstatic. I won a 8GB 2nd gen iPod touch for my hack and believe it or not I gifted it to my brother; I am sure he would make much better use of it. The event wouldn't be complete if I don't happen to mention Anil who had come down from Pune; and we code jammed all night. I just slept for less than an hour sometime in the morning the next day after I had done justice to the idea I had chosen to work on. Staying up late and writing code comes oh so naturally to me - so I feel I had an unfair advantage among the 300+ hackers who participated.

While in Bangalore I stayed at Prayas' place. Being with him is always enriching and thoughtful. Add to it having a blast with his son Pavan (in pic above) and some spiritual discussions with the grasshopper.

The highpoint of Bangalore was meeting some very interesting people and teams working on refreshing ideas

March 

March started off with a lot of excitement. Sushma maasi (aunt) and BabyV (Varsha) were going to come down to Mumbai. I am sure you must have heard of Varsha from me before or read about her on this blog before.

I ended my last blog post on her, wishing she remains as crazy as last time and may be shes taken it seriously 🙂 Good for me, I still can play pranks on her!

On one of the weekends Mom, Maasi, Varsha and me drove to Lonavala. The drive was just fantastic. This was also my first time on the Mumbai - Pune Expressway which was a treat in itself. What worked for us was we didn't have a long itinerary to follow for the trip; we were just looking for a weekend break. On the first day we visited the Karla Caves in the afternoon and later in the evening witnessed the beautiful sunset at Rajmachi point

The next day we got up late, had a late lunch and headed straight to Pawna dam. The drive to Pawna dam was exciting with steep slopes and blind curves. The lake, boating, the ducks, peacocks and the sunset was just the perfect setting for spending ones Sunday evening. No doubt it inspired me to write this few weeks back.

The last two weeks of the quarter were great fun too. We made some terrific progress on the SocialSync community platform all thanks to Pavan.

YC is an inspiration. It took me close to two years to finally take the leap and submit a application - you know I wouldn't do it if it weren't for the right purpose, right team, right idea and right time. And this time the summer cycle is taking place in the Bay area; now isn't that reason enough 😉

Now how could I sign-off without letting you guys know of a very interesting tale. Last week I ended up playing a prank; or rather my friends just drew into it. I ended up uploading the above pic of me and my sister Mamta on Orkut *without* any captions. Within the next 36 hours I was flooded with 15 comments, 5 scraps, 3 calls, 2 SMSs and 1 email - all congratulating me and asking me whether I got 'married or engaged?'. The timing inadvertently was so right that I didn't have to scout for a April Fool's prank 😉

Wrapup

Finally, I am myself amazed of how eventful this quarter has been. Sometimes it makes sense just to take a breather and look back at one's journey; and this is what I did. Feels good now! I really would like to thank each and everyone mentioned/missed above to make this special for me. I am really looking forward for the next quarter and you can sure expect me to get back and cover it up for you 🙂