[Announcement] – Moved to bobdiya.org

Hey guys,

For various reasons I have moved my blogging to bobdiya.org
Today [8th Nov, 2011] I have also blogged a new post – How did I find my passion?. Enjoy!

See you there!

Why Steve Jobs did not have a good taste?

Just look at him. Being a CEO, what ugly choice of shoes and just look at his socks. Black! yuck..! Whereas see the ideal CEO on your right, formal and elegant.

You might, now be, yelling at me, “This all clothes and stuff, f***ing does not matter”. Well, that’s exactly what I am saying. Steve is Steve, because of the work he did, because of tremendous value he brought. It really does not matter what sort of clothes he was wearing. The only thing I am concerned is that, in the run for the status quo, for the good taste, we are forgetting the importance of creating value, doing good work.

What do you say?

Long time wish – being a teacher

Tuesday morning, at around 10am, I get a call. There is an assignment, of teaching. Rural engineering students in some part of North Karnataka.

The person on the other side, said that, I would have to do it for 3 days (8hrs/day). Whoah, if everything works out, I had the whole of class all to myself. For complete 3 days. Desperately wanted to take this up. Never before have I taught a group of 95 young and energetic students. Couple of my friends tell me that I am good at teaching, now I wanted to validate it. Plus whats more pleasurable than giving Upadesha 😉

It was confirmed on Tuesday afternoon. I would be a teacher for a big class. Over-joyed!

Preparation for the class started. However I realized that the material needed for 3 days would be enormous. Did not get enough sleep that night. Woke up by 430am and continued preparing my material. Had to go CET cell for my sister’s counseling for her Mtech seat. I dint even waste my time there. Took my laptop and the data card and continued preparing the material until the laptop discharged completely.

That evening, packed and set off to the Bangalore Railway station. The station that I had to get down, would arrive at 315AM. And my class should start by 9. I had to be awake !

I was awake at the right time, got down at the station at 345AM. Reached my room, slept for sometime and then had bath. Fresh, reached college. Taught my material that day. Its very exhausting to teach 8 hours in a day. Had been to a very homely ‘Basaveshwara Khanavali’ – North Karnataka meals. Came back to my lodge.

I had to prepare for my next day’s class. Boy, this is a stress.  I decided, that I am never going to do it,  ever in my life.  I slept by 10pm. Second day went on smooth. Third day morning I started by asking them write feedback on what they felt about the two days. “Feel free to write anything that you felt about the class and my teaching” were my words. After two minutes I received them.

During the morning break that day, I started reading my feedback. It was the same voice by everyone. They did not get what they wanted. I did not do well. Felt low. Just wanted to get back to Bangalore after failing.

That day, I tried my best to be more clearer. I gave them all I had. I hoped to make difference with the last hour of the class. And I think I did. In the end, I spend 30 seconds thanking them and blah blah.

Surprisingly when I finished, I felt, they wanted me to speak more. But I went back to pack my stuff. I see number of students coming to me, shook my hands and thanked me. It was overwhelming. One even hugged me with all gratitude in his eyes. I almost was in tears. Then one student told that the Principal wanted to see me. I went out and they wanted to pull me out of the crowd and have a photograph with them.

Wow! And then again I was pulled in again. Photo again.

Few students asked me If I was coming tomorrow for another class. My train back was leaving the same night. They seemed sad to know this. They kindheartedly thanked me and wished me Happy journey. If anybody wanted to know, what it is like, to be on cloud nine, I could have explained it then. I got into the train with earphones and mobile.

Starting with working as a glass cleaner, then as waiter at a bar, now a teacher – experiencing different things. I wonder, Can it get more sexier and beautiful than this? With all my heart I want to say is, it really really feels good:) One small improvement, one tiny step, one small experience, one small change.

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I respect your time very much. Hence without your permission, I have stopped sending email notification of my new posts.

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Upadesha!

I always have a theory to explain anything. Everybody does, at least sometimes. We seem to have an insight or at least we think we have an insight. Specifically if someone, a friend, parents, brother, a customer comes to us with a problem, or a concern. We share our insight. We go out of our way to explain the state of affairs.

Instead, can we make a true effort to sincerely listen?

My girl

It was probably during the end of first year. For the first time I was staying away from parents. New, exciting free life. There were auditions going on for the annual talent show in my college. I was watching a group of girls dance. And one girl stood out.  She seemed ideal girl to me.  Her dance was a pleasure to watch, she did not smile much but there was that shyness in her. She was not too fair, not dark either. After the audition I saw her walk out of the hall, with her head low. Crush at first sight! It happens sometimes you see.

After couple of days, my mom was visiting the town for a function. I was accompanying her. She told that there was proposal for my marriage and I am going to meet the girl today. I was curious, kind of happy. And then as we were entering, we came across this bunch of girls and my crush. My mom is introducing me my latest crush saying “This is the girl I was talking about”

Wow! I thought. How lucky I must be. My mom introducing me to my latest crush and telling that you could marry if you and she agree. And then, I woke up!

Bonus 🙂

 

What is your story?

• Building an already established business 10 times its original magnitude – Ambani brothers V/S building a  business empire from scratch without education – Dhirubhai Ambani.
• Daughter of village farmer from an remote backward village getting into IIT or an intensely coached urban lad getting 1st rank in IIT
• Blind student completing her post graduation or a physically normal completing her double doctorate

More the odds in one’s life, more is the story worth saying. Dhirubhai Ambani – a story worth saying. He started it from scratch. With no education, no business setup.  Ambani brothers – not that worth.

Do you consider yourself lucky

• If you don’t have a job
• If you lots of family problems to deal with
• If you are disabled
• If you starting a business and your father is not rich enough to help you in investing
• If you have lots of debts

Well, if all the odds are against you and you are still up. That’s what makes your story worth telling!

How does Meru cabservice make money?

If I am a driver

• and I know some of the internal roads, circles in Bangalore
• and I am not interested to run my own cab (at the risk of finding customers and paying the EMIs)

Meru is one of the places to go for the job of driving. There is one residential check that they do to verify I stay where I claim I stay.

Business is simple

Meru gives

• a Cab
• customers in 5km radius of where I am currently
• Monthly servicing of the cab
• All the documents, Insurance, RTO stuff handled by them

All I have to pay them is – Rs 1200 per day

Does not matter how more/less I work. That is the amount I need to pay them per day. In case If I am going out of town, all I have to do is tell them that, I am currently not using this cab and won’t be needing this for a week. They will come and pick it up from my place.

How drivers get customers?

If a customer has booked a cab at 5pm from BSK Bus stand. The GRPS will track all the CARs withing 5km radius and send a message to them at 430pm. Depending on the destination and availability, the drivers can choose to bid for the customer. Once all the bids are in, system will pick one driver and assign it (depending on seniority). Then the driver and customer will get details of each other. And then driver will have 30 mins to go the source of the customer. Also if the driver crashes, expenses will be borne by the driver and Meru company (50-50) [Courtesy: My friend Sandeep]

Current facts of Meru Cabs in Bangalore (From an interview with a driver – How reliable – question mark)

– There are 1800 cabs in Bangalore
– 700 cabs are being parked with no drivers
– They have a huge empty place in Marathhalli for parking these CARS
– They pay around Rs85000 rent for the land
– Airtel is the service provider for GPRS

Do you drivers have a union of your own? How do you talk to the company?

“We had one. We had called up a local organization to lead us. Meru paid them Rs10Lakh and all the drivers who were part of it, lost their jobs. That is the reason, why 700 Cabs are stalled in Bangalore. Sir, the company is running a big show down here investing crores of rupees. Who knows how powerful they are? They are paying EMIs for so many CARs even if they are stalled. They are here to do business and they will know how to deal with unions. The company has trusted me and handed me a CAR with no security. I personally cannot take the burden of paying the loan and managing the CAR. So I try my best to make as much money as possible. And the company does not force you to take this customer or not. Its completely your wish”

I was amazed that the Meru cab driver knew whole of the system. To verify about the system, I talked to another driver and most of the facts were matching. Anybody out there wanting to start a cabservice, here is the business model 😉

Do me a favour

Give me a gift today.  A gift that I can see and feel really happy about. A gift that is irreplaceable. Why? Today is my birthday 🙂

I am really curious to know all the good things about me.

• My talents
• my good qualities
• anytime that I made an impact in your life in any small way
• anytime I inspired you

Give me the gift by leaving a comment with probably any event/instance that you remember 🙂

If any bad things, send me an email 😉

Educated?

Last week I received an email from Brother (Ananth Sir, founder, Kaliyuva Mane) . To quickly introduce, Kaliyuva Mane – is an unique school for opportunity deprived children with an alternative approach to education. Content follows

From: Divyadeepa Trust <divyadeepa.trust@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 9:10 AM
Subject: Happy news
To: divyadeepa-core <divyadeepa-core@googlegroups.com>
Dear all
1)      I’m forwarding you a mail from Mahesha of Arvind group (He cleared SSLC, 2010 from Kaliyuva Mane).  He was sent to Karthavya Technologies for training during summer.  They were generous to pay him a stipend of Rs.5,000 apart from maintaining him.  So after coming here he paid Rs.3,000/- to his parents.   He wanted to return the balance money to us.  I told him to keep the money with him as it was earned by him.  So one day he asked for internet USB.  I gave to him.  He sent me a mail which I’m forwarding it to you.  Hope it touches your heart too..
<<Deleted some content here>>
with all the best wishes
Ananth

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: DB Mahesh <mahesh.km.dd@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Subject: Hello
To: divyadeepa.trust@gmail.com
Hello brother,
Brother i want to give thousand rupees to DD. Brother i know that this is very small amount than what are expending on me, but brother i decide that i have to help or donate some amount of money it may be small or big, this came to my mind  since my mind mature. Please allow this.
Take care
With regards
Mahesh
—
Mahesh DB

I was chilled reading this.

A moment of pride for Kaliyuva Mane. Bow to you Ananth Sir, Padma madam and volunteers for their efforts, all well-wishers for their support.

Kaliyuva Mane
Website : http://www.divyadeepatrust.org/
Blog        :  http://divya-deepa.blogspot.com/

up against all odds

This is a small-real-story that happened during 2002 -2006. This story has taught me many things. Hence I wanted to share this.

On one not-so-fine day, he had a very heated argument with his boss. Sanju’s boss was running the coaching institute for money. Sanju’s ideals did not match with his boss’. He was a young kid,  just starting up with his BTech at NITK. He loved teaching. He quit the coaching class institute but was still left with the crave to teach.

Passion..

Out of the institute, the intensity to pursue his passion of helping the rural students had increased. Sanju wanted to make the students aware of the modern day competitive exams (AIEEE, CET, IIT-JEE) and train them. A small dream in a big way. The big question was. How? Hah. Answer is always the same I guess. Do it yourself.

Boostrapping

He and one of his friend decided to meet some PU college principals and talk about their intentions of coaching the students for competitive exams. “We stumbled at start, a few times, then we knew what to say. We were nervous at start, then confidence was getting restored. This went on for 2-3 months and we did not have any principal listening to us.  We almost covered colleges in the area from Katpadi to Mulky (FYI – 45km strech). And one fine day, out of nowhere we were given an stage to talk to students and auditorium was houseful!  It had to be extempore. That day, we did not speak, our passion did. We had a big surprise waiting for us that weekend. We see ourselves in an article of “Education Plus” magazine. That was a big ray of hope, that was the string we were looking to hold on to. We held on tight to this. We now knew our selling point, we are from NITK, we knew how to get there, we can teach how to get there. After that weekend, we started getting calls from various principals for career guidance session in their respective colleges. We were thrilled. At the end of 4 months, we had 5 students.”

Hope and belief

” We had confidence, we had support, we got trust, we had knowledge, we had passion, we had students, all we needed was a place to start off. We started inquiring for a small place that would serve as a classroom. There was an aunty who runs a bakery in our campus(NITK).  We were inquiring her about a small place for rent if she is aware of any. She made an offer. Her old garage for us in exchange for teaching her daughter free of cost. We agreed! Not a penny in our pockets, but now we had a place. Awesome!! Now we need blackboard and chalks. A store manager from constructon department(NITK) was a friend of ours. We were sharing our concerns and he readily gave all the chairs, blackboard and chalks that were dumped in the store room. This was super awesome!!!”

I guess someone has rightly said, ” When you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it”

odds

“Seeing his students join our institute, leaving his, the old boss went and lodged a complaint in police station against us for stealing books and materials from his coaching institute. We dint see this coming. We had to go and meet the SI. It was a tense moment for us. We dint even know how to go and stand in front of a SI. After some waiting, SI arrived. We told what we had to, the truth. Magically he believed in our words and sent out a strong word to the coaching institute boss that these guys should not be troubled any further. Also he asked if we would be able to teach his daughter in 2nd PU ;). Thrilled!

With police not working, he sent out a local goonda to chase us off. We spoke politely and sincerely told our stand. We told him that our sole intention was teaching only, for making the rural students come up. We don’t know why, but he believed in us and told us, not to worry about any trouble from his side. Also assured us that, hereafter we wont be facing any problems from the coaching institute boss”

results

“Two years went by. End of 3rd year, and first batch from our institute (20 students) were waiting for their results. Our fingers were crossed. The results were out and 5 students made it to NITK from our institute. This was a huge result for us. Considering that one of our lecturers conducts AIEEE classes for 300 students and only 1 got through that year. This was a moment which is very close to my heart. I still remember when I was in my last year and seeing my students in 1st year was a delight”

today

• 9 years have gone since this started. It running strong even today without Sandesh being there. This is because of the model he has created for this to sustain. ( Shoot me an email if you want to know what is the model)
• It is near to Surathkal busstand, look for “Matrix Coaching Classes”
• 2011, one student was ranked in IIT-JEE, 16 students through in AIEEE
• 110 students today
• A system in place : They have hired a typist to type out materials, qpapers, progress reports to be sent to parents

Making a difference is easy when you do it yourself. But getting the cycle to continue and sustain for as long as 9 years for no profit, but sheer passion. Hats off!! Some souls are immortal. Bow to you!

holding on

“It was never easy. But when we got to the first string (Education Plus article about us), we held on tight. We always hoped, believed in our hopes. That is what kept us going all the way. If you want to do something , have patience to wait for that first string. Once you get it, put your heart and soul into it. You will definitely succeed.”

He is very humble person, and probably he might not have liked me putting all this information here. I guess if there is some great work done, it needs to be shared. If you have, in any small, way gotten inspired, please sms/call 8861138405  and wish him. Today (June 23rd) is his birthday!

Happy birthday Sandesh 🙂

———————————————— Some Photos———————————————–

Sandesh teaching

Classroom

First batch

Disclaimer: I have tried to be as accurate as possible. Sandesh: Please forgive me for any incorrect information and do correct me.