Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91

Vol. XXV No. 21, February 16-29, 2016

Entrepreneur’s progress?

From a blog by Girish Mathrubootham founded a technology company, Freshdesk, five years ago. He loves Chennai and is one of the most successful technology entrepreneurs from the city. His company delivers customer relationship management.

On a hot summer day in 1996, I landed in Chennai as a freshly minted BE graduate who did not have a job — not even a Y2K mainframe job that almost everyone seemed to ­easily get in those days.

Little did I know then that tens of thousands of students like me came to Chennai every year for the same reason as me — to ­escape from the social pressure exerted by parents and relatives, who make it their responsibility to remind us every day that we have finished BE and still don’t have a job. The prospect of staying with friends and searching for a job with big dreams and little money seemed far better than the idea of staying at home and feeling ashamed ­every day.

My first month in Chennai was spent as a guest in my friend’s place called AA Mansion on Lake View Road in West Mambalam. Don’t let the term “mansion” fool you — two of my friends were sharing a small 10ft x 10ft room and I joined them as a guest. Those were the days when I learnt to survive on Rs 30 per day or Rs 10 per meal. Our breakfast, every day, was delicious pongal and vada (cost us Rs 6) from a small hole-in-the-wall outlet opposite Lake View Road bus stop. Lunch usually was limited meals at Ganesh Bhavan for Rs 13 (if we could afford it, we used to treat ourselves to curd — extra Rs 2) and for dinner, there was a place that sold two chappatis and curd rice for Rs 10. My father used to send me Rs 1500 per month those days to support me while I was searching for a job.

***

Months passed by and I did not get a job. But I got a lucky break. Of the countless (and useless) entrance exams that I wrote (often without preparation, so I usually end up failing), I managed to crack the MBA entrance exam at the University of Madras (Chennai was still Madras then — and still is in many of our hearts). 4000 people wrote the exam and I was number 3 on the wait-list in the Open Category quota (12 seats out of 40). Three good souls decided to give up their seats, probably to join a better course in some other university, and I managed to sneak in.

What a relief that was! I no longer had to search for a job and my parents and relatives started feeling better about me (it didn’t matter to them that this was not a top tier MBA — it’s just how the system works in India). What I cherished more than the MBA admit, was the newfound self-esteem — “Doing an MBA” was a far better answer than “searching for a job” to the omnipresent question at every wedding or a family event — What are you doing now?

* * *

Between 1998 and 2000, I got my first job, purchased my dream bike (Royal Enfield CitiBike 535cc), landed my first corporate training contract and took my first baby steps into entrepreneurship — all in Chennai. The corporate training story is pretty interesting, actually. I knew Java quite well and I was able to convince Polaris to give me a contract to train 25 of their experienced Pro C programmers in Java. The training was for 15 days and the contract was for Rs 30,000. It was terrifying as my students were all experienced programmers and project leads and I had very little actual programming experience. I completed the training successfully and collected Rs 28500 (after TDS). I still remember spending almost Rs 26000 on the same day, buying everything that was on my wish list — Adidas shoes, Ray-Ban sunglasses, Levis jeans, treating my friends to pizza (they had never had a pizza in their life) and, hold your breath — a 64KB Casio Digital Diary!! This was my money. I had earned it and I was not afraid to spend it. Your life is nothing but a collection of your experiences and on that note — my early career days in Chennai were really happy!

I left for the US with a one-way ticket to San Francisco in 2000 through a consulting company (more commonly known those days as a body shopping company). I was happy with my friends in the US but was not content. Something was always missing. We missed standing in a tea shop in Chennai and having hot tea with plantain bajji, or sitting on the beach and chatting for hours with friends. We missed Sathyam Cinemas and rued how AMC can never be as good as Sathyam. And the overall mood in Silicon Valley was getting pretty bad with the dotcom bust and people getting laid off. I resigned my job and bought a one-way flight ticket to Chennai to start a new training company (two one-way tickets do make a round trip after all). My heart leapt with joy and excitement, on the flight back: I was going to return to Namma Chennai!

My business plans didn’t really work out well and I quickly shut down the business as I did not like surviving in a negative market. I wanted to thrive in a rising market, but the sentiment in 2001 was very negative after the dotcom bust. As someone who was not married yet, the social pressures of doing your own business (it was not cool those days to be an entrepreneur) made me look for a job. I joined AdventNet (now called Zoho) as a Pre Sales Engineer in 2001. The next nine years I spent there transformed my career. This was the period where I poured passion and energy and built a great product team in Chennai. I traveled to over 26 countries and over 55 cities.

In late 2007, I moved to Austin, TX. Even though the quality of life was better in the US, life was boring and the environment was depressing. After the Lehman brothers collapse in 2008, the only things that people talked about in the US were weather and the subprime crisis. In Chennai, in spite of the heat, the dirt and the sweat, there was real energy, real aspiration in people and real joy. Every day in the US was the same and boring, every day in Chennai was exciting and fun. There was always a celebration around the corner — sometimes it was a wedding or a Navrathri golu, at times you had a seemandham or a sadabishegam, and there was Diwali or an Onam — life in Chennai was full of colour. I was happier here. I decided to return from the US to Chennai for the second time. It was almost like Chennai was creating these recessions to bring me back!

* * *

In 2010, I quit my job at Zoho and started Freshdesk. We assembled a rock star team and the time that we spent at our Kilkattalai office in 2011 was probably the best time of my life. We almost considered moving to Bangalore — the office space was ready, two offers to senior employees had been made but then our Bangalore plans started to fall apart and we decided to stay in Chennai. I am really glad that we stayed in Chennai. I would have not been able to get our wonderful Freshdesk team and our beautiful office (with wall paintings of Thalaivar) may not have happened anywhere else. Freshdesk is proud to be in Chennai and I am confident that one day we will make Chennai feel proud of Freshdesk!

Selling with a prayer

I had been suffering from a pain in my right knee for quite some time. I finally decided to consult an orthopaedic doctor. He made me lie down on a couch and asked me to raise my knee. I did so, in great agony. Then he took hold of my raised leg and rotated it. The pain was unbearable and I almost screamed. I will have to operate, he said. A knee replacement is the only solution, he claimed after examining an x-ray. And he looked at his diary to find a suitable date. And he gave me one. I had, however, decided against an operation for various reasons. I had seen some friends of mine who had gone through knee replacement and had witnessed the trouble they had.

I decided I would try ayurvedic treatment instead. The walls of the ayurvedic pharmacy were lined with neat teakwood cupboards with glass doors. The cupboards were stacked with bottles of oils, kashayams and arishtams. Patients were seated on a bench waiting for their turn to see the doctor. He was not only an ayurvedic physician but also a doctor of modern medicine.

The prescription he gave me was to rub a certain ayurvedic oil gently over my knee every day. I looked at the table of contents. It contained a combination of oils, including pinna thailam and karppuradi thailam that I was familiar with.

I rubbed the oil gently on my knee every day before my bath. There was little or no improvement.
Then one day I chanced upon an old man who had set up a small ayurvedic shop on the pavement. Since I had to walk a short distance to the ayurvedic shop and I felt a little lazy to do so, I stopped and bought a bottle of oil from the old man after going through the list of ingredients. I used his oil every day and, miracles of miracles, the pain seemed to lessen until one day I found that I was completely free of pain!

“How is it,” I asked the old man, “that the oil you make works wonders for my knee pain while the same type of oil bottled and sealed and sold in a nearby shop doesn’t do me much good?”

He seemed to think a little about it and then said with a slow smile, “There is only one difference between the oil that I sell and the oil that you buy from the shop.”

“And what exactly is that?” I asked him.
“With every bottle of oil I sell,” he replied, “I say a little prayer that my patient will be healed.”

-Radha Padmanabhan

Save this building

We seek to bring to the notice of the Central and State Governments that the Government Madrasa-e-Azam Higher Secondary School on Anna Salai lies in ruins because of the heavy rains a couple of months ago. The building is classified as a ‘heritage building’ and so it is the bounden duty of the government to restore the original beauty and strength of the building. Alas! The State Government has failed to do so despite representations by made by the Prince of Arcot, whose ancestor Nawab Wallajah – established the institution in 1710 C.E.

Our organisation too has appealed to Government as have several other educationists and well-wishers of the institutions, but unfortunately the pleas remain till date cries in the wilderness. This is now being brought to the notice of the wider public and particularly staunch champions of heritage to request government to act.

S.M. Pasha
President
The Tamil Nadu Backward Dakkani Muslims Welfare Association (Regd)
22/51, Barracks Rd., Periamet, Chennai 600003

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