My Blindspot – The 3 things that completely surprised me when I visited the blind school

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think!”

- Winnie the Pooh

I have worked with The Potter’s Earth for the past two years. Through this time, I’ve interacted with thousands of students, parents, teachers and schools. No two students are alike, just the way no two teachers or schools are. But last week, I had the opportunity to meet a unique school with a unique mission and students like no other.

Krishna, an eight year old boy, loves cake. He loves school too and his favourite subjects are computers, art and craft and story-telling. He speaks 3 languages (English, Hindi and Marathi) and loves playing cricket with his friends. His parents work in a factory and he loves that he lives in boarding school. When he sat across the table from me, eating cake, he had this brilliant smile across his face as he spoke of his friends and admitted to bunking class sometimes to walk in the garden behind the school. He wants to grow up and work in the Armed Forces. Krishna is also blind.

What 4 favourite Superheroes taught me about Parenting

“Take out the Spiderman book today!” yells my younger son. “No, let’s read Hulk”, counters his elder brother. This nightly ritual in our home is a daily negotiation for the bed-time story my sons and I read together once they are tucked in for the night. Of this hour-long event, the first crucial 20 minutes determines super hero selection. The negotiations begin amicably enough, with strong undercurrents of politicking, bribery and cross-influencing. Just when the dealings start bordering on outright violence, I use my veto power and decide on a third candidate (Captain America, arise!) who will grace our story session this time.

Stallion Realty & Translink Roadways - The Man behind it All !

In conversation with Abhishek Dasgupta or ‘Stallion’ as he is referred to by the team of the The Potter’s Earth.

What’s the story behind Stallion?

Stallion is the Realty and Roadways business that I started a few years ago. I began with real estate in Mumbai, and once that had grown and flourished, I was on the look- out for a new avenue to venture into. Two years ago when my mom came up with the idea of getting into roadways, I thought it was great, and a few months of research later came the birth of Stallion Roadways. Our research included speaking to current bus owners, manufacturers, agents etc. and once our initial apprehensions were mitigated, we were excited to get started. We picked the Pune-Nagpur route to run our buses because not only did it make sense revenue-wise, but my dad was in Nagpur so it would make operations more convenient. 

Making Life Beautiful !

After pulling out a batch of fresh brownies from the oven, I neatly cut them into cubes and packed them into 3 different boxes. One was for me to keep in the refrigerator, one was for my friends to gorge on the next day and the third was for an extremely special person in my life who I have looked up to since I’ve known her.

As I scrambled out of home at 8:30 pm, juggling the box of brownies, my handbag and a carton full of trash (a result of the seasonal cooking), I made my way to the car. While I drove, I thought of all the things I had pending on my plate for the next day at work, how my car needed to be dropped off to servicing and how I had to plan my dad’s birthday (which was the next day). At 9, I finally got into the elevator at my destination to drop off that last box of brownies.

Heena Shah (Heena Aunty as I call her) is Superwoman in disguise. She, like many other businesswomen in today’s world has an innate sense of balance between work and home. On a typical day in her life, she’ll wake up and ensure breakfast is on the table, make lunch, get ready and head out to work by 10am. She’ll spend the day at her parlor, having interesting conversations with her customers, overlooking the inventory or simply talking to her staff about their life. She’ll ensure she makes it home for a quick lunch break with her husband and son to catch up with them on their day, before heading back to work. She’ll be the last one out the door at work, lock up and come home in time to plan dinner, which she ensures is a family affair.

After I handed her the box of brownies, we sat down to catch up and I had to ask her how she did it !

  

The Incredible Journey of a Dancer, Writer, Therapist and Businesswoman !

A Writer, a Dancer, an Arts-based Therapist, an Entrepreneur, Founder- Director of Artsphere, Pune, a wonderful person and, most importantly, a very good friend are just some of the words, among many others, that I can use to describe Anubha Doshi.

4 Things To Remember if you want a Career in Music !

The Fête de la Musique, also known as World Music Day is a global phenomenon celebrated on the 21st of June every year to mark the solstice and first day of summer in many countries. Of course, in India, this day usually falls bang in the middle of heavy monsoons all over the country! However, that doesn’t hold us back from being a part of this culturally diverse and spectacular event. India played its part with multicultural musical performances all over the country showcasing folk and tribal, old and new genres !

I, on the other hand, decided to catch up with a close family friend who also happened to be my music teacher when I was a kid. Shitalchandr Kulkarni, apart from being the lead guitarist in Tungztn is also a fabulous music teacher, producer, composer and amazing human being. We got chatting about his journey over the years, how he pursued his dream to be a musician and his views on the independent music scene in India.

The Story of a Time-Traveler

As we all stared at the carvings on the walls of the ancient temple, trying to make sense of them, Kush effortlessly deciphered them for us, meticulously explaining what each panel depicted. He had an answer to every question any of us threw at him, whether it pertained to Rahul and Craig’s curiosity about Hindu mythology, Ritesh’s interest in architecture, or Khushboo and Ashley’s passion for understanding human behavior, culture and society. He was even able to provide snippets of information on how best to take pictures of the ancient ruins to ensure that Varun gets the best photographs. Kush Dhebar never failed to amaze us with his tremendous knowledge of just about everything on our short holiday to the historic town of Hampi, not to mention entertaining us with anecdotes of his previous excavations at different sites, much to the envy of outdoorsy Sagar!

3 things to know if you want to pursue a Career in Sports !

From injured physios and bitten defenders in the Football World Cup, to India winning 10 matches in a row in the Cricket World Cup, sports talk has been the pulse of conversations in social circles for the past year. In the wake of the nail biting and exciting year in the world of sports, I found myself in an interesting discussion with my friends about sports in the global context and the scope of being a sports person in India today. One of my friends in this discussion was Ryesh Venkatraman, a professional footballer and avid sportsman. He spoke of how athletics has been brought into the limelight in the past 5 years and how kids today have ample opportunities to pursue sports.

Thinking more on that conversation after I got home that day, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to Ryesh about his journey as a sport person and know more of his thoughts on the subject. Promptly, we met over coffee the next day and had a fun heart to heart on growing up, careers and sports! 

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 “When I was younger, my family and I lived in Bombay before eventually moving to Pune. As a kid, I spent my days at the Bombay Gymkhana, a club renowned for its social and sporting life. And I guess that’s what got me to fall in love with sports ! My family and I are sports fanatics and we love the outdoors. My younger sister Tishya and I grew up playing a variety of sports and our parents always encouraged us to have a life outside of the typical school-exam-classes routine”, he told me, talking about his initial interest in the outdoors.

How to start your own outdoors venture, and just about anything!

This is the story of a young software engineer-turned-outdoors entrepreneur named Ishan Sharma. This is the story of a small bunch of people who are determined to take people beyond their potential.

But this is also the story of every person who ever looked around their tube-lit classroom or hi-tech workplace, spied upon rows and rows of people staring into their computer screens, and then looked at the murky city sky outside and wondered...I wish I was out there!! 

It is the story of every executive who ever looked out of an airplane window at the rolling hills and green fields below, wistfully wished she could be down there, then picked up her bag and dutifully stood in line to deplane and go for that boring meeting.

It is the story of every person who ever stepped out of his multi-storeyed building into a traffic clogged street, covering his nose against noxious fumes, jumped into the nearest auto-rickshaw and asked to be driven to the market 2 kms away, grumbling about the 50 bucks he has to shell out for this short journey.

And if you have ever heard that voice in your head telling you to just do it, get out there, push your limits, then this is also your story. So read on...

5 Steps to the Right Career Choice for your Child

Medicine or modelling? Journalism or engineering? Sports or sciences? Teenagers today are faced with a multitude of choices when choosing a career. As parents and teachers, we are often faced with the difficult task to help them navigate and come up with the 'right' choice. But do we really know what's right for them? And if we know that a certain not-so-lucrative career is right for them in terms of leveraging their strengths and interests, should we advise them away from it towards more financially secure and stable choices?

5 reasons why you should work with passionate people

This January we complete a year of existence as The Potter's Earth, and a little more than that for me personally as a corporate-to-startup convertee. The start-up bug is the biggest flu-of-the-season for Indians these past few years, and all around in my circle of friends and acquaintances who have taken the ubiquitous 'plunge', one gets to hear stories of personal joys and travails, of start-ups, wind-downs and re-started-ups. I recently read a good piece on 5 reasons you will be grateful you choose to work for a startup, and it got me thinking how many of these reasons hold true for us at The Potter's Earth.

As we roll out of one hectic year into another even more hectic one, with my team of colleagues - family, friends, family-of-friends, and colleagues-now-turned-friends :-) - as fellow travelers, here's my own 5 reasons why 2014 was an awesome year and why I know 2015 is going to be an even better one.

My Adventures of flying solo

So there I was, 13-odd years into a corporate career, finally deciding to take the plunge into the vast and unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. True to my meticulous nature and my ever-present excel sheet, I had spent time examining my options, done my SWOT analysis, worked out the financials…basically I had done all possible left-brain thinking and created scenarios, sub-scenarios and counter-scenarios. And I sat back and wondered why this was the nth time I was doing this same exercise when I hadn't moved a muscle in the right direction in the past, and what was so different about this one time that I was willing to take the plunge now, when I did nothing about it all those other times. For all you employees-turned-entrepreneurs out there, what is that one moment - the trigger - that gave you the courage (or the foolhardiness?) to 'just do it'?

My Epiphany

Career choices as anyone will tell you are difficult ones to make. It is a common sight to see youngsters especially in high school sit and talk about what subjects to choose in 11^th, what specialization to study with in graduation, and which professional course to pursue. In my case it was a bit different – or at least it felt at that time like I’m the only one going through this dilemma – do I know better today? I hope to find out soon! But before that, here’s my story…

Are you getting brainwashed to pursue a career?

So are you in high school, waiting to speed through college and join the workforce? If yes, then which profession are you dreaming of signing up for? Do you want to suit up for a corporate career because of the moolah you can make or head overseas to carve out a career in software because a NRI status seems prestigious? Do you want to teach in a college, because that seems like a flexible career for a woman, or do you want to do an MBA because everyone seems to be doing so? But at the end of the day, is your choice of career dictated by passion, peer or parental pressure or popularity?

Save me, oh father!

One of the evenings when my wife was away travelling out of town on work, I sat down in front of the TV, dealing with the prospect of feeding dinner to our two boys. I sat on the bed with a plate of food in my hand, as our 7-year old had successfully negotiated for himself the No-TV-No-Dinner clause. Lacking adequate backup support, I gave in rather easily - only to pull rank and insist that we watch Mahabharat (yes, I am a keen follower) instead of Doremon. For those of you who are new to this series of Mahabharat, it is a welcome change from the BR Chopra fare that most of us grew up on. It is refreshing to watch a series that captures the true essence of the multi-faceted characters in all their various shades – good, bad and ugly (my parents’ generation completely disagrees with me though).

5 ways to find a line of work for yourself!

Is work just about earning a pay cheque? Or, can work really mean more than this? While, several professionals will tell you that your work is a way to put bread (and bacon or beans) on the table, your line of work can be made to work for you. How’s that possible, you may ask? Here are five ways to find out if the boot fits you right…err, I mean, how you can find a line of work that suits you the T.

Action step: Get a notebook and pen for this ‘session’.

My Muse - Part 2

I loved watching tv, and I read many books. Books about how people would have an unhappy time working for a company, and then they would suddenly find an outlet for their creativity and end up doing that. These stories made me think a lot. Will I be happy doing law? Fighting for justice?

I had already started studying for my entrance exams, but I did not like the process. I continued writing, because that was my only escape from legal aptitude tests. I wrote when I fought with friends, when I was hurt, when I was so happy that I could dance. I put down questions regarding myself, and I ended up answering them by the end of the page. It was a crazy feeling.

Numbers numbers everywhere!

Who invented these numbers? They have been sources of worry for us ever since we were born. Imagine a hospital labor room; the first-timer daddy is totally nervous and walking up and down the corridor while his wifey dear is screaming her lungs out in the deep scary room. He waits patiently not letting the banshee screams get to him. Then the door swings open and the weary looking doctor comes out with a smile. "Congratulations! You have a son! He's 3.3 kg!" Ah, the relief! Then comes the stressful reports, birth certificates, noting the time of birth, the day of birth, etc.

His age is counted in days, then weeks, then months and finally after 12 months, the 1st birthday finally arrives!! Where relatives and family members may give nice little toys or jewellery for the young toddler, the more hopeless gifters like me stick to money: Rs. 101 (or a bit more if they are not as broke as I am :D). The years add up and the kid joins preschool. Games and frolic keep him safely away from the scary world of digits for some time. But then he joins school and his affair with numbers starts.

My Muse: My Story

I decided at the age of 8, that I wanted to become a doctor because they saved people’s lives. By the age of 13, I realized I did not like science at all. So instead, I wanted to become a lawyer; I read about how they fought for justice and how much they earned. One of my aunt’s friends was a lawyer, and somehow I saw the exciting part of law by how much she had to travel. I was set, my dream from then on was to become a lawyer.

Little did I know, that It was just the beginning of the journey: of utter confusion, to sudden realizations and major decisions.

Know No Neighbors!

I drove down the picturesque Mumbai-Pune Expressway, thinking about the meeting that had gone well that day, the client that we had bagged, and longing for a hot shower and a good book. Taking the sharp bend where the expressway ends and Pune begins, I smiled as I remembered how, not so long back, this little stretch was a deserted piece of land, with a single two-lane road running through it, the monotony interspersed by the occasional village kaka wobbling past on a decrepit bicycle, or the desultory horn of an aging truck. Today, thanks to the super-boom of real estate that Pune and other similar Indian cities are experiencing, this once-desolate stretch of Wakad has turned into an unrecognizable melee of construction and hoardings promising swanky lifestyles to Pune’s up and coming urban populace.