I met Robin for a coffee on my way out of Melbourne.

This Australia trip was meant to be a blast from the past, not from when I was in Australia, but from when I was in Austin.

Jason (the bestie) and I loved watching live music together in college. He came from Kiwiland (with a dash of Thai) and I from Dubai, both places where British rock and pop were very much a part of the zeitgeist.

But the Americans in Austin had never heard of Robbie Williams, nor knew what Oasis looked like (besides that one song). The latter (and The Strokes) united Jason and me in one of many sporty ways, and we took pride in the halo that indie rock gave us, while being surrounded by country-drunk, hip-hoppy Texans.

Oasis had ceremoniously broken up when we were in college, and Jason (the bigger fan) had never gotten a chance to see them live. A highly rational man, Jason predicted that Oasis would one day reunite, and then we’ll definitely see them live.

It only took more than a decade for the Gallagher brothers to see sense (and $$$), and in 2024, this world-bending, band-uniting Oasis Live ’25 tour was announced.

Jason, by then, had become a father, and like most of us, somewhat boring – in the sense that we barely engaged in the alcohol-induced shenanigans of our college days. We had become good, boring, people busy in the pursuit of our own different kinds of purpose (and children).

But when Oasis said they would do their concert thing, Jason rewound the clock like Hermione, and it was time for us to camp outside a stadium again.

And that’s what brought me to Australia this November of 2025.

Jason had a couple of front-pit tickets to Oasis in Sydney, and I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. We not only shared Live Forever tattoos, but we had also branded each other while we were in college. This sweaty concert was going to be like unboxing a time capsule from the past, and immersing ourselves into it like a VR-adventure from the future.

I was pumped. And scared.

Because we were older now, and uhh, less hardcore.

“I actually want to remember all of this concert, Anish, so let’s not drink,” said Jason as I met him in the lead-up to the big renaissance.

Instead, he asked ChatGPT to come up with a urine-control plan to ensure we don’t have to pee while we wait for Oasis to come on.

To be clear, this was the rational thing to do. I once had to be pulled out from the first row of an Arctic Monkeys concert we were at in New Zealand because I was fairly certain my bladder could no longer handle the pounding it was getting from the railing.

Needless to say, the urine-control plan worked. We both drank only 350ml of water before 3 pm, and there were no pounding bladder problems during the Oasis concert.

But since work dictates most of my schedule, I obviously had an important pitch the night before the concert in Singapore, where Jason magically happened to live.

So, I gave the pitch, and then right after, Jason and I hopped on a budget red-eye from Singapore to Sydney. We landed and immediately went to the concert, lining up five hours before it started so we could get as close as possible to the stage.

Okay, fine, that’s a bit hardcore, but it was unintentional. It was uhh, necessary.

The camping and the waiting before the concert sucked. In the past, we would be drinking while waiting, and as I write this, I am realising why I didn’t remember all the shittiness of the wait back then.

But man, was it worth it.

We were ten rows from the front as Oasis delivered a masterclass in how oldish rock bands should perform. The gigantic screen in the back, coupled with a solid setlist, meant that the highly testosterone-filled crowd of many ages had a mosh-ingly lovely time.

And Jason and I, like sober veterans, basked in the glory of the true veterans, Noel and Liam, as I got all emotional with Jason standing by me, as they stood by us. And in a moment that felt surreal, I felt like not just Jason, but all my people from all over the world were there with me – right there, right then, as I got lost in the supernova that this year has been.

The Gallagher brothers are notorious, and rightfully so. But that day, they performed an act of honest service to the crowd, a subtle apology of sorts for all the nonsense they used to take pride in, while going back to the roots of what made them amazing.

And it was as fulfilling as any of the many concerts Jason and I have experienced together, despite the lack of intoxication.

We both slept 12 hours that night and spent the next couple of days just like when we were flatmates back in college, minus all the partying, of course, catching up on what seemed like many, many years of conversation, wrapped in the quiet comfort of just being.

That was one of two highlights of this Australia trip.

The other was my coffee with Robin on my way out.

*****

Robin Jeffrey is the sharpest 80-year-old I know.

A somewhat literal living legend, Robin has written a mountain of books on the nuances of India. He’s a research scholar, a professor emeritus, a brave journalist (so much so that apparently the BJP might have him on their radar), a mini-celebrity, etc, but what really punctuates him is his child-like curiosity.

One of the books he has written is “Waste Of A Nation”, along with Assa Duran.

I read that book five years ago as research for the work I do, and just like any eager beaver of an entrepreneur educated by an excellent book, I cold-emailed him in gratitude and in ask of a favour.

Robin responded, hopped on a call and connected me to arguably the most important scientific advisor we have at Without. Fast-forward five years, and what has flowered is a virtual relationship spurred on by his curiosity about plastics and poverty in India and the world, matched by my admiration of his work and his curiosity.

But I had never met him in person. Until this week.

As an entrepreneur with a new-age enterprise bursting out of its cocoon, still unsure whether this black butterfly will fly or fall, no trip is just a trip for “leisure”. Work is a constant that hovers like the Tinnitus that metal concerts give you.

I had tried to try and arrange work meetings in Sydney and Melbourne, and I had mostly failed because “I didn’t have enough time.” But email and WhatsApp are a global thing, so work comes along with you wherever you go. That’s not a complaint though, it’s an entrepreneurial perk of the world I live in, especially in a time when things are coming down to the wire.

At Without, we have 9-10 months of runway left, and in the next 4.5 months, we have a lot to validate and prove. It honestly might be the most important 4.5 months of my life. The next year might be our (and my) most pivotal. I can’t even come close to predicting where my head will be 12 months from now, and that’s wild.

And in the wild, the highs are very high that I shout about like Tarzan, but the lows are very low, muffled in loneliness and self-doubt, like those trees that fall while no one is watching.

While Sydney was mostly wonderful, in Melbourne, I felt mostly dark, weak and alone, far away from my five-year-old baby of a start-up, which I could only somewhat keep tabs on through WhatsApp. I just wanted to be back in Pune, in the warzone, with the team, away from what seemed like artificial loneliness, which probably isn’t. I wanted to escape, but I didn’t really know from what or to where. Maybe it was the cave of a hotel room that I was in, or maybe it was the spicy Thai food I was gobbling down that made my stomach anxious (or vice versa), or maybe the unforeseen dhakkas around the plant, or maybe the amateur mistake I had made recently, or maybe it was the weight of the 40-people-strong organization I am stewarding into unchartered territory with difficult odds, or maybe it was some combination of all of that.

And just then, today, on my way to the Airport, I met Robin for a morning coffee.

It seemed like I was asking him for a favour again, but this time, unknowingly.

We didn’t talk about Without much, he has heard enough about that. This time we spoke about him, his life and his lessons. We talked about politics and how he met his wife, about his past books and his next book, about Churchill, Nehru, Gandhi and the Bajajs, about communism and capitalism, and every time I asked for some paternal advice, he gifted me an example from history, or an anecdote from a book that I obviously had to read.

I could have talked to him for hours.

He didn’t give me a pat on my back or some superficial validation, but I left feeling inspired.

I left realising that Robin had converted his curiosity into his passion, and his passion into a service to the world. A service that had given him as much joy as scars, a service that probably also took him into the wild, through high highs like Tarzan and low lows like falling trees, down dark, lonely alleys and bright, wondrous supernovas.

Just like Oasis. And they are both still at it.

Robin’s next book is getting so long that he needs to split it into two volumes.

Just like how I should have probably split this blog post. Nah, who has the time for that? Need to get back to the grind.

*****