figuring it out

The father once said, “Anish, I started with almost nothing, and we are now something. You’re starting with something, shouldn’t you aim for something more?”

Even today, he hates having said that. But, it stuck. It stuck like glue – not just any glue, but like some sort of super-mutated Fevicol.

It all started in Aurangabad. After sputtering around there as a chappal-laden, cricket-playing little boy, we airlifted ourselves to Dubai. The Dubai heat branded my formative years with principles that only got compounded away when I went to study in the wild wild west. I spent ten years in the United States of Immigrants, compounding my career capital in San Antonio and New York, only to realize that I was more lost than ever, doing what society had prescribed me to do. I had everything but nothing.

So, I started thinking for myself for once. I started reading and came across Victor Frankl. Didn’t love his book, but he has a point – you’ve got to find your purpose. So, corny as this sounds, it was time to shake things up. It was time to take everything I had learnt over the past two decades and see if I could leverage that to do something more worth the while.

This new lease of life started in Guatemala – I was supposed to spend six months there, but ended up spending fifteen. Nairobi was next. I couldn’t spend another fifteen months there but I did spend six and had the fortune to embrace some unknown unknowns. And then I hit up London for three months, doing a boot camp in the science of data, while crashing on the couch of a best friend. That was the last piece of the puzzle before I came back to India. And now here I am, building Without.

I have never been more focused, motivated and content, but I’m not there yet. I have a long way to go but the fog’s lifting.

I am blessed with an amazing family and my friends define me. My mother’s cooking is the only way I can ever embrace a vegetarian diet. Football (soccer) is the greatest sport in the world, and there’s no harm in letting go of your emotions – just write a poem about it; it doesn’t even have to rhyme. I struggle with a sense of belonging but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The best way to feel good is to make other people feel good. I am dedicating the rest of my life to fighting multidimensional poverty. And I am so damn fortunate to able to do all this.

Let’s level the playing field and then dance?