Abhinav’s Channel

2021-12-15 08:54:10 ​​Hi folks!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, nevertheless will keep it short.

In the month of November, I visited UAE for the first time. The mysteriously silent Abu Dhabi and the richness of Dubai made the experience very unique. The highlight of the trip was a two day visit to the Dubai #Expo2020 :)

In addition to that, I was fortunate to meet and work with some of my office colleagues for the first time ever since we have been building the team over the pandemic months! Together, we enjoyed the hospitality of our counterparts in UAE who were such amazing hosts.

To top it up, coincidentally my oldest childhood friend, Pranay was travelling to Abu Dhabi at the same time. Somehow I keep meeting him wherever I go :p

Looking forward to such new unique experiences!

Stay safe and Cheers. Open / Comment

2021-10-11 08:16:03 ​​Hope all of you are doing fine.

Over the last two weeks, we participated in Free Your Data hackathon (Account Aggregator) organised by Setu, Github India & Devfolio and we won! Account Aggregator (AA) is quite a deal for our digital India dreams and the hackathon was fairly a big platform. Just to give you a perspective of the importance of AA, have a look at the line up of people who spoke at the hackathon – Pramod Varma (Chief Architect, Aadhaar), Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Nithin Kamath (Zerodha), Vasanth Kamath (smallcase) and people from Sequoia, iSpirit and Sahamati.

To be honest, winning at this stage is quite unusual for me personally and it was one of the firsts. This made me start thinking about what really worked for us and I could come up with few things that I want to share with all of you.

1. Inversion: This is an amazing mental model to have. In the beginning of the hackathon we were so pumped up that we wanted to build a huge platform given we had two weeks time. Midway through the brainstorming, we decided to figure out how we can ensure that we don’t fail and built just the minimum lovable product. The judges actually loved it!
2. Team: If I have to be frank, winning was just 10% of what was exciting. Rest has to be credited to the team. They have been absolutely amazing. Having the right team is insanely important and the energy that people carry can take you from 200 rpm to 1000 rpm. Together we spent sleepless nights, coded day-in/ day-out, enjoyed ourselves and made little sacrifices. Goutham, Ashank & Himanshu – Thanks guys for this experience.
3. Execution: Ideas are easy to get by, execution is everything. In our country, ideas are celebrated and execution is dramatically under appreciated. We should strive to change our DNAs to start thinking about execution rather!
4. Trust (Yourself): This is quite personal an emotion. Over the last month, I have been very fragile emotionally and have questioned my abilities time and again. During the hackathon, I started to do what I really love to do, without worrying about trophies, ranks and vanity and now that has given me the kick to be positively energised to continue pursuing things the way I want to and very importantly trust myself that it will all work out just fine.

Thanks for reading this through, have a great week and good morning.
Peace! Open / Comment

2021-08-18 08:23:13 ​​Only a few months ago it was surreal for me to travel to an entirely different city and stay all by myself, but now it seems more like a purpose than an adventure to me.
Going out and exploring a whole new world — it gives me the kick.

I think the most underrated beauty of a city is the energy of people who actually contribute to the whole vibe. Not the place, not the infrastructure, not the fine dines nor the pubs. It’s the community together. And their energy.

Anyway, I returned from my July-August trip to Auroville on 15th August and I couldn’t just leave.

It is almost next to impossible to consolidate all the insane experiences that we had during the last 30 days without actually ending up writing a whole book. The top four experiences have to be — the full moon scooty ride inside the jungle, ziplining in the crazy nowhere, ultra late party at the beach (and then getting chased by the cops) and the Quarry expedition!

I have a long long long list of people who I will absolutely miss hanging out with and I really hope that I meet all of you again — Vinayak (thank you so much for coming! couldn’t have been this adventurous a trip without you!!), Deepthi (I owe you this whole experience, thanks for opening us up to a whole bunch of possibilities, I hope you find your way someday ), Surya (You are an inspiration and super super fun!! looking forward to finding you in the mountains someday!!), Rupali (As much as I want to be nice to you..:p Thanks for being a decent neighbor, breakfasts would have been so anti climactic without you!! Loved all the debates and conversations), Paras (Enjoyed the beautiful perspectives you have given on life and monopoly deal, can’t wait for our next trip), and Pooja, Uma, Amit, Prithvi, Dev, Dyuman, Nahar, Nandini and the weirdly awesome kids of Auroville — thanks for making it even more exciting and dramatic!!

My journey in Auroville began with the uncertainty of reaching the place and ended with the certainty of returning back. It is beautiful.

Until Next time! Open / Comment

2021-07-27 05:44:04 Q: Socially Outcasted?

A: I’ve been constantly pestered about the fact that social media is something i’m missing out on. I’ve always known the right reasons why I quit these platforms but I have always struggled to collate and express those thoughts earlier.

1. My time
It’s estimated that an average person generally spends about ~2.5 hours of their day on social media platforms. It’s insane! Instead I use that time to interact with people, speak to them on phone or physically and more so to read amazing books! :)

2. Evil Platforms
There’s just a lot of articles / movies / series around it. I’m just gonna say it. These platforms are absolute money making businesses. They hire attention engineers to help you stay on the platform by showing you relevant content constantly and indefinitely. On top of that, they profile you to an absolutely bare level like which drink you ordered at Starbucks and what you could potentially watch in the next 2 hours. Don’t believe me, but listen to people who you admire on the internet when they say that it is not okay to do so. Absolutely not. Privacy first, always.

3. Dopamine
I think everyone is pretty familiar with this. Your mind is constantly being trained to crave for receiving notifications constantly. You are quite literally waiting for it. This causes attention disorders (and equivalent jargons) and doesn’t let you be productive or function at an amazing pace, and trust me, it sucks to give 80% of what you are capable of.

Q: So where do I receive content from and where do I communicate with my close ones, right?

A: Well, Here! I am available on telegram. If you are reading this post, you’re part of the channel which is very closely knit. Mostly everyone who is close to me is in this channel or I speak to them over call.
For content, I rely on twitter (have consciously deleted the app, I just use the web version) to consume my field related content and daily gyaan. I sometimes find myself scrolling on twitter but I’m never overdoing it or getting pestered with notifications.

You should consider taking a social sabbatical (this is copied). And trust me, trust me, trust me, you will not loose out on anything, but there’s just everything to gain, plus compounding works!!

Love you all, stay safe and Peace! Open / Comment

2021-07-22 13:58:06 ​​Highlight of Bombay trip? Painting lessons from the non-ipad artist!! Open / Comment

2021-07-04 20:15:50 ​​Good Evening everyone.
Hope you are doing fine and vaccinated (at least the first dose).

Just dropping an update — I’ve resumed travelling again. Came to Bombay and stayed at Pranay’s place. We drove to Nashik and booked an Airbnb for the week. Spent quality time with everyone and enjoyed our usual Coolberg and nachos over different board games!!

Stay safe :) Open / Comment

2021-04-16 15:30:56 ​​Some gifts are really creative! Open / Comment

2021-04-11 20:48:13 ​​​​Hope you all are safe and home.

Last week I travelled to Mcleodganj with a new friend, Rizu. During the week we experienced a very different and beautiful vibe in the small city of Mcleod. Although we explored amazing multiple cuisines in various cafés and restaurants & listened to good music, the best part about the trip was talking about life & relationships and how incidences transform us into a whole new person.

Looking forward to more such trips travel partner!! #lonelytogether Open / Comment

2021-04-04 19:06:37 ​​Hi Everyone! In the long weekend of Holi and Good Friday I travelled to Himachal Pradesh with a bunch of my close ones. Visited Kasol, trekked to Kheerganga, explored Manali and Sissu and mostly made stronger bonds with my friends. Looking forward to more such trips!! Open / Comment

2021-03-08 10:36:31 ​​Happy International Women’s day to all the women here . Open / Comment