While there are people who would crave for a Ph.D. from one of the most prestigious colleges of India, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), there are some who would want to keep to their passions, interests and dreams rather than just follow the herd mentality, 9-5 job structure and the tough race to high-level positions in corporate houses.

While our PM Narendra Modi started the journey from being a ‘chaiwala’ to a successful Chief Minister of Gujarat to being the country’s Prime Minister, we have Shahziad Ibrahimi who has taken the reverse circle by studying the Doctorate Programme from JNU and then opening a Dhaba outlet in the campus.

When the university departments and the teachers were infuriated that the dhaba from an alumnus of the university and a Ph.D. holder in the college premises might defile JNU’s reputation since all these years, Shahziad popularly known as Mamu among his friends maintained that he “will not ruin JNU’s name.” Detemined as he was an with his strong interest and aptitude in cooking, Mamu truly kept his word as Bihari Thali and Litti Chokha became the buzzword in JNU and even among the outsiders who visited the college, both young and old.

His obsession over onion and tomato salads which he likes to cut in a zigzag style and not the routine ‘chop chop’ increased the footfalls in the university. We would not be taken aback if we were to know that some students joined the university only to taste Mamu’s Dhaba’s special dishes daily!

However, life was certainly not a bed of roses for this PhD holder in Urdu and a Mass Communication graduate, when he decided to leave his job of a TV Journalist in Hyderabad to return to his second home, his ‘alma mater’ to pursue his cooking dreams in a dhaba. The permit to start a dhaba in the university was truly a tough nut to crack for him, where the university officials dared him to run the canteen for six months, then only will they accept his plea and you bet, they were forced to give him what he wanted – a place within the campus to operate his own canteen.

But the journey to carving your own niche somewhere in this big, wide world is not easy. Shahziad’s family back in Bihar could not accept that their son had opened a dhaba even after holding a Doctorate degree. His parents had terminated all contacts with him and it was only his brother who he was in talking terms with, among his family members. It took time for the sunny side to come up for Shahziad. But when it did, his parents were more than happy with Shahziad’s career decision when they visited his cafeteria, where he sometimes even gives food for free, irrespective of the religion or caste of the student, depending on whether they have money with them at the moment or not. Students would sit with their laptops and discuss politics for long hours here without any disturbance.

Shahziad’s experimentation with dishes is not the only thing that preoccupies his life and workplace, his notes ‘like chapters of a book’ and his recipe book called ‘365 days’ are certain other important things in his life currently.

Not only with his career, Shahziad experimented and followed his heart as far as his love life is concerned. He fell in love with a Hindu girl before completing his Master’s programme. His inter-religion relationship caused much turmoil back home and with the girl’s parents but anyhow they got married secretly in the campus and shifted their residences to the married students’ quarters in the campus. Not that we are vouching for any inter-caste marriages and secret weddings or opposing parents either, but we would still appreciate the daring attitude and the spirit to accept challenges and mould everything from tough times to happier moments in Shahziad and would hope that more of today’s youth can share the same spirit and attitude in life. In his own words, “There is no other place like JNU; there was something always pulling me back. I think I was always meant to be here, running this small dhaba.” (As reported to the Indian Express)

Of making food, Shahziad emphasizes on the different methods of cooking that make you special and of salary and jobs, he claims that he does not care whether he makes money or not, but loves the fact that he is his own boss and does not have to take orders, he loves his work and the fact that he does not give an explanation to anyone for being late to work. Like him, there might be many who do not like fixed jobs and feel it is still less for the company and the job even after giving one’s 100 percent, handling work pressure and deadlines. But how many of us would actually show the courage to do something we absolutely love and not consider any work too low or menial?

Even PM Modi liked to share his joy of swearing as the PM of the country with Shahziad by calling him at the ceremony.

If you wish to pursue your Masters in JNU, you would not want to miss out on tasting fine thalis and litti chokhas! Just ask a fellow passer-by in the campus about Mamu’s dhaba and s/he will be more than pleased to give you the directions!

The post Have You Tried Litti Choka At Ph.D. Scholar-Turned Dhaba Owner, Mamu’s Dhaba in JNU? appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Who is Annadurai?

Well, he is a high school dropout and since then he has been driving an auto rickshaw.

In short, he is an amazing auto-driver in Chennai.

Wondering why amazing?

It’s all because he is not just a normal auto-driver but instead he gives a ride to remember filled with amusement to the customers. Anna’s up-most priority is that he doesn’t want his godly customers to face boredom.

And, it seems everything is amazing and exciting in his life. He owns a “share auto” that carries almost six people per ride and his auto rickshaw always takes rides across Chennai’s IT Corridor daily.

His life sounds pretty interesting isn’t it? Just take a look below to know more about him and TRUST ME it’ll definitely blow your mind.

1 – “Atithi Devo Bhava”

Yes, Anna Dhurai feels customer’s satisfaction matters the most. He even believes that money isn’t that important but customer relationship is. And, not just believe he does what he actually says. He is a guy who spends 8000 on customer required activities but earns only Rs. 15000. What do you have to say about this?

2 – Facilities in Auto rickshaw

He provides free Wi-Fi to all the customers in time and there’s one 10-inch tablet as well as Laptop so people can browse whatever they want, plus a mini TV set that keeps people entertain, and also a recharge facilities for prepaid mobiles.

What else do you need? Oh! Wait he also provides 40 magazines and 10 newspapers for all the readers to enjoy. Isn’t that great? I think it definitely is.

3 – Free Rides

Annadurai offers free rides on special days that counts on Mother’s day he lets mothers who are travelling with son/daughter a free ride, On Women’s day for all women above 50 years, Teachers days and yes on Valentine days as well. Here is his website.

4 – Card Swiping Machine

If you thought that even after all these facilities he must be charging more then let me tell you he’s a kindhearted guy. He provides card swiping machine for the people who are not able to give cash especially IT professionals are the ones who takes rides the most. And, for the people who can’t afford payment through card, he accepts cash in hand as well.

5 – Delivered 2 TED Talks and now he is motivational speaker

Yes, that’s true guys. He has given more than 40 speeches in corporate offices and 2 TED talks as well that’s pretty impressive. Not just that, but he also roamed across 35 countries giving his speeches of why he is an “amazing auto-driver”.

6 – Short Film

Anna Dhurai’s life is so inspiring that there’s also a short film made on him. It clearly shows how loving the job we do really matters a lot in life.

7 – He Has More Than 10K Social Media Followers

Anna Dhurai is famous amongst people and is the “most-loved” auto-driver in Chennai. He has almost 10,000 followers on his Facebook account.

8. Future Plans

Annadurai has many plans. One of them is that he wants to come true includes “Establishing a home for all the senior citizens to live” . He is also planning for an amazing auto app so people can book his auto for tours etc.

Are you willing to take a ride in Annadurai’s Auto rickshaw?

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Patricia Narayan – An entrepreneur who owns chain of restaurants called “Sandeepa” in Chennai.

She also lives in a well-furnished apartment in Velachery and has around 200 people working in her renowned restaurant.

But, as they say nothing comes easy in life.

And, even if it comes there are many twists and turns that mould our very life. Well, even Patricia Narayan went through her life lessons that made her today a proud independent lady.

Today, she is one of the brave ladies that stands tall and inspires others as well.

Let’s take a look back in her life…

From Patricia Thomas to Patricia Narayan

Patricia was studying in Queen Mary’s when she met a Brahmin boy Narayan. Well, they both fell in love with each other and decided to get married “secretly”. But, things turned bad and she had to tell her parents about her secret marriage which made the couple break ties with their family.

Trouble in paradise

Patricia was happily married to Narayan but things shattered and turned worse for Patricia. She found out her husband was heavily into taking drugs and alcohol and it was difficult to get him out of this situation.

In her struggling life she became pregnant but certainly had no money to meet ends. At 18 she was left out with her two children.

It all started with 50 paise

She started her own cart on Marine Drive, Mumbai. This was her start, 31 years ago, she earned only “50 paise” on her first day by selling a cup of coffee. She felt disheartened  but worked the next day as well. The next day went off good and she also started selling sandwiches, ice-creams and juices.

Patricia Narayan’s work life

Patricia Narayan never gave up in her life and stood firm in front of all the hurdles. She took up many odd jobs that included catering at the Slum Clearance road where she served 300 people at Bank of Madurai canteen and later she started serving almost 700 students daily at National Port Management training school.

You know what’s interesting?

By working at Marina and school canteen she earned around 1 lakh per week. Isn’t that great?

Another big shocker in Patricia’s life

Right when she was taking the steps towards success, the news of Patricia’s newlywed daughter and son-in-law’s death broke her. It was back then in 2004 that gave her the sad news of her life. She took some time off and gave the business in hands of her son Praveen.

Sandeepa Chain of Restaurant

Patricia’s son started the first restaurant called “Sandeepa Chain of Restaurant”. Patricia came back 2 years later to start the business along with her son Praveen and the restaurant was named after her daughter’s name.

There are now around 200 employees working today in the restaurant.

FICCI Woman Entrepreneur Award 2010

In 2010, Patricia was the proud winner of (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) FICCI Woman Entrepreneur Award 2010.

14 outlets of Sandeepa

Yes, you heard it right. This woman who faced extreme challenges in life but never backed out. Now, there are total 14 outlets across Chennai that provides her daily income of rupees 2 lakhs.

Along with her well furnished house, she also owns her own luxury car. She is the true example of how being strong and determined can make you achieve what you want no matter how many hurdles you face.

The post Patricia Narayan: A Journey From 50 Paise To Now Rs 2 Lakh A Day appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

It’s important to know and applause people who have struggled hard and brought down all the odds on their way to success.

And such person is Sylvester Stallone who is one of the most renowned American super stars. He may be a known name to reckon with but only few people know how hard he worked and how he removed all the stumbling blocks to his road to riches.

Back then he was a struggling actor in every sense as he was struggling to even feed himself and his family. He was so broke that he had to steal his wife’s jewelry to sell it off. Problem after problem pressed on and in one point, he even became homeless.

Nothing to eat and no shed to cover his head, He had no option but to sleep at Port Authority bus station for almost three weeks until he was cast in a pornographic movie. He hit his lowest point of life when he sold off his dog at a liquor store as he didn’t have a penny to feed his dog.

Sylvester, whose heart and body is strong as iron, walked away crying with 25 Dollars in his hand.He always wanted to be actor and gave several auditions but he never got selected so he turned to writing as waited for his acting career to blossom.

One day he saw a boxing match between Mohammed Ali and Chuck Wepner and that match ignited inspiration to write the script for the block buster movie Rocky.

As soon as he finished the script he went ahead to sell it but faced enormous numbers of rejections.

After months and months of trying he got an offer of $125,000 which was also on way to get rejected due to Sylvester’s request. He requested that he will play the main lead of Rocky.

The studio said no as they wanted a star.

The amount of offers was rising but he said no to all of them as he wanted to act in them.

Finally, he settled with a studio which offered a just $35,000 for the script and allowed him to act in the movie.

And the rest is history.

The movie won all the prestigious awards including Oscars. His breakthrough movie was inducted into American National Film Registry. The first thing he bought after getting that $35,000 was his Dog. He went to the liquor shop and waited for the man he sold his dog to. He finally met the man and explained him why he had to sell the dog.

But the man refused, Stallone was stubborn to get his dog and offered $1000 but still he refused. Finally he paid $15,000 for the dog. And now today, he is worth more than $275 million.  The story of Sylvester Stallone  is indeed an inspirational tale of dedication and perseverance.

Like him we too all have dreams but what is more important is that we should work on it and chase it till you accomplish it.

It’s true that it’s not that easy to be successful but not impossible too.

The post The Sad Yet Motivating Story of Sylvester Stallone Will Inspire You To Be A Success appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

We always wonder how rich people become rich right.

Thomas Corley, the author of Rich Habits: The daily success habits of wealthy individuals, documented lives of both rich as well as poor people and understood their activities. He concluded that it is the daily habits that are the reason for your wealth or poverty.

He said, “These habits are like snowflakes – they build up, and then you have an avalanche of success.”

And he also said one more thing that those who are not born wealthy have greater chances of becoming financially successful.

This is great revelation as recently there were reports that suggested how 62 people in the world possess half of the world’s wealth. This gap is huge and this is big problem to tackle.

After learning this thing it’s better to buck up ourselves and work hard so this disparity goes down. If cynics think that this is impossible then fyi these wealthy people have not inherited wealth but are self-made.

So it is important to shun all excuses and get started.

Those are still wondering what make wealthy people wealthier then scroll down below  to know some factors which make them stand out from the rest of the world.

1. They set goals and achieve them

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail and this line is taken seriously by rich people. They make sure that they plan out everything in writing- short as well as long term goals. Average people just wish but rich people set goals- achievable goals.

2. They have daily to do lists.

Average people do not set goals or maintain even to do lists unlike wealthy people. Rich people also have daily to-do lists and these people even complete 70% or more of those listed tasks of particular day.

3. They take care of themselves

As per one of the researches, wealthy people eat and drink healthier in comparison to poor. They make sure that they get up early, spare time for exercise and workouts and opt for nutritional food.

4. They spend less and invest more.

Many people do not know that rich people are rich because they are frugal and not indulgent as we think. Mark Zuckerberg still uses drives a Volkswagen GTI and Google founder Sergey Brin still shops at CostCo.

5. They do not waste time doing gossiping or watching TV

They will hardly be seen in front of idiot box (TV) and gossiping about how their neighbours treated them in party or so. They make sure they have good habits (like reading or watching only informative content) as that will eventually help them in long run.

6. They take risk, they fail but they know how to tackle problems

It’s not like that every billionaire made it success in one shot. They strive hard, fail but never give up. For them this is an experience to learn from not like poor who label failure as bad luck and quit trying.

7. They believe in learning every day.

It’s vital for all of us to learn something every day. Rich people try and learn everyday new things and believe in self-improvement as this will eventually help them to grow and their venture as well. But many think that after their formal studies they should just bid good bye to books or learning.

8. They go beyond their work.

Poor people remain poor as they think “it’s not in my job description” so why should I do.

9. They talk less and listen more.

Wealthy people are good communicators as they first listen and then they say. they give importance to learning from the other person.

From this post you might have come across how rich people just do things differently and do not do different things.

They are just like us and any one (if they want to) can be rich.

The post 9 Things World’s Rich And Wealthy People Do But You Aren’t appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

From farm laborer to head honcho of Keys Software Solutions-IT company based out of USA,  Jyothi Reddy’s journey is inspiring for all and especially for rural women.

She is an epitome and guiding light for many Indians who are still in the shackles of adversity. She has proved that you can achieve anything in life if you are ready to persevere through thick and thin and work hard incessantly.

Her journey from farm laborer to IT millionaire is commendable and that’s why today we are shedding light on the inspiring rags-to-riches story of Jyothi Reddy.

Early Life And Struggles

Due to financial problems, she was sent to an orphanage even though she had parents. And by the age of 16, she was forced to get married. She used to toil hard on fields to earn a meager wage of Rs. 5 that could hardly make ends meet. Her fate took many ugly turns since she was born.

But all pressing problems and poor living never stopped her to dream big. She aspired to have a good standard of living and wanted to give her two daughters best life.

In pursuit of high living, she did odd jobs from stitching petticoats to do jobs which required her to travel miles and miles. But still, such problems never ever deterred her.

How She Strived Hard To Carve A Niche Of Her Own

She overcame all the obstacles by working harder and harder. She joined the open school to educate her and soon she got a better job as instructor- invigilator.  Her life took a turn for better when she met her the US returned cousin sister.

She was flattered by her lifestyle and asked her what she can do to achieve the same. Later with the help of her sister, she joined software learning classes and also applied for the visa for the USA and since then there was no looking back.

She didn’t fly to the USA; she flew to achieve her ambition. Finally, she achieved her dream she is head of one of the software companies in the USA.

How She Is Actively Helping Other Rural Women As Well.

Her entrepreneurial journey saw resounding success and now she helps several other women too to fulfill their ambitions.

This exemplary personality was awarded and received many accolades for emerging victorious after a long struggle and for being an astute businesswoman.

Jyothi’s incredible story inspires us to dream and if you do, no can stop you become successful.

The post Jyothi Reddy: Meet This Woman Who Was A Farm Labourer Now IT Millionairess appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Today we have listed about Billionaires who started off from scratch but with sheer dedication and hard work helped them to climb the ladder of success.

These individuals revolutionized the industry they ventured into.

From dirt poor to multi-million dollar empire, let us have a look at some rags to riches stories of the great personalities

1. Samuel Walton-  Wal-Mart

He truly deserves kudos for his exemplary work in transforming of a small grocery store into the biggest super market chain in the world.

During his formative years he used to odd jobs like milking cows, delivering newspaper and waiting tables in exchange for meals to fulfil financial needs.

Later he took a loan to start his first shop and with his skills and strategies he succeeded and opened up another store and the rest is history. He was once richest American from 1982 to 1988.

Today there are more than 20,000 Wal-Mart stores and 2.1 Million employees.

The post 6 Rags To Riches Stories of Billionaires That You Would Have Probably Never Heard of appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Many villages and remote areas in India do not have sufficient facilities and we have to accept this rude fact.

By sitting in AC living rooms and by having everything at mere fingertips, we cannot imagine the level of atrocities villagers face. In some hamlets, people still don’t know what electricity is and in many places, one has to travel around 2-3 Km just to get a pot of water.

As the saying goes- Necessity is the mother of invention; many villagers not only overcame these difficulties but also invented products which have changed many lives.Yes, the brighter side of rural India is that it is a hotbed for several innovations.

Today we have compiled some of the best and unique inventions by Indian villagers that prove how ordinary people are capable enough for extra ordinary things.

1. Mitticool- Eco friendly Refrigerator.

Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a potter from a small village of Rajkot, Gujarat, was soon shot to fame with his exemplary innovation of an eco-friendly refrigerator. This revolutionary refrigerator is made of clay and naturally cools food items. Mitti cool is available across major online e-commerce sites as well.

The post 10 Notable Inventions By Indian Villagers Will Make You Proud And Happy! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Many young women entrepreneurs from e-commerce arena have not only walked the untrodden path but also emerged victorious. Their success can be easily gauged by incessant traffic, revenue and recognition they have received so far.

Many women entrepreneurs have also got funding from angel investors.

Today we are featuring some women front runners in the exponentially growing e-commerce ecosystem.

1. Richa Kar- Founder of Zivame.com

Richa had strong determination to launch an e-commerce business and she achieved her ambition by starting Zivame which is premier lingerie online portal for Indian women.

2. Suchi Mukherjee- Founder and CEO at LimeRoad

Suchi is making a difference in this sector by spearheading one of the top online shopping sites.

3. Anisha Singh- Founder and CEO at Mydala.com

Anisha followed her heart and kickstarted Mydala in the year 2009. It is a merchant marketing platform that aids businesses to reach out the right set of consumers.

4. Falguni Nayar- Founder of Nykaa.com

Nykaa is an online shopping website for beauty and wellness products. She is former MD & CEO of Kotak Investment Bank. She proved her mettle yet again with Nykaa.

5. Rashi Choudhary- Co-Founder and COO of Local Banya

Rashi and her co founders started this grocery E-tail segment in the year 2012. And now local banya is one of the local names in households and is giving a stiff competition to the banyas of our colonies.

6. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal- Co-Founder and CMO of ShopClues

ShopClues was co founded in 2011 and is a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers online. Radhika herself is a keen follower of fashion and this has helped her to grow her business.

7. Sabina Chopra – Co-founder of Yatra.com

Yatra is renowned online travel search engine.  It was founded in the year 2006 by Sabina and her partners. It is now a big name in the travel arena. The company had faced a lot of challenges in their initial days but they soon overcame them by making their site more robust.

These women and many others are overriding stereotypes and proving that women too can lead the rigorous e-commerce business.

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Women’s day is past but women from different parts and corners of India still have to fight it out to make their position strong in the society and have a stable, peaceful and respectful life.

For Mahananda in Kappalguddi, a village in India, opportunity to save her poor mother from serious illness was offered but she had to pay a big price for giving her mother her life back. At the age of 16, when her mother was sick, her uncles offered her monetary help that amounted to Rupees 3000 but as she being a teenager could not pay the money back, her uncles sought another cruel way to get back the amount. They made her a Devadasi, or a temple slave where neither was she allowed to marry anyone in her life nor her future generation could ever come out of the torments of slavery and sexual exploitation.

When she was fettered in the shackles of sexual abuse, she probably did not even know what was about to happen to her as she was sold to a trader in Sangli for sex trade. She was enslaved as a Devadasi, a practice that had been deemed as illegal way back in the 1980s but is still used and misused to sell and enslave girls, only to harass them sexually. The social stigma in the country around devadasis has been such that they are being denied employment and even cannot save their children from getting drawn into this vicious circle of ruthlessness and crime.

The figures would shock you: while 91 per cent of devadasis are illiterate, 93 per cent are unmarried. 200 girls and women are made to become prostitutes daily where 80 per cent are unwilling.

Mahananda was another victim of this evil system and could not do much at that time when she was forced into it, given her age and inexperience of the world’s culprits. She had to spend three years, not at her home but at a brothel house. Earlier, she had been able to save her mother, but now it was time to save herself. But how could she? Days of hope and brighter future evaded her in those three years until one fine day, she could finally plead with the brothel owner and convince the person to let her go, now that she was a mother.

However, as she had been already labelled a ‘whore’ by the society, it was difficult for her to find a life for herself anywhere outside the brothel. Neither could she marry anyone because Devadasis are not supposed to marry anyone and nobody comes ahead to marry these women nor could she do a job of her own choice.

So, Mahananda set out to win back her respect and dignity in the society and to give her daughters a life of their own, a respectable prestigious position in the society that could only be possible through education.

She began with a sewing enterprise which has now been running for four years and her daughters are studying in Morarji Residential School for free. While the older daughter, Rekha is pursuing her science course before joining a university and wants to make a career in medicine, the younger one, Puja is set to have her goals right for her career and life ahead. She plans to study science and is currently studying in the 8^th class.

At the age of 34, Mahananda has been capable enough of employing four other former devdasis in her sewing business. After all, she could not have let her daughters be turned into devadasis as she believes that girls should be given the right to prosper and this is why she has put much efforts and pain in bringing up her daughters so that they can enjoy the good life where there is much happiness and prosperity, the things she was denied.

As and how her daughters are growing and are looking forward to college admission, Mahananda felt she needed to earn more. She applied for an enterprise loan through Milaap’s Hope Project to buy three more sewing machines which she has put to use after employing former devadasis. She has even executed a small training programme where she teaches 10 other former devadasis to sew and charges them Rupees 100 on a monthly basis. Since her sewing gig is not enough to fend her funds, she also works on farms in the morning, as her village is a remote one and does not let her earn much only through tailoring business.

Though she had been constantly pecked at and misbehaved with by the society, the ray of hope in her was alive and she put it to a good use by giving her daughters a life better in every sense than hers. Her love as a mother for her daughters and as a woman in understanding the importance of educating girls is far beyond the ills of the society and the twisted mind-set of people. She has not said it, but done it; she has empowered other women like herself who also needed a breakthrough, a new hope and reason to live a better life and mark a new beginning in their way of living.

In her journey towards freedom, Mahananda has come across an activist, Sitava who attempts at helping former Devadasis get back a normal, healthy life and also got training and financial help through a membership organization  comprising of devadasi women, called Mahila Abhivrudhi Samrakshana Samsthe or MASS that has been in the business of promoting development and a healthy living for devadasi women in Belgaum district, Karnataka. This institute now holds more than 5000 devadasis together and has helped to assimilate their lives to make them as normal as possible. This organization has been working towards eradicating the devadasi system altogether and empowering women and girls exploited in this system for commercial sexual harassment under the disguise of making them devadasis.

This is the organization that aided her in crowd-funding a microloan which helped her in running her sewing enterprise all these years effectively.

Mahananda has been among women who have battled through the socio-economic hassles and setbacks only so that she could protect her children from serving as devadasis or be harassed by the evil society in the name of giving them a life. There are many like her in rural India who have been victims of such horrendous crimes and ruthlessness and have had to seek training as well as financial support to become proud women entrepreneurs and trendsetters, building other such women’s lives along with empowering their own children, dismantling the stigma and barriers the society had set, thus revolting and rebelling against the entire system.

We can only live the spirit of Women’s day in the true sense and make it truly happy and worthwhile if we can garner support for these women from their own brethren, identify and appreciate their painstaking efforts and boost their confidence for a brighter, more hopeful future.

After all, it is hope that has kept the world in its place.

Hope against all odds and adversities!

The post She Was A Devadasi, Now She Is A Successful Entrepreneur And A Proud Mother! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

What if your nascent start-up gets funded by a couple that has had a 100 per cent success rate in building start-ups just as they invest in it?

Yes! There is a couple that has been instrumental in carrying many start-ups from the early stages to a stable successful position and the history has repeated itself for as many as 100 times.

They have outdone themselves as the investors, strategists, managers and mentors of companies such as HCL, Bigbasket.com, BlueStone.com, Avagmah.com, HomeLane.com and Portea Medical when every time they have accounted for complete success of these companies even though all of them are in different stages of their growth.

These are the ones that they are helping to nurture and flourish presently, but there are four other such ventures that they have fostered since the 90s era and that have now become a brand name.

Bangalore-based Krishnan and Meena Ganesh are an entrepreneurial couple who have led start-up beginners to believe that if the companies reach a certain perfection, they can defeat even bigger and more successful competitors. And, this they claim has been the mantra to the success of such companies!

They not only serially launch ventures but are also managing their recently started food services business.

From start-up companies delving in home furnishing and decorating services, food and catering, technology knowhow and cloud computing software to handyman services, the duo takes up fields that are grabbing markets and much of consumer attention and they have fared better than the best as they could sell three start-ups, Customer Asset, Marketics Technologies and TutorVista (set up in 2006 with initial investment of Rs. 50 Lakh) to ICICI Bank for 20 million dollars in 2003, a BPO company called WNS for 63.5 million dollars in 2007 and wait for it….Pearson Group in UK for 213 million dollars in 2011. For Marketics, Krishnan had served as the only mentor, investor and even the Chairman until it got sold.

The BigBasket is currently estimated to be at Rupees 1000 crore whereas an online light jewellery store, BlueStone has seen prime investors such as Saama Capital, Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners and even Ratan Tata. This has been the result of the success of the duo towards marketing and promoting these companies and even nurturing and encouraging their growth. Meena is the founder and the CEO of Portea Medical and spearheaded a 9-million-dollar-raise from big funding partners, the likes of Qualcomm Ventures, Accel Partners and Ventureast in 2013. Even Avagmah has reached a certain level as it is being funded by Capital 18 that is a part of Network 18.

50-year-old Krishnan has a post-graduate degree from IIM Kolkata has successfully funded and taken them from the stealth mode to the zenith and ultimately exited them. Not only this, he has been able to raise capital for all the ventures that he chose to nurture and has paid returns to his investors and employees. He comments on the changes he has experienced in his management journey, saying that the encounters have led him to “become more mature, tolerant and patient” (as reported to SmartCEO.com) , which he believes, involves age more than anything else.

Apparently, Krishnan’s expertise in being serial entrepreneur and business leader comes from his stint at an IT company where he worked in the initial years of his career. Here he came across clients who kept facing innumerable issues with the hardware and maintenance of their computer. He thus became the Founder and CEO of IT&T that was responsible for being a multi-vendor IT service company with 16 offices and 400 employees to his credit.

There are five other companies that they have invested in currently that are in stealth mode where three have already launched, one of them being Freshgrub that caters to the food needs of people at home and office-goers with ready-to-eat food and meal options.

And, this is not all. For 23 start-ups they are angel investors and truly for all the companies they invest in, they are like angels who come and build the company from a stealth mode to a success mode before they exit.

No wonder renowned and revered industrialist and the chairman of India’s biggest conglomerate company, like Ratan Naval Tata has invested in BlueStone after the duo came into picture.

Both HCL that the couple had worked with in the yesteryears and Portea Medical that has been launched in August 2013 have their own stories of relevance to tell. As Shiv Nadar, the founder of HCL explains, “What particularly sets him apart is his ability to constantly accept feedback p- to assess, reassess and introspect continuously and remain positive. Both he and Meena are very quick thinkers too.” (As reported to Economic Times)

Meena and Krishnan

On the other hand, with Portea Medical, the duo has been able to generate a technology-based home healthcare services company with a workforce of more than 1000 people and branches in 18 cities where employees make over 25000 home visits every month.

Among the top 5 nominees for the Economic Times Entrepreneur 2012 award, the mentor, incubator, investor and promoter of numerous internet and e-commerce companies of India, Krishnan is now confident and ready to nuture potential ‘billion dollar businesses’ as his and his wife’s future project. The National Knowledge Commission, Govt. of India has honoured him as among the “Iconic Entrepreneurs of India” and he even has been meted out the privilege to serve as a member of the Board of Governors of IIM, Calcutta. Meena, on the other hand, has been the proud winner of the ‘Distinguished Alumnus’ award by the same institute for her very capable skills of leading the operations of several companies and developing markets for the same successfully.  She is the only Indian and the first among four women in the Global Retail Council of Tesco to run operations of the company worldwide.

As Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani puts it in clear terms, “they enter a new field, put together a team and inevitably become successful in whichever area they get into.” And yes, they do it with a lot of emotion and enjoy their work!

The post They Can Lead Your Company And Take It To A Never-Imagined Stage Before! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

You love those compartmental seating arrangements and the scenic rides while travelling long distances in a train. You just love everything about the locomotive, but the food. The food, more often than not, is a misfit for your palette.

Now you need not quiver at the thought of having a meal in the train.

Railtiffin.com started by Harshit Jain and Piyush Bothra who had years of experience in several businesses and are well-qualified management graduates has come to be a success as mostly people do not get much choice when it comes to having their meals at their seats in a train.

More than 10 million passengers travelling by the train everyday find it difficult to munch through the blunt meals offered to them by the train authorities. But Piyush and Harshit have kept the ordering process pretty simple and the best part is that you do not have to worry about the food quality as less than six months into the business, the company has been able to further its reach to around 135 stations and more than 3500 trains, handing over 200 food packages daily. Railtiffin.com is traditional only in its approach to good food but uses the latest Internet technology for making it simple for people to order their food by booking a meal on their website using the PNR number on their ticket or directly calling their customer service number.

Railtiffin tean

While delays in train arrivals and departure are a commonplace in India, Railtiffin.com ensures that these delays do not hamper the passenger’s meal timings and affect food wastage. Keeping track of train schedules and rescheduling the meal to reach the customers at the previous station at the appropriate time is what this company practises so that they can have their appeal to a phenomenal number of customers and never lose them. Vendors carry this food across more than 135 stations even dealing with train delays.

This is only because Railtiffin.com has provided updated and proper information to the vendors regarding the train schedules, making guaranteed, timely food delivery a never-missed possibility, food that is fresh, hot and ready to be served right then and there.

Railtiffin Food

The team has only 15 members who manage duties ranging from customer servicing to selling their food and marketing the company product to even catering to the technological updates to proper management of food delivery by vendors. The funding has been made possible through funding by an agent investor and has even made it easier for customers to make payments through just a link at Instamojo.com.

The railtiffin.com website has also introduced a rating system which enables to track the performance of the vendors and induces a customer engagement through feedback mechanism.

Never before has train journey involved ordering good quality online food and getting it delivered in a train! Harshit and Piyush emerge to be inspirations for people to explore their field of interests and keep their options open and do something about the issues they care about. The duo has had several gruelling first-hand accounts of train journey, especially with food. They had always felt that with long distance journeys, there have been limited choices and an access to healthy and tasty food always had to be foregone. Such experiences provoked them to come up with a full-proof solution as the problem had existed since a long time now without much of an alternative.

Though there are other such online travel food options that have sprung up, Railtiffin.com is the only one and a class apart from others in offering guaranteed food delivery, ensuring customer satisfaction and retention as well as building new client base with each passing day. The hygiene, quality, delivery as well as the presentation and leak-proof packaging all are managed by vendors who understand the importance of these and are capable of carrying out a logistic procedure of this kind. Food is served only through the train window in the little time that a train halts at a station; however customers who have had food ordered through them can blindly rely on them for timely delivery of superior quality food.

Such is their confidence on their service that the company offers a promise of money return to the extent of 200%. The customers too reflect this confidence with a positive feedback and greater response! So have you ordered your meal from Railtiffin.com yet while experiencing a long-distance train journey?

The post Train Travel Can Take A Toll On Your Food Habits, But Not Any More! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Enjoying days in the lap of nature while making it your livelihood is something anyone would look forward to – when fresh flowers, fruits and green leaves spring about you and you are left with lush greenery and the sweet fragrance of wet earth then that gives you immense solace and infinite joy to feel the evolving world in the best way possible.

Being ardent lovers of plants and nature, a husband wife duo, Ranjit and Minette thought of making their passion their profession.

Ranjit & Minette

While Bangalore is known for its greenery and cleanliness, Ranjit and Minette have set up Green Thumbs Boutique for bringing herb gardening to your doorstep, rather your balconies to be precise. The couple’s common hobby and interest in gardening has now turned into a full-fledged business as their idea of gifting their friends, acquaintances and relatives, natural gifts such as plants for occasions meant for celebration – birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  The duo gifted their associates ‘balcony makeovers’ and within a short span of time they needed a proper business set-up to provide services  to a larger audience and give them better value for money deals.

Green Thumb Boutique

This innovative gardening initiative started in 2011 when Minette planned to leave her busy corporate schedules to work with plants on a daily basis to transform them into beautiful bonsais, flower beds and colourful gardens. Ranjit even specializes in making fruit tree bonsais that fetch fruits and boosted them enough for growing vegetables too such as tomatoes, cabbage, chillies, carrots and also herbs such as thyme, rosemary, mint and oregano. Once they started growing these vegetables in their garden, and have been gleefully consumed by their family and friends, the Green Thumbs Boutique has become a pioneer in offering people with different kitchen gardens and vegetable gardens. The people can customize their specifications in plants with Rs. 500 as the minimum price with the boutique. These plants are sourced through Minette and Ranjit’s contacts and suppliers across India and for this as well as for marketing and increasing client interaction,

Facebook is what they use and prefer.

Minette believes that with plants, experimentation and learning is the norm and there are ways that you would learn new aspects of how nature wants us to treat her.

Not only does the couple work to make your balconies more naturally beautiful with home gardens, vegetable gardens, terrace and herb gardens, but their service comes for life long as they can offer advices on how to treat and maintain your plants better for growth and prosperity. Just like animals and birds are kept in a protective home or shelter where they can get a chance to be cared for, the plants that are going through a bad phase in your home, the couple can keep it, nurture it, care for it and nourish it so that ultimately you have a beautiful and well-grown plant in your balcony!

The boutique has come up with an innovative concept of ‘balcony baskets’ that is inclusive of a nicely built drainage system and has become a favourite with many of their customers who have been able to see their gardens in full bloom and their plants in full glory at their homes only because of the duo’s way of setting up the whole flowery creation.

Green Thumb Boutique – Plant in a bulb

If you have a drab, dull space at home or a small balcony extending from your living room, you can make it colourful and interesting instead of dreary and boring. Now people will find their homes and balconies much more relaxing and soothing by providing for greener corners, floral gardens or even an organic flower bed.

The couple would simply visit your home if you place an order for a garden on their page on Facebook and take pictures of the space that you wish to convert into something eco-friendly. They would send you a graphic representation of how they wish to convert the space to crown it with beauty and once you finalise it, they will home-deliver your product.

Balcony Garden

Focussing on durability and affordability, the couple enthusiastically takes part in local fairs and kitchen and garden markets where they sell their beautiful world of plants with different design elements, covering various kinds of pots, plants and areas. They also aim to teach children who are about five years and above the basics about treating and caring for various plants. Their plan includes adult groups too who wish to know how to nurture their plants at home and maintain a garden in their balconies.

Now make your small spaces and balconies appear larger and magnificent…with nature!

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You love doodles and interesting lines on your tees and you find yourself doodling your way out during your leisure time. However, you cannot find interesting concepts on tees, t-shirts and sweat shirts whenever you go for shopping.

Have you heard of Alma Mater?

Every person living in Bangalore probably has and even wears the apparels and memorabilia that this Bangalore-based company offers to alumni students from different schools and colleges across India.

Started by Varun Agarwal and Rohn Malhotra in 2009, the former being in his 20s, an author, photographer, film-maker and co-founder of a million dollar company, Rupa Publications, Alma Mater has managed shipping more than 3,00,000 units till today and is on its tips always to innovate further and introduce better products. This passionate will to making things easy and better for the customers has led them to introduce PLAY, a customized service by the company to customize T-shirts online and also get it printed. Though there are other companies that go for customised merchandising options, but most of them are cumbersome and become irksome too when they are not as per the design and detailing you want on the apparel piece.

Varun Agarwal and Rohn Malhotra

Alma Mater PLAY provides people with the chance to doodle on tees and what more, you have 2000 art vectors and 800 designs to choose from. For companies wishing to come up with their own merchandise for projects and videos or schools and colleges deciding on customised apparels with their institute’s logo, the company makes the whole thought and process easier, just at a single click! A plain white boring T-Shirt can turn into something colourful with innovative designs, and brighter hues and prints when you log on to the website and hover your mouse arrow over the T-shirt and click on it.

Alma Mater PLAY

You can add the text that you like to, add the art design you want in it, the colours you like it in, choose the image you wish to upload on it and print and ship it as soon as you are done with your choices. The name PLAY suits the act of choosing designs and prints for T-shirts and tees as it is almost like playing with T-shirts. Cool! Isn’t it?

The earlier options for Customized Merchandizing at Alma Mater were time-consuming so the duo came up with PLAY that did a lot of time-cutting for the process of sending mails to the company, giving the design and colour options to the designers and then finally receiving mails that are with the final prints. Though it was a continuous hard work for 8 long months, the team has finally come up with a full-proof well-integrated system that can work with the back-end operations as well as the Print Output.

The PLAY tool has been popularised socially through PLAY Groups that enables people to creta designs using PLAY, whether it be for school, college, biker groups, gangs of girls, kitty parties, rock band, or a company and even a start-up venture. PLAY Group will save all your designs too for the future.

From Patna to Jabalpur to metro cities, the company has been able to spread its glory far and wide across India.  Tees, hoodies, sweat shirts and t-shirts are the best ways t improve marketing and branding for a company or group.

The company has worked with record-breaking 600 corporate houses, 2500 schools and colleges, 100 start-ups, 400 private groups across 180 Indian cities and 6 different countries with more than 3 lakh units customized and sold over the time.

The printing and manufacturing of all these products have lately become in-house that was earlier outsourced by Alma Mater. Now the chances are to maintain and offer the same quality material to each and every customer out there. In a month, the company ships about 15,000 units and prefers shipping orders of 20-50 apparels at a time so that the profit margins are higher.

The successful entrepreneurs have come a long way and their start-up journey, the roadblocks they underwent and the societal pressures they have gone through has all been recorded in a book called ‘How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company’ which has been a great success not only as a book but also as a video on Youtube with 1,22, 782 views.  The book has also sold like hot cakes and is a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs to understand how to care for one’s dreams and passions in life more than a third party telling you what you should do in life and how their children have fared well.

How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company

Agarwal’s message through the book is clear: “I just wanted to tell that if you want to be a carpenter, be a carpenter; don’t let anyone run your life.”

Agarwal has since found his way through Anu Aunty’s (his mother’s friend) nosy ways to realizing his entrepreneurship dreams as he has three companies in Bangalore running under him. The multitasking maven has even worked his way through associating himself with great musician A.R. Rahman and actress Preity Zinta, among some others.

He now wants his company to be a one-stop shop for all customized merchandising needs however, as he insists, the company will always favour school and college alumni and help in providing them with their memorabilia. He strongly believes in the motto, ‘Less words, more actions’. His message to aspiring entrepreneurs is painstaking sincerity, love for work, an aim to sell, setting numerous short-term and long-term goals and persistence even with failures. Do you have them in you?

The post Now Alma Mater Can Give You Customized Merchandizing Options! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

For all those working married women out there, who are jostling between workloads in office to busy meetings to client servicing to cooking at home, a Singapore-based company, Zimplistic by co-founders Pranoti Nagarkar and Rishi Israni brings you a convenient, easy to handle and less time-consuming solution for all your woes concerning deciding the consistency of the mix of water and flour to make rotis or low-calorie, whole-wheat flatbreads at home.

Pranoti Nagarkar and Rishi Israni

The duo has come up with a strikingly innovative device, a flagship device of the company, Rotimatic that comprises of compartments for flour and water where you are easily spared the guesswork of measurements as the product itself combines the two ingredients together and you just have to click a button for how many rotis you want. The device would fetch you hot puffy fully cooked rotis in a matter of a minute! Yes, that’s true!

The concept of automatic rotis is the basic concept behind Rotimatic which can automatically determine the quantity of flour and water because of an in-built system that can “auto-correct and auto-adjust.” The mastermind behind this idea, Pranoti herself confesses that she could not sustain her life by making rotis manually on a daily basis, something many modern-day women can identify themselves with.

Rotimatic

This is the brand that has come to be the world’s first robotic kitchen technology useful for many people around different societies in Asia, Fiji, Suriname, Tobago and Trinidad and some other parts of Africa.   Rotis are popularly consumed with cooked vegetables, curries and also as roti parantha, tandoori roti and rumali roti, apart from being served as wraps, pizzas, quesadillas and many other fiber-rich diets.

More than 5 million dollars have been generated through Rotimatic sales by July last year itself. The whole credit goes to the simplified healthy cooking and eating option that this robotic device provides for using its artificial intelligence system where flour is to water ratio is correctly measured to deliver rotis every minute. You can also opt to choose how soft, large, thick you want your rotis to be and even customize it the the type of oil and flour you want your rotis to be made with. It is all displayed on a LCD panel and you can even choose to create just the right-sized dough balls in few seconds if you just want to fry or bake them.

The automated robotic roti-maker has been designed and engineered by Pranoti while Rishi was more responsible for handling the software issues. Pranoti’s initial years went in pursuing Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore and working for Amtek, an engineering company where she learnt her skills of product development and came up with the idea of roti-making machines as for every other thing that we can do manually, there are machines, then why not for making rotis/chapatis that is a tedious process in itself.

Singapore, a country known for making business and start-ups easy and promoting entrepreneurships in recent years, saw Pranoti winning the national Start-up Singapore rivalry in 2009 for Zimplistic’s flagship innovation, Rotimatic that weighs 39 pounds comprising of 10 engines, 15 sensors and 300 sections that have the fast-pace ability to yield rotis every minute. For Indians, it is a double benefit as the roti-maker also enables you to make puris and dough balls. The colours and materials used in the device fit its elegant design and nonetheless look appealing.

There have been some other roti-makers too but they have been more common for the local markets or either have been too small or too huge to be able to use it often. The only thing needed for this device is the ingredients like water, flour and oil, for which the compartments have been segregated in the device and even the opening at base where the final product will be discharged. You can also add ingredients like cinnamon, salt and sugar that easily mix up with the water. A normal plug-in device that takes only about 5 minutes to get heated up to a temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit with an easy display to customize your roti preparation and an even easier method of clean-up as all its parts are detachable and dishwasher-safe.

Perfect roti

Zimplistic CEO and co-founder, Rishi Israni is thrilled with the response the device has got in US where California, New Jersey, Texas and New York all had put their hands up for this device. The company promises to ship all its pre-orders early this year on a first-come-first-serve basis. The orders yet to come will be shipped by later this year.

For the company, Rotimatic is just the beginning that is committed towards “bringing beautiful smart devices to all parts of kitchen” and to “bring health with convenience.”

The company and the successful entrepreneurs behind it, Rishi and Pranoti have managed to gain a global scale distribution as well as much attention in the general press as well as on social media. Next the duo aims to target South Asia and Indian expats living abroad. The company has also received remarkable investor funding, especially a 6 million dollar investment from Spring Singapore.

So the next generation of cooking innovation and technology is here where robots can almost feed you healthy fibrous food almost instantaneously and readily just at the click of a button!

The post Wait Until An Automated Robotic Machine Serves You Healthy Rotis! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

This being the season for weddings in India, why not talk about wedding planning?

With big, fat weddings a trend in the country, planning for all the grandeur, glitz and extravaganza that is associated with the wedding seems like a huge task and the burden is even greater if the groom, bride or either of the families want a specialized decor, food service, custom arrangement or the likes. And the drama that follows if any small arrangement falls out of place is a complete different story altogether!

WEDDING planning in India

Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about all this for the wedding that you are planning to have in the near future, Amrit Dugar, a very young but experienced wedding planner assures you through his service.

If you too are looking forward towards a grand and charismatic wedding event that will leave people spellbound, Amrit would give you “the best bang for your buck”.

Amrit Dugar – Youngest Wedding Planner in India

He understands that this industry is facing scanty skilled resources and manpower, leading to people’s belief that the wedding planning business is highly unorganized and all over the place. However, Amrit believes that in the past couple of years, the event management industry particularly wedding planning department has undergone drastic changes making the field more competitive, creative, fun, challenging and methodical. The event industry is even witnessing globalization effects but, Amrit says much needs to be done in this regard to meet the global standards.

However, if you come to know about Amrit’s journey to entrepreneurial success in the wedding planning industry, you would be taken aback that he joined his first event company, Rachnoutsav Events Pvt. Ltd. as an intern under Founder, Rakhi Kankaria, just two days after his class 12^th board exams. The youngest wedding planner, Amrit attended college alongside and undertook three years of training for four hours a day. He learnt all concepts and practices for event management with his training in fields like Office Assistance, Marketing, Administration and Production.

He has put in great efforts and even greater hours of passionate work while earning first a stipend of only Rupees 2000 and later after the completion of internship a mere 4000 rupees.

Later in the year 2007, when Amrit decided on starting a wedding planning company called PARINAY and thought of collaborating with Rachnoutsav, Rakhi came up with a master plan for Amrit making him a Wedding Planner at Rachnoutsav and later crowning him with the title of the Head of Wedding Planning Department at Rachnoutsav with his own team.

As the Head of this wedding planning department, Amrit has become a young achiever and earned many accolades at each wedding the team plans, as they have outdone their endeavours every time. Amrit has even managed three back to back weddings, all with different themes along with the celebrations associated with marriages like sangeet and mehndi, etc.

Vishakapatnam was the place where two weddings took place in a family on the same day and a third standalone wedding was also to take place at the same area as per the client’s needs and the event requirements dictated.

Where one of the themes was a South Indian one with hues of off white and saffron used in a combination, the wedding that followed in the same venue was based on an Indian contemporary theme along with dark gold imprints on the elegant off white and saffron accents. The third was on a completely different plan of action: a Purple Lotus theme. All these weddings took place in a short span of eight hours and the day and hour-wise meticulous planning saved the day for Amrit’s team as decor at residences and the wedding venues were planned according to the date of the functions. The material required for decor, carpets, drapes, lighting, and material for the Mandap arrangement had all been packaged and sent to Vizag from Hyderabad.

Amrit Dugar – Parinay

To such minute execution of plans, Amrit believes that each and every element that is used in the setting up of the event is segregated according to the needs of the event and shifted or sent to the desired location at the right time. He says, “I love the fact that I get a chance to stay connected with people from different walks of life, be it a Chairman of a billion dollar company or a carpenter, it gives me the high. Finally, the immense responsibility that a father entrusts you with, to make his daughter’s wedding a dream come true, is the ultimate satisfaction in this job.”

Amrit has helped his company win the laurel of being the Best Wedding Planners in India for 2009-2010. He not only heads the management, and Weddings and Celebrations of the company, but also caters to Tech Support and Online security Systems for the company, along with activities, sporting events and procurement needs/demands for weddings and large events.

For aspiring event managers, he believes that there is a much greater scope with some professional training and courses on the same. However, he strongly believes that there is no shortcut to success and after a good academic training, nothing more is required for carving his own niche in the field.

Amrit’s own words of inspiration for the newbies in the field:

“One should be passionate if one wants to make a successful career in this field. Always be open to the ideas. If you have the spark, then sky is the limit for your growth.”

The post How The Youngest Wedding Planner In India Made It Big! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

In India the word fairer sex is taken quite literally.

Kangana Ranaut made headlines by refusing a whopping Rs.2 crore offer to endorse a fairness cream. But how many top actresses would do that?

Forget celebs even as a common perception there is a strange craving for the fairer skin.

We even have songs like ‘gore gore mukhde pe kaala kaala chashma’. In this country can you let your daughter get dusky?

The plight of the mother of the first female surfer of India – Ishita Malaviya, would have been miserable when she heard that her daughter was into surfing.

“We were totally against it. We sent her here for journalism and not surfing”, her mother recalls when her daughter told her about her passion.

The dusky beauty that is celebrated all across the world is in a way looked down in our country.

Right from the time a girl is born in a family there is a rule book attached that she needs to adhere to. The roles and the way of conduct are factors always judged if you are a girl in India. The age gets divided into several bars and each bar sets a rule of the situation you are supposed to be. So for example by 25yrs the girl needs to get married, then in a year or two produce kids, etc.

Ishita talks about the challenge she faced breaking the ice and paving the way for thousands of talented girl surfers in the country.

She describes the fishermen being shocked when they saw her surfing.

In the video she talks about how she started giving surfing lessons to young girls along with her boyfriend.

The post India’s First Female Surfer Sets Tanning As The New Fad appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

It’s all about a  new start up company Chatar Patar by Prashant Kulkarni.

All you chaat lovers out there, can you live without pani-puri for four long months?

Well, I guess no. But, Prashant Kulkarni did and then he came up with a revolutionizing idea of branding pani-puris. Prashant used to work at Infosys to code software but realized early on in his life that working on a regular job was not what he wanted in life. So, he set out to carve his own niche in the world of chaat and all for chaat aficionados.

Chatar Patar Gujarat

It all started during his stint at Infosys when he fell sick after having road side pani-puris and had to live without his favourite all-time snack, pani-puri for four months, spurring him to research on a brand that offered pani-puris. But, to his misfortune or rather good luck, he could not find any brand synonymous with the popular Indian chaat.

Chatar Patar Paani Puri

Thus came into existence the concept of Gapagap, a benchmark in its own regard as this was to be India’s first pani-puri brand. India is known for its dhabas and chaats, yet though we have local dhabas to big household names in dhabas, we until recently did not have any chaat brand except for the local ones that we find at all road corners in different states of India.

Gapagap that had started with healthy pani-puris has now expanded to be an undisputed venture called ‘Chatar Patar’ with 112 different flavours of pani-puris, 80 varieties of bhel, 27 kinds of chaats and pohas, the most popular type of chaat/snack being Maggi Gapagap where different tastes have been merged together to make the regular Maggi much more tastier. Masala Fries, the Indian touch to French Fries, Idli Fries, Idli Chaat, Khakhra Chaat and also a combination of chaat and pizza called Chaatizza are something the public lies to binge on in a ‘Chatar Patar’ store.

chatar patar chaat

As Prashant’s research on pani-puri lovers in India made him come to the conclusion that about 85 percent of the population are die-hard fans of the chaat, he tried to meet the supply needs of the consumers as per their demand. For this, he came with an Indian model that was best suited for the country and the countrymen, even giving the venture an Indian name and starting an entirely street food based concept.

The ‘Chatar Patar’ store started from Indore but has paved its way through cities like Porbandar, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Vishakapattanam and even in Rajasthan and Maharashtra through franchisee options.

Chatar Patar Restaurant

The store’s recent tie-ups with Big Bazaar has happened in big states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Hailing from a business family, Prashant has faced much mental blockages from fellow Indians who have always looked down upon him thinking he must be crazy to live a big tech group like Infosys to open a pani-puri brand. The transfer of ingredients needed to make pani-puris through supply chains and logistics have been more than challenging for Prashant as it has been difficult to bring the ingredients of bhel and panipuri masala from Indore to other cities of India. Also, he had to take care of the budget while transferring the ingredients as his is a start-up, and meeting a partner who can help him with these issues has been quite a deal for the young entrepreneur.

However, Prashant has received the mentorship of Mr. Vivek Ray who has been an expat from the food industry and has effectively guided several business expansions. Prashant has also been lucky to have his parent’s support and advice in various issues.

Chatar Patar – Prashant Kulkarni

The basic guiding star and the factor around which his entrepreneurial venture revolves is however, the customer himself, according to whom the dishes are customized. If the customer has a delightful food experience, will he then spread the word about the cooking and the place. All the different flavours and tastes have been created keeping in mind the customer’s needs. If the customer enjoys one flavour more than the other and asks others to try it too, the chaat store would get a better response. Not only the word of mouth, the social media and SMS services are also used to the full to bring more and more customers to the food table of the chaat corner!

Prashant plans to move step by step in his offbeat venture, by first having a strong hold on Indian customers and then taking the food abroad. Chaat is a well-known dish in India that is akin to all taste palettes in the country, making the quick service restaurant (QSR) system grow at a really fast pace.

Chatar Patar is certainly good news for teens and young children who completely adore chaats but are more often than not rebuffed by their parents if they ask for it! So go and enjoy healthy pani-puri options you know where! (*winks*)

The post Infosys Techie Leaves Company To Have A Healthy Chaat Brand, ‘Chatar Patar’ appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

What if you could have graphical and colourful images of Bollywood films and portraits of your favourite film stars in your favourite roles, in unique shades and hues and meaningful sketches at home? And think when all of this is minimalistic and not loud!

When they say, ‘A Picture is worth a thousand words’, Akshar Pathak, a young poster artist and graphic designer actually means it through his Minimal Bollywood Posters and Tweetards. If you look at his poster of Anil Kapoor in Mr. India (1987), you will be able to resonate the image with the film really well, as just like Anil Kapoor is otherwise invisible but can only be seen in infra-red or red light area, his poster too paints the lead actor of the movie in the same fashion. Wouldn’t it be cool to keep such a portrait of Mr. India on your wall?

His images are both theme-based and visually appealing while using minimalist colours and focussing on aesthetically pleasing pictures that do not shout the movie name but give a big hint and reveal the basic theme. They are either the most famous dialogue of the movie or an image of a thing, place or name, creatively letting out on the basic concept behind the film that has lured maximum audience. Take for instance, his images of the movie Band Baaja Baraat (2010) where he just portrays a bread pakora with the dialogue ‘ki kasam’!

His Facebook page, Minimal Bollywood Posters (started February 2012) is doing pretty good with numerous likes now and has become the rage on micro-blogging site Twitter as well. It is as if through these images, Pathak is making people look at a fresh perspective to the film and what he considers to be the iconic scene from the movie. Well, what to say other than simplicity at its best!

Pathak’s love for painting and sketching and the Batman – Shaktimaan mash-up comics that he used to create has led him to a profession in this career, where he used both sketching and Photoshop to his aid to make these attractive and meaningful posters, which he likes to call ‘uncomplicated’. He strongly believes that his work is meant for his pleasure as much as client’s needs. Though this initiative of minimalist aesthetics started out as nothing but a joke, where Pathak was influenced by Ibraheem Youssef’s concept pictures for Quentin Tarantino’s films, he could not have known that this idea would create a rage among social media fans and the Bollywood industry. He has also been asked to make such posters for Happily Unmarried, Comic Con India, a design and marketing firm, DSYN and currently Zomato.

However, his minimalistic posters, he believes cannot be strong contenders for promoting films unlike it is done for advertisements. He has only designed posters for films that have witnessed a theatrical release such as Zanjeer (1973) and Amar Prem (1972). The film posters these days reveal much about the film to lure audiences and here, his minimalist aesthetics based on a striking quality or element of the film might not work. However, Pathak remains hopeful that gradually and eventually, the art of minimalism will be a recognized one and will become heavily popular.

Such is his genius that he can create posters only with a familiar song, dialogue or an item frequently used in the movie without even having watched it. He did the same for Mohra (1994) where he only knew that the song ‘Tip Tip Barsa Pani’ is from this movie!

Pathak’s brainchild, Tweetard is an initiative where he makes graphical images or posters out of either his own tweets or other’s tweets. His Tweetards help to keep the effect of witty and lame jokes and interesting tweets permanent through beautiful pictures that form an entire gallery. Could you believe even tweets could be handpicked and made graphical?

While for Minimal Bollywood Posters, Akshar has used the fact that people in India love to watch movies and used it to deconstruct and simplify movie ideas for them, thus converting them into minimalist art. Many popular Bollywood movies have been a part of this art form, the poster art by Pathak, whether it be the depiction of orange juice and carom board in Munnabhai MBBS or the old conventional telephone of yesteryears in Hera Pheri. As of Pathak, he takes ideas and suggestions from people on the movies he wants to make posters for, but his illustrations are completely his own ideas based on the visual relations he experiences while watching a movie.

To celebrate 100 years of Bollywood cinema, Pathak is planning on making a book with perforations that will help them tear out pages and both gift them or keep it to themselves. While he still plans on executing this idea, you may check out some of his posters that are meant “to eliminate any confusion from the start by having a single, strong vocal point and for the world to see, its fresh, clutter breaking and ahead of its times.”

The post Explore Minimalist Art in Bollywood With Akshar Pathak! appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

The online world has changed much with job interviews to dating online.

But, how about if you come to know that you can have an exactly similar online relationship as you can offline?

Sharing moments, planning dates and searching for places to meet with your partner is now possible online.

You can even break-up with your partner online and move on to someone you like.

This has all been made possible with Qupid, an app for Indian couples or rather a private online space where both can share their most personal thoughts and give expressions to their life plans together without having anyone else to interrupt. The conversation between the couple can only be accessed by either of the partners.

Qupid is an initiative by a 19-year-old student, Qaiser Malik who had earlier gained a first-hand experience of a start-up business in the Indian market with a Lucknow-based company called Pixter, a social networking app that he created along with few friends.

Pixter could not come up to the level Qupid has reached and we will tell you why and how.

Qupid allows you to send Sensations that couples almost always feel in love. Sensations when they feel like kissing each other or just smiling at the thought of their partner. When you feel such sensations you can also send such sensations or virtual kisses and love buzzes to your partner to let him/her know your thoughts about them at the present moment and thus make their day.

If you want to share something personal about your partner, or set up particular reminders, you can even do that as well through this app by just writing and sharing feeds about your loving partner and personal reminders that you can save as personalized notes for specific dates in your relationship or those special days/occasions you intend to celebrate.

When monotony creeps in your marital life or even in a committed relationship that has been ongoing for years, you can make Notes for your anniversaries, birthdays and plans of coffee dates, movie outings or shopping and late night dinner adventures. Date Planner and Notes would help you achieve this and plan things for your life together. Sharing pictures and texting feeds can also help make the moment get captured in Qupid Memory Lane for later reviewing. You also come to know when the text is read, just like the new blue ticks facility in Whatsapp. Making certain conversations, images and secrets exclusive for a couple and keeping a common timeline personal between both partners is all what Qupid provides for.

Qaiser got his technical know-how team in Nikhil who owns Trendsetterz IT Services and guided and mentored the former on how to enhance services of the app and also invested in its development.

This app also provides a list of all nearby places such as coffee shops, shopping stores, malls, parks, restaurants, et al for couples can save time as well as prove convenient. If one partner is able to find a good nearby restaurant, s/he can send the info to his/her partner through the app and both can then meet up in the restaurant, without having to ask for a nearby restaurant from a friend and call your partner separately to that place. It can all be possible on a single platform.

Couples also have the freedom to break-up here and move on to the next relationship provided both the partners have broken up with each other, they can connect to another person here. There is a high level of security involved as an account operates and connects with a single phone number. You can also erase all data in Qupid app by deleting your account and maintain privacy and security for your personal files by keeping an in-built app lock.

Launched in October 2014 in India, this app is doing well both for Indian as well as international users where according to Qaiser, Sensations, Date Planners and Love Buzz is quite popular among the youth. With more than 1000 users in such a short span of time, Qaiser claims that “more than 75 percent of the traffic on the app is generated via Indians while the rest comes form other parts of the world.” 

The first version of the app has been made available on Android but its iOS version is still to come up and increasing use by the youth through e-commerce ventures is something Qaiser is targeting at for the future.

The app is a success now and with technological advances and internet buzz all around the youth, most young people own smartphones now and find it easy to chat, share pictures, comments and even laughs online. However, some may still find the offline experience much more real or may even opine that virtual kisses, online memory lanes and exclusive secrets can make you long for and want your partner by your side and not over the other end of the app service. Breaking up online might also be not so favoured by some people while others may find it easier and hassle-free.

Qupid, on the other hand, as Qaiser claims started with the aim of “bringing the real life experience into a virtual space where people can communicate and behave with their better half just like they do in real life”, with a personal space for Indian couples without “multiple users and distractions.”

So, while the services of this app and its usage is subject to your judgement and opinion, would you send Sensations and plan dates with Date Planner on Qupid this Valentine’s?

The post Would You Go For A Hatke Couple App This Valentine’s? appeared first on Youngisthan.in.