My story started in a tiny village near Jodhpur, where I spent my childhood till the 2003 Cricket World Cup. To this day, I remember the entire tournament: Sachin’s 150 against Namibia, Nehra’s 6-wicket haul against England, our semifinal against Kenya, and how Sachin got out in the very first over! As you can guess, I used to love cricket, but there was no desire to become a cricketer someday.
My path in life was influenced by my father. He was the first graduate from our village, and that inspired me to work hard. It’s fair to say that I inherited my competitive spirit from him. Growing up, I changed a lot of schools, and made friends from different cities in Rajasthan. Eventually, I ended up at Kendriya Vidyalaya, where I made friends from all over India.
Later, I joined MBM Engineering College in Jodhpur and did B.E. in computer science. Initially, I did not like my subject, but when I discovered competitive coding, I fell in love with it. My curiosity pushed me to read about the history of the computers, the DARPA era, how the Internet was conceived, legends from Bell Labs, and the beginning of the FOSS movement.
In my final year, I built a lot of software just because I wanted to, and started contributing to open-source projects. Two days before Valentine's Day, I wrote a programme to generate pick-up lines to help my fellow, introvert nerds.
After graduation, I joined Vedanta Resources, a mining company, as an IT engineer in 2017. I quit in less than 3 months as I did not find the work impactful enough. Eventually, I joined a legal tech company in Gurgaon called MyAdvo. That was my first tryst with startups. Here, I learned everything from building a SaaS product to leading the team to get feedback directly from every level, be it customers or co-founders. I met brilliant folks like Anil, Manik, and Mohit, who are my closest friends today.
When the pandemic hit, we ran out of funding, and I joined BlinkIt.
Here, I have learnt everything about building things at scale and how they can suddenly break at scale. It’s a different ball game altogether, and I am fortunate to interact with an awesome bunch of nerds, hustlers, and polyglots. I love pace and being competitive – exactly what instant commerce is all about – but I enjoy expanding my mind more. The best thing about being a Blinker in the tech team is that you are constantly learning something new every day. There is no such thing as a boring day at work.
Lastly, if there is one thing I truly believe, everything you accomplish – physically, mentally, financially – is never really owned by you. It is rented and the rent is due every day.
I was born in Delhi to a disadvantaged family. Later, my father left us when I was 15. He was a stonemason and with his departure, I couldn’t concentrate on my studies. I ended up flunking my 12th exams.
I was born and brought up in Chandigarh. Blessed with a flawless childhood, I enjoyed a lovely family, the finest of education and a sound social life. In school, I excelled in studies as well as extracurricular activities.
Before I share my story, I want us to remember that India largely resides in its villages and towns. There are a lot of people in our country who have a lot of potential, but they seldom get the opportunity to prove their worth.