Because Shit Happened

by Harsh Snehanshu

  When Amol first disclosed the idea of YourQuote to me, I couldn’t exactly get it and was thoroughly skeptical. It was too writer-oriented for me. But when he shared his vision that it could sprout up writers in ordinary people, I could see its scope. Much like Facebook, with its photo-sharing features, has sparked off photography enthusiasts; similarly YourQuote could do the same. Moreover the response on his YourQuote blog had been quite stunning, and since I was an avid follower of his blog, I made my decision quickly. The concept of equal division of equity and designation was what I expected of Amol, because I felt that he was honest and righteous. Today, I don’t feel so anymore.

  The initial phase was fun. Both of us being competent in our respective fields, we nabbed followers on our facebook page together with T-shirt orders. Amol’s creativity was at its pinnacle during this time, when he created amazing content, engaged the followers around our brand with unparalleled dexterity that could have even put social media experts to shame, and built our community from 0 to 14,000 organically in just four months. I admired and valued Amol’s creativity and made sure that the hassles of marketing didn’t affect him in any way. I rarely shared with him the marketing details, the painstaking negotiations, and the irate customers who treated me like their servants.

  During these initial months, I, along with Anjali and others, realized Amol had a short temper. During discussions, he always had something to do—either talk to Priya or post something useless on the fan page. Anjali had nicknamed him ‘Mr Ants in his Pants’, for he could never sit with us to discuss for long hours. But still, I made sure that he missed none of the strategy discussions. All important points and outcomes were always mailed to him asking for his suggestions, to which we rarely got a reply. With time, I realized two of Amol’s most important shortcomings—his inability to read thoroughly and inability to listen. Trust me, you can’t make him read anything, until he’s thoroughly interested in it. And about listening, you should better ask his girlfriend. Oh sorry, Priya is no more his girlfriend now.

  Slowly, Amol’s resistance to change came to the front. He was highly disorganized, preferred to be governed by will rather than a set of disciplines. He wanted to do everything on the spot, nothing was pre-planned, which freaked the hell out of me. Somebody needed to tell him that he was not running his proprietary firm but a private limited company. When I chose to be blunt, he got offended as once again, his creative freedom got affected. I had no option other than pulling my hair out and cringing in frustration.

  Later on, when Mishra ditched us, he assumed control of the tech department and screwed it completely with such slow work that even a school student could have done better than him. He kept the website for three months, THREE LONG MONTHS, and we observed no progress. He was busy drooling over his love loss, his unrealistic day-dreams that he kept boasting about on Facebook, and his affair with Shikha. Despite being so inefficient and inept, in defense to himself, he dared to question my work—MY WORK—to which any diligent CEO with enough self respect would have lost his mind. I had to show him the reality and I did.

  Sometimes I feel that he was too complacent about the fact that his books were selling and he was earning through them that allowed him to take a backseat in the venture, for he didn’t experience the kind of struggle that I did. I could see his disenchantment with the company for a long time and I’m happy that whatever decision he took, it has been the best for the company. He had the option to challenge me and uproot me from the Director’s position but he didn’t do that, because he knew that he was not capable to run this company in any way. He lacks the entrepreneurial spirit.

  I’m sure that he would also have pointed out his anguish about my becoming the CEO of the company. I leave it upon you to decide. Had you been in my place, would you have allowed your company to be run by loose hands as his? Could you have allowed your destiny to be dictated by a person who doesn’t even care about his own?

  I have not hurt him. I have not hurt his self respect. I just showed him the brutal reality that he had been sitting, idling, and crapping all over our dream, rather my dream. And now see how rapidly I will take YourQuote ahead from here, without a limiting factor like him. I have a new resolve now to take this venture to the pinnacle of glory, just because shit happened.

  I could just say one thing—dream alone or else get stifled by others.

  Death of a Child

  February 8

  Having slept late, I woke up late on the day of the operation. It was 10 am already. Seeing several missed calls from my family members, I immediately rushed to the hospital. Mom had gone into the operation theatre at 8.30 am and the operation was going to be three hours long after which she would remain unconscious for another two hours.

  Dad asked me if I was alright. He wanted to know whether I’d got any reply from Rishabh. I hadn’t got one yet. He wanted everything to be sorted out without affecting our friendship, which was impossible, because it was a matter of self respect and nothing could heal a wound on one’s self respect, as I witnessed in case of Priya.

  My father initiated the topic about what I would do next, to which I flashed a dumb smile. I had no friggin’ idea about what I would do next. We all waited in dreadful silence for Mom to arrive. I checked my mail and still there was no response from Rishabh’s end. I could understand that it would have been a big blow to him, but I also knew that it was well deserved. He took me for granted, after all.

  My mother came out of the operation theatre at 11 am sharp. The smiles on the faces of the doctors assured me that the operation had been successful. The doctor gifted me a bundle of her gall stones in a jar. The cervical tissue had been sent for biopsy and only one hour later would the report come. My father expressed gratitude to the doctors with a tearful smile.

  As we waited for her to regain consciousness, I received a mail from Rishabh. It was not the reply to my mail, but instead he reported a bug on the website and rightfully demanded me to fix it. It was similar to the attitude we had shown to Mishra before he ditched us, when we didn’t listen to his grievances and asked him to work further. But in my case, it was of no use.

  A nurse arrived and informed us that the operation had indeed been undertaken at the right time, because the cervical tissue indeed was turning cancerous. My mother had post-zero stage cancer. The word cancer diffused silence throughout the room. We could just thank God for allowing it to get diagnosed before spreading further.

  An hour later, there was a message in my Facebook inbox. An angry, vindictive, and stupid message by an extremely stupid woman. Anjali Yadav.

  I will pray for aunty’s good health and will come to see her tomorrow.

  I have removed you from my friend list because the more I see your updates and comments, the more I start hating you. There was a time when I used to admire you a lot for your genuineness and principles, but now all I know is that you have two sides to your personality—a virtual side and a real side.

  I know I am wrong in sending this message today, but I couldn’t stop myself when I heard some more things about YourQuote and you. Anyway, I hardly matter to you, so you are not losing a friend in your life. I might be wrong in my judgement, but very honestly I want to see the theory of karma work in this case so desperately. Bye.

  ‘Ha!’ I laughed out loud breaking the lull. Vehemently, I replied saying, ‘No need to come. Thank you from my entire family. There couldn’t have been a better time to send this message. Bye.’

  I spoke to my lawyer uncle and updated him about my mother’s health followed by a quick discussion about my prospects with YourQuote. He insisted on my buying out Rishabh’s equity at an escalated price because the new investor Mr Mukherjee was ready to invest in the company. I rejected his suggestion.

  By this time, I had made my mind to quit so firmly that I chose to not go ahead. Ever since I sent that resignation mail to Rishabh, I got an outsider perspective to my own startup. Now, I didn’t want to continue with YourQuote because of th
e ghoulish memory it sparked off in my mind.

  I chose to call Darsheel thereafter and told him that I had to quit the venture because of my mother’s health while Rishabh would continue. I told him that I had full faith in him, which he accepted after initial hiccups and asked, ‘Then I should ask for the financials from him, isn’t it?’

  I connected them over a mail. I responded to the initial mail and assured Rishabh:

  I don’t want to get involved in any mudslinging. I wouldn’t bad-mouth you about anything that has happened. I will tell all our past and present employees that I am leaving because of my mother’s bad health. I have talked to Darsheel and the investor is still ready to invest in the company. You are requested to send him the financials as soon as possible, because he had been waiting for them for quite some time.

  Rishabh replied immediately, in a slightly arrogant tone.

  You won’t bad-mouth me? What have I done to be bad-mouthed about?

  Anyway, thanks for making it easier for me to continue from here. Now see how fast I take this company forward. Within two months, I would make it a million dollar company. I have already started working on the next steps. Just hand over the company to me and let me take it forward. I will give you a share of 5 percent from the amount I receive when I manage to sell the company. Otherwise if you keep hold of the 50 percent stake of your company, no investor will be willing to invest.

  He had a point. I agreed to his condition.

  I posted on the group that contained all the team-members—past and new that owing to my mother’s bad health, I was quitting the venture, as I was going back home to take care of her.

  People were sympathetic towards me but more towards Rishabh, who now had to decide which direction to take the company. Rishabh, contrary to what he had said to me in the mail, sought more sympathy with his comment, ‘Should I continue or leave the venture?’

  I was the first one to reply, ‘Of course you should continue.’ People followed up with motivational comments.

  Transferring the directorial rights in a private limited company turned out to a tedious procedure. That’s where proprietorships are advantageous. One should never register a venture as a private limited company before investment, as the young guns don’t really know whether they will remain together or break apart later on. I let him buy my stake in zero bucks. Knowing each other’s financial conditions, I signed on the paper which read that I received 50,000 rupees from Rishabh Dev, Director of YourQuote Marketing Private Limited, without actually receiving the amount.

  He nevertheless assured 5 percent later on. I didn’t doubt him because Rishabh was a man of his word, but the prospect of a sellout later on seemed improbable. My five days absence had started showing in the quality of YourQuote posts that had deteriorated and my friends, who didn’t yet know about my disassociation with the venture, complained.

  Five days later, Darsheel called me and said that he was unimpressed by Rishabh as he had still not sent the financials to him. Being a lazy ass when it came to sedentary work, I couldn’t expect anything more from Rishabh. I was least bothered and informed Darsheel that he was free to do whatever he wanted.

  I announced publicly that I was going home in March, leaving everything that I was a part of. Comments flooded, the number of why’s outnumbered the number of likes. I had no answer for it. After humoring them with a response like, ‘If I begin answering your why, I would end up writing a book,’ I deactivated my account.

  Rishabh meanwhile mailed me to not talk about YourQuote on Facebook in any way, as he was in talks with some investors (something that he clearly lied about). I assured him that I had already deactivated my account and wouldn’t be activating it for a month at least and reminded him that Darsheel had been waiting for the financials.

  My announcement of quitting raised many eyebrows, made many critics of YourQuote smile in joy, made many admirers and followers sad.

  Out of all the mails, one stood out. It was from a long lost name in my memory. Shikha.

  I am so happy for you that you chose to quit YourQuote. It would help you reach your fullest potential. Rishabh wasn’t a nice guy. He wouldn’t have allowed anybody creative to flourish there.

  Fearing that it might be one of her desperate ways to hook up with me, I chose not to reply to her. I was over my past. I activated my Facebook account and observed Rishabh’s last status. It said: Dream alone. Else get stifled by others. Angry, I updated my status with:

  You can tolerate

  Criticism, taunts and insults

  If the person who gives it to you

  Matters to you

  You can’t tolerate

  Criticism, taunts and insults

  If the person who gives it to you

  Doesn’t matter to you

  Two hours after I updated the status, I received a mail from Rishabh.

  Amol,

  I need a public declaration—either in mail, or in your blog/note—containing three points:

  1.

  Rishabh is an able leader and you have full trust in him running the venture

  2.

  You hold the team members of YourQuote in high esteem and you have faith in them

  3.

  You left the venture because of your mother’s bad health

  It is needed because you are leaving Delhi in a while and will not be accessible (I suppose). I need it as an evidence for an investor/any third party interested in buying us.

  I was amused by the confidence with which he could rightfully ask for those three points, none of which were true. He had bad-mouthed me in the entrepreneurial circles, as my fellow entrepreneurs conveyed that he blamed me for shrewdly extricating myself upon realizing that the idea wasn’t working, thus hiding the reality that actually it was our team that wasn’t. Being sour about the unjust allegation, I chose not to cooperate with him.

  I don’t understand why you need it all of a sudden. First of all, you haven’t kept in touch with Darsheel and he has been complaining to me that he hasn’t yet received the financials. Moreover, I would prefer to privately tell the investor the same things than to portray the untruth publicly, because:

  1.

  I don’t believe that you are a great leader. Had you been a great leader, you would have managed to prevent your partner from quitting the venture. But you couldn’t even utter a mild sorry for your insulting mail.

  2.

  Regarding team members, first of all, let me bust the myth that there is a team. There was just one other person working in our venture for the last three months, Anjali, in whom, you very well know how much faith I have.

  3.

  Come on, how dare you ask me to lie publicly about the reason. We both know the reason. If you have forgotten, check the resignation mail once again.

  Now that I fearlessly faced him, I realized that I was stronger, more logical and most importantly, right as well. Unlike other times, when seeing his name in my inbox vexed me, this time I waited for his mail to arrive. It arrived, rather soon in just two minutes.

  Well done. That’s what I could have expected from you. You are unreliable to the core. You claim that you would keep your account deactivated for a month and then ten minutes later, you are online and posting random gibberish. It’s ironical that you are a writer, which should makes you a man of words, but you aren’t a man of your word.

  You know what, you left not because of any of the above reason, but because you know that you don’t deserve to be an entrepreneur. You don’t have it in you.

  By not writing a public letter, you are putting your 5 percent in jeopardy.

  His words had stopped affecting me, as though I was insulated against them. He should have been the one thanking me for inducting him into entrepreneurship else he would have been rotting like Priya and her comrades in a shitty company like EWZ.

  I kept my reply simple.

  Thank you. Now that you have started stalking me, let me help you out. I have blocked you. You ca
n breathe a sigh of relief that now you won’t have to read my random gibberish.

  And about the 5 percent, keep it with you. I don’t want it.

  Yes, I didn’t want anything out of the two years that I had spent into YourQuote. Not because of my ego, which definitely was huge but because I knew with Rishabh’s diseased attitude the company would be going nowhere and die a tragic death.

  On February 29, after spending half a month sleeping at borrowed beds, I went to the Malviya Nagar house for the one last time and moved all my stuff to a new house in Safdarjung Enclave, where I shifted along with my sister Saumya.

  ‘Have you shifted to your new home?’ Mom asked me on the phone a few hours after we had shifted.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Rishabh say anything to you?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a sorry for what he or Anjali said to you?’ Mom persisted.

  How could I have told her that she was expecting something totally impossible. Rishabh had never ever apologized for anything that he’d done. I told her that I was coming back home in a day. She ended the conversation with a saying, ‘A person who doesn’t have the heart to apologize, doesn’t have a heart at all.’

  Her statement pierced my psyche and Priya’s face emerged out of nowhere. I didn’t have the courage to apologize to her verbally. I wrote a mail, asking her to forget whatever I’d done or said, for I knew that I didn’t deserve to be forgiven, I didn’t deserve her. She didn’t reply.

  Having nothing left or undone and finished with the shifting, I went back to Dhanbad, my hometown to be with my mother for a few days.