Roti, Internet aur Makaan (Food, Internet and Shelter)

Dear Reader,

If you are entrepreneur (or have ever been one) and didn't have the luxury of getting funded early on, you may have faced numerous situations where you have to cut costs both in your business as well as in your personal life. What are the bear essentials that got you through?

There may also have been numerous times when you doubted your start-up course or wished you had taken on a path that you initially did not want to. Did you stick to your course or take the path of least resistance?

Roti, Kapada aur Makaan (Food, Clothing and Shelter) - is a 1974 Bollywood movie about a protagonist struggling to support his family in a life of poverty and trying to get out of poverty, in-spite of being educated and unable to find a job. Eventually, he is faced with a dilemma; whether to stick to his morals or take the path of least resistance (possibly even illegal).

I have NOT seen the movie and I don't know how it ends. I'm not much into 3-hour melodramatic movies. In fact, I was born years after the movie was released!

Side Note: There is a song in the movie, Mehngai Maar Gayi, which is essentially a plead by a bunch of labourers about how 'Mehengai' (inflation or expensiveness) will eat away everything of what is left... or something like that (my Hindi fails me here). I still think this rant is applicable even in 2015

But here's the difference...


The essence of a similar 2015 movie is no longer Roti, Kapada aur Makaan but Roti, Internet aur Makaan.

One cannot do without Roti. You need food to survive.

One cannot do without Makaan. You need some kind of shelter preferably your own.

I don't mean to say that kapada is longer required. It is, and it is essential but Internet access provides many advantages and conveniences.

Kapada - non-designer and designer, affordable and not-affordable - is accessible in 2015 with a little effort. Internet, on the other hand, provides access to and convenience of communications, banking, shopping, education, news, weather, music, videos, entertainment, games, real-time events, real-time prices, information of all kinds, you can market yourself, you can sell something, you can rant, you can comment, you can protest, you can gather support, you can contribute, you can make friends, you can find a life partner, you can watch porn, etc. You name it and you have it (you can't, however, exercise on the Internet!)

You can buy unbranded clothes for as low as Rs. 200 ($3.5) on the Internet!

Some would say, it is no longer Roti, Kapada aur Makaan but Roti, Gaadi aur Makaan (this is true in countries where automobile dependency is high, or maybe it is not! I don't have a better counter argument nor any supporting data. Maybe we should just ask someone who doesn't have both, knows the advantages/disadvantages of each, and see what their preference is, Gaadi or Internet).

Going back to an entrepreneurs life... if you are an Internet entrepreneur, perhaps Internet is more important to you than even Roti and Makaan :)

What do you think? What is your Roti, ________, Makaan?

Regards,
Jyothin

PS1: Gaadi here refers to an owned 2-wheeler or a 4-wheeler.

PS2: For a while I felt I was not doing justice to this blog. I felt I was biased towards Internet when compared to Gaadi. So, I drew on some of my own experiences of other's personal preferences. I was, of course, limited to only those who live in the cities, earn well and personally don't give a damn either way. But nevertheless, 1) at a dinner with friends, the topic of discussion was about a couple who recently bought their second car; which car was better, who used what and when. It even went down to the husband and wife upping each other on which one of them had the better car. Needless to say, the bigger car won, 2) owning your own vehicle is a dream come true for some, especially those who never had the luxury of owning one. For them, Gaadi IS more important than Internet. After all, personal vehicles have been around longer than the Internet, 3) the comfort of having your own vehicle means you can go anywhere, anytime, have your own personal space, etc. which to some means more than having an Internet connection, 4) you don't get an adrenalin rush with high speed Internet but you do get one driving fast. What other reasons can you think of?

Therefore, a more apt title to this blog is, perhaps, Roti, Internet, Makaan aur Gaadi!!

PS3: I met a fellow entrepreneur in the transportation & logistics space and for some reason, out of the blue, he was telling me that Gaadi is important to get 'access' to Roti, Kapada aur Makaan. I wasn't too convinced. What do you think?

PS4: If you know how the movie ends, drop me a note in the comments section.

PS5: I have increased the font size in this blog

PS6:
Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja
Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja
Long drive jayenge, full speed jayenge, kahi rukenge na hum
Gaana-bajana khaana-peena gaddi mein hoga sanam

Is not the same as...

Aaja meri Internet mein surf kar
Aaja meri Internet mein surf kar
High speed upload, full speed download, kabhi rukenge na hum
Email-chatting shopping-vidoes Internet mein hoga sanam