Because Shit Happened

by Harsh Snehanshu

  February 5

  Early morning, I went to receive my father while Rishabh left for IIT. On way, Darsheel called me to ask for the financials. I realized we had forgotten to send it. I profusely apologized and asked him for a day or two. I called Rishabh and asked him whether he had been working on the financials, after all he was the CEO and preparing the financials was his responsibility. He told me he was hoping I would take care of it, as had always been the case. Saying that I wouldn’t get time as my parents were over at our place, I asked him to take over. He reluctantly complied.

  My father had taken a loan for the operation, making me feel guilty for not being able to pool in during that difficult hour. All through the day, I sat next to my parents who asked me about the future scope of YourQuote. I assured them the future was going to be very bright, now that we had finally got an investor. Rishabh informed me late at night that he would not be coming over and would spend the night at some junior’s room in the IIT hostel. He didn’t hint whether he had completed the financials or not.

  February 6

  Early in the morning, we went to the hospital. Now that my Dad had come over, he, along with my sister took care of my mother, while I ran from floor to floor finding nurses, buying medicines, and finalizing the room expenditure, with my father’s credit card though.

  My output of work in the past four days had been less than 4 hours a day. Valentine week’s was yet to be started and I had to launch a contest for it too. I sighed thanking my luck that Rishabh was against having a sponsor this time and I didn’t need to be on my toes for the next one week.

  It took me three hours of continuous nagging to clear up the advance bills, get the room cleaned and have my mother shifted from the general ward to the single room. I had intentionally chosen a single room for her that had one extra double bed-cum-sofa for two attendants, so that my father and sister could stay along and wouldn’t need to stay at my place in Malviya Nagar. It cost 20,000 rupees more than the usual and I kept my father in dark about it.

  I was attending my mother at the hospital that night when I got a call from Rishabh who seemed excited. ‘Amol, grand news. I have found a sponsor for the contest. It’s not giving money, but prizes.’

  ‘But, we decided against any prizes, didn’t we?’

  ‘We decided, yes, but now I have found one. Now the contest won’t be without a buzz. Isn’t this amazing? Whenever you come back, just launch the contests. Details have been mailed,’ I was too tired to question him further.

  ‘I will do that once I get back home,’ I said and continued, ‘What about the financials that Darsheel wanted, did you work on it?’ only to find out that he had cut the call by then.

  I returned home, leaving my parents and sister at the hospital. As Rishabh had assured, there lay a mail in my inbox but it didn’t contain the details of the prizes. The sponsor was a small-scale e-merchandizing company called Gift Shop, and after seeing their website, I realized that Rishabh must have tricked him into the deal. I started working on the contest poster design and fell off to sleep in no time.

  February 7

  It was Rose Day and the day when we were going to launch our Valentine Week contest. I posted details of the contest on our website saying—Come up with an original and witty pick-up line containing the word ‘rose’ for your crush and win attractive prizes from Gift Shop.

  I left for the hospital thereafter, dropping a mail saying I would return late in the afternoon. It was a resting day for my mother, who was to be operated on 8th morning. Just when I reached the hospital, the doctor arrived and asked my parents to sign a legal document. It was a gruesome document and my Dad assured my mother that it was just a formality. I peered at the document and my feet froze upon seeing what was printed there.

  The surgery to be undertaken on February 8 for the patient is one of the most intricate surgeries in medical science. The patient is being informed that it won’t be doctor’s or hospital’s responsibility in case any mishap like a deformity, an infection, or death occurs. Only when the patient and his guardian sign the document, will the doctor perform the surgery.

  ‘Everything will be alright Dad,’ I assured him. ‘There is so much left to see and take pride. Right now I have just found an investor, and you will see that within the next few years, you will bear witness to my interview with Oprah once I sell YourQuote to Facebook for a billion dollars, our first Sedan, and our bungalow in Dubai. Why do you need to worry?’ I allowed him to daydream along with me. He smiled in hope. One of the best things about my parents was that they never belittled my dream.

  ‘Son, we are waiting for the day when your face will appear on the cover of Time Magazine, like Mark Zuckerberg,’ my father said, taking my dream one notch higher. I smiled.

  ‘Come on, stop day dreaming. Let him focus on his work. We are wasting his time,’ my mother scolded my father.

  ‘Come on Mom, how can you even think that being with you is wasting my time?’

  In the afternoon, around 2, my aunty arrived at the hospital with a couple of more relatives. I went back to my place to freshen up. My sister accompanied me. Rishabh was not at home as usual. I logged in to check my mail. There was a mail from Darsheel, who had connected me to Mr Mukherjee, saying he had agreed to invest 20 lakhs at 10 percent equity in our venture and was waiting to receive financial forecasts from us. I jumped in utter joy and screamed a loud ‘yes’ that scared my sister, who came running towards me. I hugged her and chanted, ‘We’ve finalized an investor for 20 lakhs!.’ My sister hugged and picked up her phone to inform Mom and Dad. I stopped her saying that I will tell them in person.

  The mail further stated that if Mr Mukherjee is satisfied with the forecasts, he would credit the first quarter of 5 lakh rupees in our bank account by February 13 to allow us to quickly progress. He also asked me to forward the mail to Rishabh, whose email id he didn’t have. Darsheel had attached a term sheet which had a drag along clause—it meant that if any of us, the Directors, wanted to quit the venture later, the investor would have the right to quit before him and in such an event, the outgoing Director was liable to return the principal sum invested back to the investor.

  As if anyone of us is going to quit now, I thought and smiled to myself. There was an increment in the mail count and I clicked on the inbox.

  There was a mail from Rishabh, with the subject: NOT IMPRESSED!

  We launched the competition 12 hours late with insufficient information.

  1.

  Exact Prizes should be mentioned. It was discussed with you that we were going to have different prizes for different days.

  2.

  Number of prizes was not mentioned

  3.

  Prizes for one girl, one boy not mentioned

  4.

  Prize pictures are not there.

  5.

  Prize not mentioned on the fan page

  Moreover, it was launched very late. People say you should trust your partner with his work. I did that bit he doesn’t care for the quality then tell me what should I do?

  First you do not share the plan with me. Had I not found a sponsor at the last moment, we’d be doing simple posts on website. I can’t do everything on my own. This was your responsibility. You should have discussed the plans the way I do every time by calling you.

  I don’t believe our team is good. Please wake up before I completely lose trust in the team.

  Regards,

  Rishabh Dev

  CEO, yourquote.in

  Earlier, I was stressed. But his mail shot my temper. I couldn’t understand how he could be so inconsiderate about my condition. He knew that I was doing duty at the hospital for the past four days, he knew that my mother had not been keeping well, and he knew that despite being so occupied, I had launched the contest. In a huff, I wrote a mail making sure that I didn’t play the blame game but politely bring out the evident facts.

  I proposed to find a sponsor last week, but that time the idea was ditch
ed. Last night, when I was running with my mother in hospital, you told me you have found a sponsor.

  When I asked you for the details of prizes, I was told that everything was there in a mail. I saw Gift Shop’s mail and prizes for specific days and separate prizes for boys and girls was not mentioned. I did what I could do best with the information provided.

  Give me the details of all those five points, I will have them rectified.

  NOTE: Please avoid these last minute work from next time. No work can be done in haste.

  Regards,

  Amol Sabharwal

  Co-founder and Creative Director, yourquote.in

  Pestered, I went for a bath. My sister prepared tea in the meanwhile. I came back, grabbed the cup of tea and once again, sat in front the laptop. There was a new mail. The mail that would change my destiny altogether.

  I found a sponsor because without a prize as an incentive, it would not have been possible to gain traction. There has been so less traffic in the past one week owing to your slackness in social media.

  It was your mistake that you were not ready with your work beforehand. You should have planned everything beforehand, as your mother’s ailment was already known to you.

  Your negligence:

  1.

  You didn’t share the plan.

  2.

  You didn’t have a structure for Valentine’s week. You post whatever you wish, without planning. You only know how to write creative things and neglect everything else. You never understand that this is an organization and not your individual property where you can post anything without scrutiny.

  If you compare your work with mine, you will realize that your work is not even 1/4th of mine.

  In fact, I have so much doubt about your capabilities that I’m planning to hire a CMO and then get into the tech department, learn coding, and build something good. But you know what, you keep resting on your comfortable bed and do whatever you feel like, do not manage, do not organize, do whatever makes you feel good. When I will need creative one-liners, I will let you know.

  You won’t praise me for finding a sponsor when your ego is being questioned. But you know what? I can’t listen against my self-esteem and dedication towards my work.

  Regards,

  Rishabh Dev

  CEO, yourquote.in

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just read. All the while, I believed that there was at least some mutual respect left that kept us together but Rishabh, with his previous mail, shredded every bit of it. I would have cheated on myself had I stayed even a moment more with him. I kept staring at the mail, blank and clueless until my sister Saumya, who was sitting in front of me, quizzed me saying, ‘What happened?’

  I could not say a word. I turned the laptop’s screen towards her and she went through the mail.

  ‘Oh my God, how dare he write like that to you? Doesn’t he have any manners?’

  ‘I’m quitting YourQuote,’ I said in all seriousness.

  ‘What? Are you crazy? You just got an investor.’

  ‘Everything has happened at the right time. I can’t work with a person who doesn’t respect me. Moreover, if I quit now, I will not get tied up with an investor,’ I smiled at my fate.

  ‘What would you do then, look for a job?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I could sustain myself without money for the past seven months, I can do the same for the next seven as well,’ I said with conviction. I realized what entrepreneurship had done to me—it had trounced the fear of uncertainty from my life.

  ‘Don’t tell Mom about it now. Her blood pressure will shoot up,’ Saumya advised.

  Though I had no doubts about my decision, I needed to consult with my father before taking this drastic decision. I had put in his 2.5 lakh rupees into the venture which was going to be lost now.

  In the next one hour, I rectified everything that Rishabh had wanted from me in the contest and packed a bunch of my clothes, laptop, and cellphone charger. I would not return to that house for a long time. But before I left, I posted a sermon on the YourQuote fan page:

  More than money, more than recognition

  More than happiness, more than health

  More than friendship, more than love

  More than life, more than even your dreams

  Care for your self respect!

  My parents took my decision better than I had imagined.

  ‘For us, your happiness is all that matters,’ my father said.

  ‘What about the Time magazine cover?’

  ‘You have quit your venture, not your life. I’m sure you will find a way to fulfill my dream.’

  ‘Come on, stop pressurizing my son. I’m so relieved that now my kids will be able to live together,’ Mom said.

  In the evening, I drafted my final mail to Rishabh:

  Dear Rishabh,

  This is to notify you that I’m opting out of my position of Director of YourQuote Marketing Private Limited. I expect to be discharged from all the duties. This decision has been taken after much thought and consultation with my friends, family, and mentors.

  In case you don’t want to continue the venture further, kindly let me know, because then I would want to take it forward.

  Regards,

  Amol Sabharwal

  I read my mail twice but still could not decide whether to click on the send button or not. Anxious, I logged into my Facebook account after a gap of almost three days. February 8, Propose Day, held a surprise for me. An extremely unpleasant one though. The very first news feed made me feel suicidal and flushed all my anxiety into a never-ending ocean of grief, fury, and loss. It said:

  Priya Singh is in a relationship with Anirudh Arora

  This one line was powerful enough for me to block her from my life for good.

  Clicking on the send button of my resignation mail never seemed so easy, as I now had yet another reason to run away from Delhi for as long as I could.

  Rishabh Speaks

  Enough of all that bullshit! He has been feeding you with all kinds of nonsensical stories proclaiming himself to be right and me to be awfully wrong? Well, I tell you that he is the biggest mud-slinger I have ever seen.

  I won’t allow my vexation with Amol to speak on behalf of me. I’m the business guy, the logical guy who always thinks before acting and I will tell you what exactly was wrong with Amol. If I have to answer in one word, I will say: everything.

  Now, I will prove all the things everything accused him of one by one and you will realize why he deserved the mail that he’d got. However, before I begin my monologue, let me inform you that at the time of sending the mail, I had no idea about the intensity of his mother’s illness. I just knew that she was not well and was admitted in Max hospital.

  When I first met him at IIT, he was one of the most popular boys there. No, don’t get me wrong. He didn’t secure any of the top ranks, neither had he published his novels back then. He just owned a community on Orkut named IIT-Delhi Entrants 2007 and he promoted networking among most of us newly JEE qualified students.

  But when I first encountered him, it was a shock for me. Unlike his cool technical avatar, he was a bloody wimp! He carried this immense fear of girls and it was quite funny when girls whom he had chatted with for hours on internet found out what a chicken he was in the real life. His crooked yellow teeth made him repugnant and his orthodox idealism provoked laughter. A typical small-town smartass. Frankly speaking, I expected somebody suave, somebody articulate in his place. But again, IIT is like a grist mill—the first few years brings evenness and bridges the gaps in the personalities. It even shaped him.

  He was my next-door neighbour in our hostel. I didn’t realize initially whether it was his desperate attempt to make a mark for himself or to impress others that made him dabble many different things. He got into music, played a dozen of instruments despite not being extraordinary in any of them. He got into photography, shot some snaps, and uploaded them on Orkut followed by Facebook. At times, I felt
he was trying too hard and not getting anything in return, which with time provoked sympathy more than contemptuous laughter.

  Come the second year and this bashful small-town guy surprises us all by announcing that he had got a girlfriend. Come on, you don’t expect such a dumbass to be the first one amongst us to get a girlfriend! Get a life, man. By this time, we were quite good friends and he chose me to be one of the first ones to be introduced to Priya, along with Pratik. Even Pratik agreed with me at that time that she was way too hot for him. We thought she agreed to date him for she wanted to prove her smartness over him by sarcastically taunting him every now and then, inducing some pity for him in my eyes. I once even asked him whether he was serious about going long term with Priya when he replied with his small town seriousness, ‘I will marry her someday.’ Only God knows how I restrained my laughter at that time.

  There was a remarkable change in him after Priya came into his life. He became more passionate, more confident and thankfully, lost his fear while conversing with girls. This was the time when I closely observed his passion for writing and him trying to take a leap of faith into the mammoth task of writing a book, which I loved. I was passionately in love with a school friend of mine back then, that’s why. She rejected my proposal after making me wait for two months. Yes, Anjali had not arrived by then.

  By the third year, with his book published and the fame that followed, he inspired me to blog as well. I wrote a blog on a prank that we played on Pratik and it got pretty famous in the campus—even more famous than Amol’s novel—and that’s how I got in touch with Anjali, because Pratik was her good friend and the blog was on Pratik, so you get the point!

  I think Amol has written a lot of bullshit about Anjali and me. There needs to be some light thrown upon it. Anjali and I are such close friends because we both trust each other completely. That’s it. It doesn’t imply that we are physically intimate or are going to marry someday. I consider our relationship very sacred and let us stop at that. And regarding everything that she had said to Amol at every occasion, I believe she has done nothing wrong and Amol deserved what he got.