My First Appearance In A Business Magazine...

I never knew that I would get an invitation to attend a Business Plan contest, although I missed filing my nomination by just few days. However, Proto.in guys were courteous enough to invite me for their Entrepreneurial StartUp event as an audience. Entrepreneurship, being completly spread in my soul, would be my way of life, five years down the line. That's what I feel as of now...so I have to equip myself with all those arms and ammunitions required to play the mental game of business, whenever I would indulge myself into it. With an attempt to be in the good books of leading venture capitalists, angel investors and budding & established entrepreneurs, I manage to take time out of my regular work and do stuffs that makes me closer to them. Must tell you all, that today I have at-least 9 country heads of various MNC's, 15 budding entrepreneurs, 26 established entrepreneurs, close to 10 Venture Capitalists and 2 of India's top most business coloumnist and bloggers in my network. My connections with those who are from ISB's, IIM's and other business schools accross the globe are not yet included in the above list, just to keep the ground realities intact.

So with an intent to increase the size of my business networking list, I thought to take some time from my regular schedules and invest it, in attending this event which was scheduled at IIT Delhi, on 17th and 18th of July.

The moment I entered the auditorium, I saw an elderly figure addressing the entire group of close to 400 budding and established entrepreneurs, invited from all parts of our country. I quickly recognized him, as Mr. Kiran Karnik...former President of NASSCOM. During the QnA session, I asked him about the poor governmental help in promoting business in our country. Although I was not so very convinced by his answer, I respected him to atleast backing the governmental measures that NASSCOM supported during his days...That was the first time when the group actually felt my presence.

When Kiruba Shankar addressed the group about blogging, I never knew him. However, after going through his rich portfolio of being a regular colomnist of Business Standard magazine & The Asian Age daily, his affiliations with Wikipedia's co-founders and being India's number one business cum tech blogger, I was truely impressed by his simplistic persona. During networking breaks, he motivated me to be a thought leader while expressing ourself through blogs.

While listening to Mahesh Murthy, a VC from Pinstorm and Passion Fund, I learnt that there are lots and lots of opportunities around us, the only hurdle in identifying them is our lack of awareness. Interacting with a person, who himself visited 40 countries on this planet, played key roles in establishing MTV and Star TV in India, working for various international brands by being a college drop out was just immortal. I am glad he remembered me later, while accepting my friendship request on orkut.

During a special session on brand management, a couple was constantly murmering behind me. I was very irritated by them. I started staring them every now and then, thereby giving them a nonverbal message..."These silly people, they would never leave their Indianism". During the break, I was flipping through a business magazine called DARE (July 2008 issue), exclusively dedicated to entrepreneurship. While turning few pages I got stuck on a photograph, as I felt that I saw the person in the photograph somewhere. Suddenly, something striked me and I turned back to see the couple sitting behind me. The person in the photograph, was the one who was murmuring behind me...he he he...he introduced himself as Leonard Fernandes, co-founder of Cinnamontel, a print on demand service company. Wow...in the next few minutes we exchanged our business cards and talked about our respective domains.

Pataa nahi kaise kaise jokes ho jaate hai real life me...he he he

The first day was generally filled with speeches, informative sessions covering business aspects of entrepreneurship. My vibrant participation was well marked and felt by the organizors of the event. So for the second day, they asked me to be one of the second league of 10 judges to evaluate the performance of the participants. The first league of judges comprized of various business heads and coporate honchos...Accordingly, they called me to board the front seat, as I was sitting in one of the back seats, habitually. They clicked few photographs and promised me that they will make them available to me...which I didn't get till now...he he he

Today, at home, when I was going through the August 2008 issue of "DARE", I was thrilled to see a person in a photograph present in an article that covered the entire event. Must tell you, this was the second time, when a photograph in DARE caught my attention. Oh my God ! I can't beleive this...IT WAS ME...featuring in that last photograph, showing the second league of judges. (see Page # 88).

I always dream of being on the cover pages of leading business magazines. May be this is just the beginning...of all my dreams, which eventually would turn into realities. There are many milestones to come accross...I know the going will be tough enough in reaching the Coverpage from page # 88...but I am game for it...let's wait and watch...till then just think on the below mentioned line...

Pataa nahi kaise kaise jokes ho jaate hai real life me...he he he