My Story So Far
One of my friends said: Let’s do something crazy, different things in life, so that once you write a biography, the people reading it should not get bored. So, here I am sharing my story with few crazy, different things which I have tried so far..
BTW, you will meet this person in the story.
Birth
I was born on 4th June, 1996, in the Khurja district, in Uttar Pradesh. I was born on Tuesday, which is the day of Hanuman ji (an Indian god), the servant of Ram. And my grandfather said, Hamare ghar Hanuman ji aa gaye (Hanuman ji has arrived at our house).
And I was named Dharmendra (The protector of Dharma). Though my official name is Aman Gupta.
Being the son of an defense person, I have been fortunate enough to live in multiple cities across India.
I was average in studies, great in sports, but low on confidence and full of stage fright. But now I don’t fear anything. Just tell me whom to talk to; I will get it done. Talk to the CEO, I am ready! Talk to the PM, I am ready. Talk to 1000 people; I am ready.
Choosing a path.
When I was in 10th, someone said to me that if you want to go out of India, or abroad, learn coding, or choose computer science, and if you ask anyone in India, everyone (most probably during those childhood days) wants to go outside India to something great.
Hence, I picked computer science and wanted to be a programmer or coder who wears this hoodie, puts his head down, and does coding for 10 hours straight. (Though this will be cool).
Apart from the hello world, I never learnt anything. But still, I wanted to do engineering in computer science in the hope that maybe I would learn something in college.
Fast forward to the college days,
I joined a college in Gujarat, living with my parents, because I didn’t want to join the hostel environment, thinking it wouldn’t be right for me because of the whole negative promotion done by our society that it ruins you, you can get into the wrong group, and blah blah.
And I joined the college on 7 August, 2018, and my roll number was 001 in the group of 120 students.
The college was in Gujarat, filled with Gujarati people. Almost 80% of the people were Gujarati-speaking, though they were okay to speak in Hindi or English, but you have to remind them that there is a person who doesn’t understand what they are saying.
So, the first year was a struggle; I didn’t want to go to college. Though I made some friends, everyone knew this was the guy who doesn’t understand Gujarati (even the professors). I thought, this is not my place. And let’s leave as early as possible.
I made the choice: let’s go to Delhi, our hometown, and study from there.
I appeared for the JEE exam and other university exams in Delhi, spent almost 2 months figuring out the right college, decided on one of them, and got back to Gujarat.
Now, I never thought this train journey back home would change everything for me.
Meeting myself.
While returning on the train from Delhi to Ahmedabad alone, I met a person who was in the same situation as I was currently,
Didn’t understand Gujarati.
Doing computer science.
Placed in a government college, same branch.
Just 3 years older than me.
And he just explained to me how my current situation can help me build a future for myself.
Since we are placed in a government college, there is no mandatory rule of attendance (some private colleges require 75% attendance), so you can completely ignore the college.
The college fees were quite low, so there is nothing to worry about money.
Also, since there are so many tools available online to learn things, you can always learn things, explore, and go to events and learn new things.
Plus, if you share these things with your college, they will appreciate it and give you more opportunities.
So, it is a win-win situation. You are free to do anything with the bare minimum risk.
And this meeting changed everything for me. And in my 4 years of engineering, I went to college for almost 6 months, including some classes, exams, and the first year of the course.
And I can’t imagine how different it would be had I joined the college in Delhi.
The Beginning of the Journey
It was around early 2015, and this was the time when India was getting access to free Internet, smartphones, startup culture, and so many online, digital tools to learn and do things. And a new government, with a leader who was business-minded, Narendra Modi, with a lot of initiatives.
And I met this person who I mentioned at the starting line of the story, Mr Shailesh Charel.
He was the best non-tech guy who knew everyone in the college, good in Gujarati, good at making friends, and helping people around him.
I loved his enthusiasm, energy, and his way of communication (especially Gujarati), and his ability to make connections really fast. I thought our combo would be great. I will spend my time thinking, planning, and managing, and he will be managing the relationships with the principal, professors, or outside the college because he is a native.
I watched a television show where the contestants were discussing about starting something like a business, or ngo or doing good for society (I don’t remember exactly), and I thought, I also want to do the same; I also want to do something similar.
And I got an idea to start something where we can help poor people. We thought of collecting old clothes, items or anything that is of no use, and distributing it to poor people. So, we thought of starting an NGO, You Can Help. We designed the logo in Canva and started it.
The name was given by me; the logo was designed by Shailesh Charel.
Attach the Facebook.
We registered the ngo in 15,000 (used all the saved money). We did a lot of things; we promoted Swachh Bharat Abhiyan at the bus depot, telling people not to throw garbage around, keep it in dustbins, etc. This was a big achievement for us. And we thought we could do something together. And the friendship just bloomed, and bloomed.
And then, TVF Pitchers season 1 released in June 2015, and what a time it was! And suddenly, we were Beers! (reference from series)
It showed us a way forward. At least, it showed a window to start looking into this startup world, learning more, and understanding it.
We used to go to startup events in Ahmedabad, places near Gandhinar, and became friends with some firms that were placing bets on startups, and met some interesting people.
So, together we did a lot of events in the college, a hackathon with Google Developer Group,
First Startup: The Monologue.
To be continued..
