Arun Sharma started off as a farmer. His first three years of farming saw three droughts and his crops failing. His next venture was a brick kiln. The years that he ran the kiln, it rained like crazy and his bricks got regularly washed away. To compound matters, there was a strike at cement factories. … Read more

Businesses seem to be following a 20:80 rule in the lockdown. It takes a lockdown to realise that my business of education has always been a non-essential service!! Businesses that are essential report a 80% drop in business. The funny thing is that medical services, though declared essential, are not as essential as you thought … Read more

Not many of those who know Sachanand D will associate him with religion. But for many years, in the peak of winter, Sacha takes a 10 day holiday. He travels to the hills of Uttarakhand, sans his laptop and mobile phone. The laptop gets replaced by a kamandal – as Sacha lives the life of … Read more

Good doctors believe that an annual health check up is a must, not just for patients, but for doctors themselves. All of us know this, the problem always lies in compliance and systems. Was chatting over dinner with Tanmay Panchbhai, who is a lung replacement specialist in the US. To quote: ‘Systems is a defining … Read more

My daughter’s classmate at college quit midway to join NDA. At 6 ft 7 inch, he was someone that the entire batch at NDA had to look up to. Incidentally, he was not eligible to become an IAF pilot, as there are minimum and maximum height norms based on a fighter jet cockpit ergonomics. One … Read more

YK Hamied is the Managing Chairman of Cipla, a company that has made its name in the low cost AIDS treatment for poor countries. During his travel in South Africa, Hamied came across the Lung Institute at the University of Cape Town, an institute doing stellar work in the field of pulmonary health for Africa. … Read more

Read ‘The Story of My Life – My Experiments with Truth’ by MK Gandhi. When you read the autobiography of a person who is exactly 100 years your senior, it makes for interesting comparison. Gandhi was born in 1869, yours truly in 1969. As I type this out, Gandhi was starting on his experiments in … Read more

We cycled to Alandi and stopped on the way back at Vishrantwadi to catch up with Sachin Kher, who had cycled from Baner to have breakfast. (First round for him, second round for us.) As we were chatting up at Vishrantwadi, a guy in a yellow shirt stepped down from a PMPML bus. We recognised … Read more

My friend Amit Patil introduced me to the Mumbai based Vijay Kanuru. Vijay has done his PhD at Cambridge, in battery related nano technology. He followed it up with a postDoc at Cornell. Vijay is a rare breed – in the sense after this over exposure to academics, he jumped into the rough and tough … Read more

Smita is a good friend who is only 55 but has the fitness of a hyperactive 5 year old. Earlier was operations head at Abs, one of the largest chain of gyms in Pune. ICC on SB Road and Magarpatta are the biggest centers for Abs. Annual individual collections are upwards of 3 cr from … Read more