I revived this website, and made a $16 payment to write this post. The past year has been a reckless explosion of activity and emotion, and I now realize how difficult it is to write when you aren't allowed the luxury of rolling around in an emotional state, exploring its nuances, diving into its depths... No, entrepreneurship makes that stuff impossible.
So why do I write today? Perhaps the emotional cauldron has finally been brought to a boil, and the contents of the past year will spill if I don't provide for an outlet through words. Bear with me as I unburden myself by telling you about a man with minimal direction and infinite energy - an incredible idiot and a crazy friend, who refuses to grow a day older than 21.
THE SAVAGE ARRIVES
February 2016: I was on my way from Jaipur or Bangalore or one of those places, boarding a plane when I received Karthik's text message: "Dude, my friend has come to Delhi. He needs a place to crash; hope it isn't a problem if he stays in your room a couple of days..." It wasn't a request, as much as a transfer of information.
I didn't have time to respond, as my plane took off. It landed in Delhi rather late, and I reached home at 1 am. I walked to my bedroom door only to find it firmly locked from the inside. Sleepy and annoyed that someone else was sleeping in my room, I banged the door. A few long seconds later, my door was opened by a semi-naked fellow with shaggy hair who asked me, "Who are you?".
That was how I met Prasidh Prasad (henceforth, P2).
FEB - JUNE 2016
P2's visit was supposed to last 2 days. It became 2 weeks... a month... 2 months... and soon P2 was paying rent. In those initial days, we used to work out of my hall: at 10 am, the house would remarkably transform from a place where I lived to a place where we worked.
Even more remarkably, I soon realized that P2 was working with us, on our team. But that's the way of P2: he becomes your teammate long before you can tell. P2's self-discovery began with him working at various startups - Karthik's (then) InstaLively, Saahil's Khetify etc etc.
And soon, inspired by a stoner conversation, P2 decided to become an entrepreneur!
P2 RUNS A STARTUP FOR 3 DAYS
Prasidh ran a parantha startup for 72 hours. And then he got bored.
It was based on a brilliant concept: a mobile app with just one button. You push it, you get a parantha delivered at home in 15 minutes. You push it twice, you get two paranthas - so on and so forth. The concept of choice was deftly avoided, thereby empowering the hungry with confusion-free, standardized food.
One problem: who will make the paranthas? Who will deliver them? How will they hear about the startup? Who will code out the app. You will be amazed to know that all these problems were solved within 72 hours. (Following posters were visible all over Delhi's South Extension) But the startup closed the next day, as the founder got bored.
SAVAGE, THE DIRECTOR
P2 eventually found his calling in the world of movies, shortly after closing down his startup. He became an AD (Assistant Director) overnight, and has put in insane hours into the job. He worked 24x7, a few weeks straight - possibly becoming a one-man production house. When he finished one month at the job, we posed him this question: "Macha, what does an Assistant Director do?" P2 then opened Wikipedia and YouTube, to find the answer to that question.
Soon, though, he grew into the job: you guys should follow @prasidh on Instagram for some of the coolest content ever. His misadventures in Bengaluru are expected to start in another 120 minutes.
WHY SAVAGE?
Well, he took a liking to the "Savage" sticker on Instagram and began molding his personality around the term. He is also the most savage party-creature I have ever known, and can easily dance to really bad music until 7 am in the morning.
I started this as a sulky goodbye note, but see what it has become! Prasidh always manages to do this.
Sigh, I'll miss you man.
