My Story
I was born to a doctor who served the Indian Army for most of his life, giving me a sense of order, structure and discipline which has shaped my mind over the years. Brought up in a middle class family having the usual struggles of life, I went on to complete my studies with scholarships and being at the top of the class at graduation, through perseverance and self determination.
I have had a life full of ups and downs, with much experience of corporate successes and failures, and personal hardships and joys. However, my failures have taught me more than my successes ever did, and that is a key part of his attitude towards life– learning from failures and converting them into strengths.
I stand against our culture’s obsession with quantifiable success; I would be nowhere today if not for the numerous turns and twists my path has led me on. This way of thinking glows with optimism for the future and confidence in the power of self-determination.
The future in all its glorious unpredictability is not something to fear, but rather to look forward to, to prepare for and to challenge. This optimism has paved a great path for me.
Self-Determination in the Face of Uncertainty
My first wife, Prernaa was dealt an unfortunate hand by the universe, and was diagnosed with cancer in the prime of her life. This was an experience that took its toll on us. Yet, she turned this experience into something fruitful, something that would help others, as she wrote a book titled “Prernaa” in Marathi, her native language, that explained her hardships and the way we dealt with this phase of our lives.
Our experiences through these 11 years have been responsible for shaping my mind and ways of approaching life’s numerous situations, teaching me that although the circumstances life throws our way are not in our control, we certainly can control and prepare our approach towards them. This is true self-determination. Today, I am working to translate this book into more languages so that more people can learn from their experience and Prernaa’s lessons live on.
Socially Empowering Women
The social and financial empowerment of women in our society is a deeply urgent cause that we need to pay the utmost attention to, and I have made it my mission to take on this mission in every way I can. Our entrepreneurial mindset needs to extend beyond profit-making and go towards problem solving and sharing the fruits of our labour with as many people as possible, and we have so much to learn from each other through social outreach projects Empowering women must go beyond ridding them of the bonds of society and go further into giving women the power and means of self-determination, which is what my social entrepreneurship projects aim at.
Ekta Viiveck Verma, my second and current wife is a huge proponent of the rights and lives of women who have suffered domestic abuse, and has founded the organisation Invisible Scars (insert link) which aims to reach out to as many women in domestic abuse situations and provide them with home, shelter, life and livelihood. This project along with other social entrepreneurship projects geared towards women is very close to my heart and has flourished under my mentorship. We have continued to provide safety and solace to many women during the lockdown in the country as a result of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic which saw a significant rise in domestic abuse cases.
The Importance of Family
Indian adoptive regulations until recently did not allow individuals to adopt two children of the same gender. Having earlier adopted a young girl, I was shocked upon finding this and resolved to fight this archaic tradition and managed to successfully adopt a second daughter, a fight that took years. This fight for my family taught me a great deal about the importance of companionship and unconditional love. I also had to fight off much resistance we faced around adoption of two female children, and significantly with remarriage.
Society’s norms have been an obstruction that I have had to brave against even for years, even during my first marriage with Prerna, an inter-caste marriage that many actively voiced their dissent against. My perseverance in these respects has now led to a family pieced together like a mosaic– all unrelated different pieces coming together to create a beautiful unified work of art.
Today, my daughters aged 15 and 20 years old carry forward the values that I cherish, with a strong desire to work with people and for the upliftment of communities through innovative ways.
Social Changemaker
I have been an active Rotarian for years and have established myself in the social work circuit. The TEDxHyderabad platform that I co-founded also goes a long way in creating a community platform for sharing resources and creating connections. It is in the field of social development that my passion for improvement of people’s lives and my entrepreneurial mindset intersect.
I created and funded a model of an old age home connected to an orphanage in Pune, called Maatoshree, which not only provided the residents with basic food, shelter, and utilities for survival, but also gave the elders a sense of purpose, children to care for and love, while giving the children the wisdom and guidance of grandparents in their lives. This model has already been replicated in other cities.
Additionally, I founded the not-for-profit society SAHE (Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour) which aims to create, foster, and enable social entrepreneurship projects that improve the quality of life of people in society. It aims to create a sustainable model of philanthropy and entrepreneurship.
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