Anthology

Part 1: The Restless (Ages 17-18)

Coffee Chat (written upon coming into Penn)

Every conversation is what we do

Whatever happened to how we feel

Pre-professional talk, you’re speaking without saying 

That’s the alarm clock, stop reciting your resume

Scrap the impressions and the sexy majors

Let’s rewind it and talk about the you behind it

What do you love and what do you hate

Where did you fail and what did that create?

Let’s put down the crown and step off our high thrones

It doesn’t matter that we’re strangers

Let’s talk about something real

Because my coffee’s getting real cold

“And I'm not throwin' away my shot” - Hamilton, My Shot

In this country, I’m not confined

To fates like my progenity

In this country, no longer am I defined

To a farmers’ destiny

My success is my success

As long as I keep working restlessly

I define my own progress

It’s not about being rich, like the Trump’s or the Kennedy’s

It’s about keep grinding steadily

Patience is my vehicle, determination and passion are my fuel

Put the two together, in 10 years I promise I won’t be the same fool

Part 2: Struggles From a Startup (18-19/Gap Semester)

Scratch Pad - Oct 1, 2021 12:58 AM.

At the end of the day — one person calling some bullshit (real bullshit, on my side) ruined my day. One experience soured the taste and made a great day feel meh. It brought the bitter taste of reality and it brought frantic anxiety too. I appreciate it, honestly. But I can’t help but feel like an abject failure. Like, I’m still worthless. That for all my efforts, I’m still a nobody. And when I’m around a somebody, it hones in the feeling. That there is no easy way because this is the real world and I’m with real people now, not family and friends who have my back and my best interests. I’m still a fucking rookie; I’m still fucking worthless.

I’m ready to fail though, because that’s what failures do.

Because I retain hope that eventually, I’ll become worth *some*thing. And it’ll be built on top of my biggest struggles and shameful failures— but that’s what will make it worth anything at all (to myself) in the first place. I can’t help but hope that I place my expectations, value for myself, and my own failures at a higher priority than I do other people's judgements and opinions of what I’m worth. Because then, when I’m around a real *somebody*, I won’t feel like an imposter. Maybe, still, I won’t feel in place, but I won’t be an imposter.

On being alone. On being lonely.

Being alone is different from feeling lonely. It comes in phases and bursts, and you learn to adapt. I spent 19 years with other people, all the freaking time. I use my bro's to fight loneliness, where I could. I don't regret it, but now that I'm alone in this gap semester, I know what that aching feeling is like.

First comes loneliness. Friends aren't around anymore; nobody is in the area. There doesn't need to be any precursor... I felt so lonely today morning, about 12 hours after I saw all of my Penn friends and Sashank and his buds in Brooklyn. I woke up turning in bed just having a hollow feeling. Those are the worst because everything I could potentially do that day (run in Holmdel park, walk on the beach, hike, get food, work out), I would have to do alone. I went back to sleep and woke up feeling the same. Maybe Noor could hangout. He was going to the aquarium with his family today and had work. Loneliness sank in again. 

Second comes action. You say "fuck you" to feeling lonely. Maybe you read a self-help article that boosts your mentality; maybe you make it out of your bed and start the day off well with a protein shake and a shower; maybe it's the realization that your Telugu is going to shit so you tell yourself you'll watch a series of Telugu movies to feel purposeful again. Whatever it is, action comes with purpose. Purpose makes you feel stronger.

Third comes being alone. Let being by yourself become comfortable. Friends are always only 1 click away, which is comforting, but I'm physically by myself. Be alone. I'm alone. I'm alone. Eventually it's an understanding and I embrace it, and the loneliness dissipates. I enjoy a workout, by myself. I read a book, by myself. I take a walk, by myself. I eat, by myself. I write, by myself. I allow podcasts, music, audiobooks, and meaningful mental silence to fill the spaces in my attention. 

And the next day I wake up alone and feeling lonely. But it's a little less aggravating, a little less aching. I turn over less times and get up quicker. I walk with more purpose and start doing things by myself for myself, all with more. When I can, I see my friends. But hey -- maybe being by myself is the new normal...? Or maybe it's not; maybe it's just the phase. 

Arham stopped hanging out with his friends from last year. He purposefully distanced himself, partially due to a falling out with one of them, which in turn led him to realize things that he valued differently and which he wanted to change about himself and his friends. He told me he spent a lot of time being alone. It felt lonely, at first, but the space was filled eventually. He sat by himself in class. You can frame it as a loner, or you can see it as a person chasing opportunities. The opportunity to find newness that is. Because at the core, deep inside past the fluff, you attract the people you want and deserve to be around. So someone filled the seat next to him in class. 1 month in, Arham’s made new friends. And he feels like he's growing again. He feels renewed and back in the driver seat. Sometimes it takes a refresh button to get that perspective. 

Evan became more Evan than he ever was when he traveled the world alone. I could tell that Egypt and Lebanon changed him. He spent time with other peoples, but he grew intro his own skin. That's what college probably is for most people... a chance to grow into their own skin a bit. When I went to Berlin alone, I felt similarly. I cycled through loneliness and action and being alone; and eventually I landed with a strong feeling of understanding. I thought it faded when I came back to the US, but in retrospect, it's just a muscle that I didn't have to exercise until I got back to being by myself.

A person that can be alone is a person with power. Self-power. To remove themselves from comfort; to dare to feel lonely, knowing that it's okay to be alone, even in the presence of other people. Placed unknowingly in that mentality, I'm forced to admire it.

“Did those ideas ever really come to life?” - Kanye, Come To Life

Dear [investor],

It deeply saddens me to have to write this email to you.

We are reluctant to say that after 10 months of working to build our product, we don't see a path forward to achieve what we set out to do. Recent regulatory requirements have restricted the precise flow of funds between payment mechanisms (credit, debit, etc), making our hard-tech innovation of merging the issuing and acquiring flows using our token proxy patent inapplicable. In addition, the card networks recently updated internal policy regarding wallets and now require developers to partner with every single issuing bank and card program they intend to use -- a lengthy process that leaves us vulnerable and without a significant value proposition to the big banks. The unfortunate circumstances around the recent regulatory & compliance ecosystem in payments and the highly concentrated distribution of power within MasterCard and Visa bureaucracy to enforce those rules has left little room for our innovation and made adjacent products and models unreasonably costly to pursue at this stage.

When we first started Poly, we had the vision of building an all-in-one card to consolidate your wallet and optimize your rewards. We wanted to build a program that would create deep innovations in what we felt was an outdated and archaic model of managing personal finances and payments experiences.

These past few months, in an attempt to pivot, we've restlessly done extensive research & analysis, and have received feedback from key decision makers within the industry. While we do have loosely-connected plans for a potential pivot, we don't see a path forward that would allow us to be meaningfully innovative or deeply impactful in the space. To that end, it is with great disappointment that based on all the things we have learned and the feedback we have received over the last 10 months, we are unsure about the viability of continuing to operate our startup.

I must genuinely thank you for not only your investment in us as an early-stage company and team, but also for your invaluable time and the personal network that you have committed.

We have fundraised purely through convertible debt, which means we will be able to recompense you for what we have in our account. Neither Nick, Sanjay, nor I took a salary and so we have kept spending in the last 3 months to the absolute minimum. Though we lack a product and value-prop, we do have merit in our team, which has deep FinTech and innovation experience. We plan to still explore new ideas and solutions until late November, at which point Nick and I will have to make the decision to re-enter college or stay on our leave of absence.

As entrepreneurs, we value persistence at the next level — we aren’t quitters and we hate to let down those who believe in us, which makes this decision all the harder to make. Believing in us was not a mistake or a misjudgment on your part -- we were pushing all the boundaries to develop a truly amazing product, sadly the regulatory environment was simply shifting at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It’s our sincere hope to treat this chapter as a beginning and not an end and that as we continue to new journeys in the future, we will continue to connect as builders, investors, and friends.

Sincerely,

Sourish and Nick

Part 3: Small Things Count (19)

Holm

Home. You’re away from home. Away from the family and friends that shaped you. Away from the pork-roll egg & cheese bagels; the crispy and sweet margherita pizza; the true working-man’s camarones burrito from the local Mexican cantina. Away from the serene solitude of the trails in the park. Away from the hungry, late-night suburban drives, those excuses to go nowhere in particular but talk about everything, anything deep in particular. Away from the night-time scent of wet grass (mildew) coupled with a blanket of chirping crickets. Away from that half-dead streetlight that‘s been flickering for years. And the silent tip toes to your room at 3 am. From the complete and utter vulnerability, which you may never again have to a bedroom or to a home.

Home.

Holmdel NJ- you represent the best of the suburbs. Now, in Philly, in college, you’re a symbol of simpler times and of contentment, although for all of my life, you were anything but that. You’re so much of what I aspire for at the end of the day. But I know I would do you wrong to stay content in your blissfulness, your makeshift but everstrong suburban peace. The world is big and the world is deep. Outside our town, reality is harsh and every path seems steep. The world is 3D, and you’re the pokemon game I play on my DS with nostalgia. NPCs and fake achievements coded by a fake creator… Holmdel you’re the garden of eve, a true garden of beauty in this superficial society.

I hope one day… that we return forever, all of us. For those sage street strolls by the sunset, easing into twilight and the low murmur of crickets chirping and fireflies dancing. To the magic of your suburban calm, of 07733. Hidden exit 16 on the garden state: home. Holmdel NJ.

The Mechanism (jotted on my notes app)

So I’m at a housewarming and there’s this kid making high pitched yelling noises. It's annoying, really annoying. he does this for a few min and I look up from my phone and the black friday deals. he’s smiling, in that mischievous way that children his age do. his mom yells at him, eventually giving up to his childish tyrade and antics. she’s in a saari and talking to family; of course she gives up.

He walks by me, with a piece of liquorice in hand, mumbling and mumbling, getting ready for his next frenzy. we match stares. It's a challenge now. I won't back down. If he wants to defy authority, so be it. I used to be youngin’ like him too. but the world has a self-correcting mechanism, especially for people like us. it’s my job; the world’s calling me; i’m the mechanism…. I realize as I stare into his destructive childish gaze.

A hard cracking sound on the dark hardwood floor brings me back from my thoughts. His younger brother was sucking a red lollipop. Not anymore, I suppose. Tears break out around me. Panic becomes chaos. Should I tell him to stop? No, I rely on my keen sense of empathy. I get up and walk away. Slowly but surely, I make my way to the pantry where I know there’ll be another bag of candy. My sharp intuition proves fruitful as I reach to the top shelf (a prevention mechanism against child diabetes) and grab the bag. I shuffle my hands through the bag, picking three lollipops and stuffing them in my pocket. I focus my thoughts back to the outside. Pandemonium ensues. Tears and childish screams— I’m the mechanism for this chaotic world, I must correct.

In my socks, I glide across that hardwood floor. As I make my way to the younger brother, I whip out a grape lollipop. The tears subside and I give him a thumbs up and a wink. The Mechanism, here to save the day!

In my peripheries, I see the same destructive gaze of the older brother. 6 year olds are churlish. At once, I realize that I mustn't approach this task with animosity. I assuage my nerves and imagine the sweet sound of Peaches Etude in an attempt to block off his screech of terror. Right foot, forward. Left foot, forward. My fury rises. I take a deep breath. My fury subsides. I take another deep breath. It’s time to shine.

Like a brave warrior unsheathing his sword amidst the final battle, I draw my popsicle stick. I know it in his eyes — if I don’t make the ultimate sacrifice, all will be for naught. He’s a blue raspberry kid, I know. Just like me. Just like I used to be. Just like I still am. I keep the cherry, consigning myself to a great suffering. The martyr must suffer, lest he not be a symbol of the greater sacrifice for good. The kid accepts the blue raspberry. His devilish eyes don’t trick me though. We stare at each other again, wrestling with the potential next moves. It’s his turn. He turns around and with a lollipop in mouth and hand, he scuttles away with a fart.

All hail The Mechanism, self-correcting by design, and his noble sacrifice for posterity and peace.

See you Space Cowboy…

Note to self: this is an edited version of my Anthology. Part 1 has other parts (on the original google doc, not included).