Interviewer- Why should I hire you?

Neal- Don’t you want?

Interviewer- No.

Neal- Why not?

Interviewer- Out of 30 candidates, 29 are more experienced than you.

Neal- Ma’am, what about the remaining one?

Interviewer- C’mon! That’s you.

Neal- Then, why did you call me for the interview? Now, why are you asking me this question if
you don’t want to hire?

Interviewer- Okay, you can go now. We don’t waste your time any more.

Neal- Okay, I will leave. But before that can I have a minute?

Interviewer- Yes.

Neal- Have you ever heard of “All out mosquito repellent”?

Interviewer- Yes.

Neal- Ma’am, I had been using All out for five years. Still, I was having mosquito bites every
night. It was a kind of hell for me. Suddenly, I replaced the liquid with another brand which was
less expensive. And the mosquitos went away.

Interviewer- I didn’t get it.

Neal- The other 29 experienced salesmen will make the sales process too much predictable with
their conventional sales method. Your clients might buy or might not. But I can be trained to
develop a new sales method.

Interviewer- That’s okay! But we are not in a position to take a risk. Our company is already in
loss.

Neal- That’s what I’m talking about. Your current salespersons are not able to sell these days
with their conventional method. How many salespersons you have?

Interviewer- 300.

Neal- Your company is already in loss. If I won’t perform, that will affect your sales 0.33%.

1
Will it matter? But, if I will be able to sell with a new method, that will be a revolution. You
have five vacancies. You can hire me and four of the other experienced person.

Interviewer- Okay. I will hire you. But, what if you won’t perform?

Neal- I just sold you my words. That’s how I will sell your products too.

***Selected***

If smoking reduces your endurance and stamina, then why do soldiers smoke cigarettes?

Combat soldiers aren’t stupid: Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes is bad for your physical
fitness and that it will kill you in the long run.

However, when you sit at the bottom of a trench and the enemy’s artillery is pounding your
positions, you don’t need stamina or endurance, but something that helps you to calm down and
that keeps you from thinking about the fact that your life might be over at any second.

Cigarettes reduce stress and keep you sane.

 “The spotlight effect is the phenomenon in which people tend to believe they are being
noticed more than they really are.”[1]

People believe that they are at the centre of attention and that everyone cares about our faults and
flaws…But no one does, no one ever noticed.

2
What are some interesting psychological marketing tactics?

“Excuse me, can I have your seat?”

One of the craziest studies I have heard was the Stanley Milgram’s train experiment.

It is pretty simple.

Milgram asked a few of his students to go on to a New York City subway train and ask someone
give their seat up.

What they found was that 68% of people got up and gave up their chair.

This means that most people are willing to do something if you simply ask them.

Way too many businesses are trying to figure out the best way to increase sales, and many times
it may just be as simple as asking!

3
Go for personality, sense of humor and intelligence and not beauty. Looks fade after so long and
eventually when you get out of bed, you have to talk to them. Sex lasts an hour tops, but there are 23
more hours in a day.

What is the best advice your father ever gave you?

A few years ago, I had rejected a marriage proposal who was an IIT passout and was working in
a reputed firm at a high designation.

But our thinking did not match, our wavelengths and likes were poles apart. He put forth certain
conditions that if I were to marry him, I would have to obey those conditions. I politely told him
that most of his conditions weren’t acceptable to me.

Yet the common relatives who had introduced us felt that we were a match made in heaven.

I made my displeasure clearly known to my immediate family who supported me

unconditionally.

But you know how certain relatives can be. The moment they came to know that I had rejected
such a ‘prestigious’ proposal, they started calling me and reprimanding me for refusing such a
“prestigious” proposal.

I was quite disturbed by these calls. When dad came to know about these calls, he asked me to
forward those calls to him. And when people started asking him about what made me reject the
guy, he would calmly reply, “my daughter knows what’s the best for her. She has to live her
life and nobody else.”

After a few days, dad and mom took me out for dinner to make me feel better. It was then dad
said that he wanted to tell me something. When I asked dad what was it, he said, “ Never be with
people who claim to be your well-wishers but hurt you and try to put you down for their own
satisfaction. Just walk out of them without giving them any explanations.”

I asked dad wouldn’t it mean hurting relatives, to which he replied, “People who are genuinely a
part of your life will never ask for any explanations and people who ask you for explanations
don’t deserve to be a part of your life.”

How I wish dad was still alive. His untimely demise has devastated me to such effect that I still
haven’t recovered from it completely.

What is the smoothest thing you have ever said to a woman?

My crush came to our restaurant and ordered a Pineapple juice.

After finishing the juice, she said, “I don't have diabetes, Akshay. You could have added more
sugar.”

4
“But, I had added enough. Maybe, it's your own sweetness that might have diluted the effect a
bit.” I replied.

She smiled and boy, I was crushed again! ❤

I knew our relationship changed the very moment. I was proven right, when she confessed her
love for me the next year.

With a rakhi, of course. (-_-)

What happened to the cheapest Indian smartphone - Freedom 251?

The marketing strategy applied by the owners of Ringing Bells, the label that was behind the
phenomenal trend of 2016, Freedom 251, was something more than a well thought and processed
plan.

Almost everyone saw on the launching event the small smartphone with a whitener covering the
region above the screen.

Apparently this was because, it was not a Freedom phone but a Chinese cellphone of the brand
Adcom.

5
Now, coming to the main strategy, what the owners simply did was

 Collect the money in advance from customers, promising them to deliver the phone
within six months, else a refund would be provided.
 Depositing the collected money in bank.

It was surveyed that the company garnered sales of ₹145 Crore

 They, then, utilized the money against an interest of ₹6.5 crore

 And then, simply, after six months period, returned the money to respective people,
pocketing a hefty 6.5 crore against a INR 5 Lakh marketing fees.

6
It was a risky, but mastermind plan applied by the owner, who fooled people by promising
world’s cheapest mobile and earned a lumpsum cash for his own.

Please note that this is inspired from a post on YourStory and is my personal view.

Source:, How to make Rs 6 Cr in a day doing nothing

What is the best thing you read today?

Mathematician Ramanujan didn’t have any close friends - someone asked him the reason. He
replied that although he wanted to have close friends - nobody was up to his expectation. When
pressed how he expected his friends to be - he replied - like numbers 220 and 284. The person
got confused and asked what is the connection between friendship and these numbers!

Ramanujan asked him to find the divisors of each number!

With much difficulty - the person derived and listed them.

220 - 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, 110, 220

284 - 1, 2, 4, 71, 142, 284

Ramanujan then asked the person to exclude the numbers 220 and 284 and asked the sum of the
remaining divisors. The person was astonished to find:

220: 1+2+4+5+10+11+20+22+44+55+110 = 284

284: 1+2+4+71+142 = 220

Ramanujan explained that an ideal friendship should be like these numbers - to complement each
other - even when one is absent - the other should represent the friend!

The person thought - no wonder this genius is on the world’s top list of mathematicians!!

Just for the closure, these numbers are known as amicable numbers and the next set is 1184 and 1210.
Historically, Pythagoreans believed that if two friends wore amulets, one with 220 and the other with
284, they would fortify their friendship.

What kind of mindset is required for personal growth?

A close friend of mine is the CXO of a startup that is aggressively expanding.

Over dinner one day, I was feeling incredibly proud of how well he is doing. I congratulated him,
and said “Man, how does it feel to be running such a high growth company?”

7
Pat came his reply, with a smile “It’s uncomfortable”

I was puzzled with his response, and enquired why - “One thing I have learnt is that we have to
wake up everyday and do something that is extremely hard in the market - if we do the easy
stuff, we will not create any value.

It’s an uncomfortable situation, dealing with new and difficult things. But that’s exactly why
clients come to us - because we have got so good at solving hard problems and creating value.
We thrive in the uncomfortable.”

It’s incredible, but your life is just like a startup - especially when you’re young. Applying the
same logic to personal growth yields exactly the same results - always challenge yourself to do
difficult things.

To grow, you must thrive in the discomfort of doing difficult things.

What are some interesting psychological experiments?

This is called the Napkin Experiment.

Next time you have a party at work or home, try this and see for yourself.

The first time, put these common/regular napkins in a bunch for the guests to use.

8
Watch them abuse these napkins, just pulling them out as they please, in any numbers. Most
people will take more than one. They will trash this napkin without care and get more as needed.

The second time, use these instead. Nothing really fancy here compared to the previous napkin -
just a different, bright color.

Watch the difference this time. People will treat them as special, being careful to just pull one at
a time. They will also preserve this napkin longer.

People automatically assign importance when something appears different or fancier than what
they are used to.

This is also the same principle where well dressed people are usually treated better.

Be different, in a good way, to be treated special.

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What is some popular wrong advice that has been mistakenly considered good?

The most popular wrong advice nowadays is: ‘Follow Your Passion’

‘Follow Your Passion’ is the most popular advice floating around. You would find many
successful people speaking in favour of it. There are also many movies made on this subject
nowadays all over the world.

The fact is that most people who follow their passion end up being a failure and lead a miserable
life.

 For every successful writer, there are thousands of unsuccessful and unknown writers

 For every successful cricketer, there are several thousands who never make it to a national team

 For every successful entrepreneur, there are hundreds of failed business ventures

 For every successful filmstar, there are thousands who don’t progress beyond extras

However, no one talks about their failures but only talk about one in a million success stories.

What is the most useful life hack in studying?

Go public.

Have you tried reading a book at a public library or a cafe and noticed that you have insane level
of concentration? People walking by and small distant chats do not really bother you at all. In
fact, so focused that you don’t even feel like leaving your seat even though you wanna pee!

Here’s why:

 Your bed is not near you anymore and hence its gravitational force is not strong enough
to pull you.
 You have a feeling that someone is watching you, and hence you should behave properly
and doing real work is the only option.
 You have spent $5 dollar on that small cup of latte and you think that the only way to
justify that spending is to have something done by the end of the day.
 You have traveled 20 minutes just to get to the cafe/library and hence you do not want to
be guilty of wasting time, thus being productive is the only choice.
 You’re now too far out from home to go back and do chores that you’ve forgotten, so you
have no choice but to do it later in the evening or tomorrow

As ridiculous as it sounds, it works. You’ll get a lot of things done by the end of the day.

I used to trap myself in my room and try to be productive but it’s just not effective. My
productivity surges when I force myself out of my room to study at public places.

10
Did you know that J.K. Rowling spent much of her early days in one cafe writing a few novels?
You will start to notice that many people actually like to do work in public places because it is
very productive for them.

The trick is to get out of your comfort zone.

What are the basic laws that Indians are not aware of?

I have written what I feel are important things most people are unaware of and should know. I
have tried to cover most important branches of law.

This is based on my experience of past two years and I am likely to edit this answer in a few
days to add more points -

First thing -

1. Ignorance of law is no defence -

In the court of law, you cannot plead as defence the fact that you were not aware of the law. This
is what damns most people! And makes the field of law extremely important if one wishes to
survive in material life.

2. While buying an immovable property - (Like Flat or Land) -

Giving a public notice in the newspaper is a must. It doesn't matter which one. It need not be
English. Any state language too will do. And any newspaper with some circulation will do. This
Public notice is what protects your interest in the court of law if you face any litigation regarding
your purchased property.

Secondly, a legal search of the property (not to be confused with physical search) has to be
conducted by hiring a lawyer following which he gives a title note. If you approach nationalised
banks for loan to buy property, their lawyers conduct a search and give title note. But if not, you
have to do it yourself.
Lawyers conduct search by visiting sub registrar's office and checking the record of title
documents.

Example - You bought a flat without public notice and legal search, and turns out the owner did
not have a clear title. Now you along with the owner are being sued for cancellation of your
purchase.

In such a case, the law / court is bound to protect the interest of a bonafide purchaser if he had
given a public notice and had conducted search. If not, then the law is not going to protect your
interest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT -

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With due respect to all professions, this is a sincere advice -

When drafting agreements like Sale Deeds or Agreement to sell (These are relating to buying
properties), please take the help of your trusted lawyer. Most people try to save the lawyer's fees
by getting the agreements drafted by Estate Agents. This in my experience, is a grave mistake as
Estate Agents are not qualified to draft agreements. They have standard formats in which they
fill your details.
Every agreement that is drafted speaks for itself. Tomorrow if you end up in court, the court is
not going to ask you as to what was agreed between you and the seller. They will read your
agreement. Which is why, it should be properly drafted.

An average lawyer will charge somewhere between Rs. 8,000/- to Rs. 15,000/- to draft the
agreement in cities. An Estate agent takes around 4-5,000/- for this job.

Even then, spending a little more money to draft a good agreement which will save your trouble
later is wiser.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. What should you do when someone gave you a cheque and it bounces?

Assuming that you received payment for some work you did, and the cheque got bounced, what
are your rights?
The reason I am including this in this answer is the fact that time is of essence in a cheque
bouncing case.
The moment a cheque bounces with the endorsement "Insufficient Funds", go to a lawyer and
send the person a legal notice demanding your money. This has to be done within 30 days of
bouncing of the cheque. Once that person receives your notice, he is required by law to pay
you your money within the next 15 days. His failure to do so, gives you a right to file a
criminal case against him for cheque bouncing.

Cheque bouncing now is a criminal offence and he risks sitting in jail for it.

4. Streedhan in Hindu law -

Whatever money, jewellery etc. is given to a bride in her marriage by both her parents as well as
the groom's parents is legally her property. It is known as Streedhan. So ladies, if you are leaving
matrimonial home for divorce, take your streedhan with you.

Most people later fight for it in courts as gold is extremely costly.

5. Devolution of property in Hindu Law -

If a Hindu man dies intestate (without making a will), his property devolves as per the provisions
of Hindu Succession Act. His mother, wife and children all get an equal share in his property.

12
A man can only make a will and give away his self acquired property. There is no limit to it.
If you have earned the property yourself then you can even give it away to a stranger.
Don't want to give your property to your wife and kids? Make a will and register it!

But if it is ancestral property, he cannot give away to stranger alone, as his children and brothers
(now sisters) too have joint rights. What he can do is make a will of his share in the ancestral
property.

6. Maintenance - Muslim women

Maintenance of divorced Muslim women is actually a woeful tale on which I plan to write an
article soon. Anyway, so divorced Muslim women have no right to maintenance from their
husbands. Only if both the husband and wife make an affidavit to be governed by Section 125 of
the Criminal procedure code, then she can claim maintenance under section 125.

Why would a man do that? And obviously they don't. So, not only can any random Kazi nullify
their marriage, she has no rights whatsoever after that. The law says that her parents, children or
relatives are liable to pay her maintenance. And if nothing works, she can claim maintenance
from the Wakf board of India which ends up giving nominal maintenance.

7. Special Marriage Act.

Hindu / Christian women wishing to marry Muslim men should know exactly what happens to
their legal rights on conversion and marriage under Muslim law.

Muslim men can legally have 4 wives. And if you married under the Muslim law, you have no
right of maintenance.

To keep all your rights intact and make an informed choice, marry under the Special Marriage
Act specially made for such instances. One should not land up in a situation where one has to
regret later.

8. Registration of documents -

Registration of all legal indentures related to immovable property more than Rs. 100/- is
compulsory.

This includes your Leave and License (Rent agreement), Sale deeds, lease agreements, gifts etc.
Most people who don't register either don't know this or are looking to save stamp duty.
Trust me, it is not worth it to try and save stamp duty only to land up with litigation which will
cost you a hell of a lot more than just money.

Registration means actually going to the Sub Registrar's office, and registering the
document there and not merely notarizing it with a Notary's stamp.

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9. Police complaints and record creation.

While giving police complaints, please take help from a lawyer. Most lawyers will draft the
police complaint and give it to you. This is important because should your complaint culminate
into a case, police complaint becomes an important piece of evidence.

10. Limitation.

There is a whole Limitation Act to tell you about this, but I will only talk about the things which
happen most often.
For most civil case, the limitation to file a case is three years. Your client breached your contract
and owes you money, you have to file a case within three years of his refusal to pay. After that
your suit is time barred and most likely be dismissed.

11. Arbitration -

Arbitration is a method of alternate dispute resolution. In this, Parties decide beforehand that in
case of dispute they will not go to court but rather would appoint an independent arbitrator (s) to
resolve their disputes.

ON the face of it, this looks nice, you don't have to go to court, saves money time and energy.
These days, it has become a trend to have arbitration clause in the agreement. From employment
agreements to huge deal between companies, you can see arbitration everywhere.

But in my experience having an arbitration clause in your contract without understanding the full
implications of it can be very damning.

For starters, people should know that once you write this clause you completely close the
doors of the court. If you have arbitration clause, you cannot go to court. And an arbitral
award is binding on the parties just like a court decision.

Further, appeal from an arbitral award can be made on extremely limited grounds. So,
what would otherwise give you three fora (District court, High Court and then Supreme Court) to
appeal, is completely gone through Arbitration. So, you are left with no choices.

Plus remember that bribing an independent Arbitrator is way easier than bribing all the judges in
these three different fora.

EDIT - As promised, and based on the comments -

12. Pre marital sex-

Consensual pre-marital sex is not illegal in India as long as the girl's age is more than 16. The
recent Madras High court judgement (Couples who have premarital sex to be considered
‘married,’ says HC) is very interesting. Note that this judgment is not binding on other courts

14
throughout India. And it is quite likely that it will be challenged and the opinion of the SC will
matter then.

13. Live in relationships in India -

These are not illegal and any two consenting adults have the freedom to live together without
marriage if they wish to. Domestic violence act too takes this relationship into consideration and
a woman can get relief under the act even if she is not legally wedded to the man.
In fact there is also an inclination to treat live in relationships like marriage in Indian courts if the
couple have lived together for many years.

Children born out of live in relationships have a right to inherit their parent's property.

Also, children born to mistresses (illegitimate children, only to make it clear, I am personally
against using the term) too inherit their father's property and can claim maintenance.

14. Inheritance of ancestral property by women under Hindu law -

Women have an equal right of inheritance in ancestral property after the 2005 amendment to the
Hindu Succession Act. Women can also demand partition of the property and women can also be
recognised as the Karta of Joint Hindu family property now.

15. Public display of affection -

Section 294 of the Indian penal code states that whoever commits obscene acts in public places
will be punished for a term which may extend up to 3 months. The word 'Obscene' is not defined
as our definition of it keeps changing with time.

Needless to say, your regular kiss, or goodbye hug do not fall in this category. Therefore, public
display of affection is perfectly legal. Only when it inclines towards obscenity, one may be
punished.
Also, unfortunately, in spite of a sane law, you may still come across news of policemen
harassing couples.

16. Pornography -

In India, watching or possessing pornographic material is not illegal. It is illegal and punishable
only when one sells, lets to hire, distributes, publicly exhibits or in any manner puts it into
circulation.

Reference - Section - 292 of Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of Information Technology Act.

Will be adding more. Feel free to comment and suggest more topics.

15
16
What was the weirdest compliment you've ever received?

This happened on Quora itself.

A guy once messaged me saying, “Hey, I really enjoy reading your answers. They are
addictive.”

Naturally I thanked him as I usually do.

A few days later the guy texted me again. This time however, he had something else in his head.

He said, “Your answers are too addictive, I will need to block you.”

I thought he was kidding and was giving me an offhand compliment. However, when I tried
replying, I realised he had actually blocked me.

I literally stared at the screen for 2 minutes, with mixed feelings, trying to grasp what happened.

I think that was the day I stopped trying to understand people.

This happened on Quora itself.

A guy once messaged me saying, “Hey, I really enjoy reading your answers. They are
addictive.”

Naturally I thanked him as I usually do.

A few days later the guy texted me again. This time however, he had something else in his head.

He said, “Your answers are too addictive, I will need to block you.”

I thought he was kidding and was giving me an offhand compliment. However, when I tried
replying, I realised he had actually blocked me.

I literally stared at the screen for 2 minutes, with mixed feelings, trying to grasp what happened.

I think that was the day I stopped trying to understand people.

Why does the young generation in India not take an interest in politics?

Why should you single out the young generation for not taking interest in politics?

Even the old generation is not interested in politics.

17
The reason why the decent people of India are not interested in politics is because of the
following reasons:

 You need crores of rupees to win an election in India.

 You also need huge amount of money to take care of your constituency after you win
elections.
 You get very less salary from the government as MLA or MP, which is not sufficient to
manage your expenses.
 You have to play caste, religion and region card to win elections.
 You have to compromise on your integrity and run around the government officials to get
the work done for the people of your constituency.
 You have to join a political party to win elections and no existing political party is
principled, clean or professionally managed.
 You can’t reach to the top if you join a family based or personality dominated party like
Congress, SP, BSP, RJD etc.
 You can’t reach to the top, if you join ideologically driven party like BJP unless you
subscribe to RSS ideology and been a Swayam Sevak for a long time.

It is for these reasons that good people in India, of all age groups, avoid joining politics.

Unless the politics is cleaned, good people shall not join politics. Unless good people join
politics, it can’t be clean.

Hence, India is trapped in a vicious cycle of dirty politics-dirty polticians.

Why doesn't the Indian government give free WiFi in India?

Let’s imagine a scenario.

You are working in a corporate job as a manager. You have done your engineering and MBA
from a top college where you worked hard to get admission and also to score the top position in
the class. You have got a good job in a corporate now, where you work 10-12 hours a day 5/6
days in a week to earn your living.

You are a married person and you are dining out with your family on the weekend in a fairly
good restaurant. You have selected some nice dishes looking the price so that your bill is within
your budget i.e. Rs 1000.

Once you finish your dinner, the waiter give you bill of Rs 3000.

You are surprised and you carefully go through the bill and you find that most of items added in
your bill have never been ordered or consumed by you.

You are extremely angry and you go to the manager and ask him to explain the bill.

18
The manager tells you politely, ‘Sir! Your bill is only Rs 1000. However, you must have seen at
your next table, a poor family dining.’

You: ‘Yes! I saw them munching. How does that matters?’

Manager: ‘Sir! They are very poor people. They have no money to pay for the food. We have a
rule that if a poor man does not have money, the person dining on the next table has to pay for
him.’

You are now extremely angry. You shout at the manager, “Why should I pay for someone else. If
he is poor, he should have not dined here. I refuse to pay his bill. I will pay only for my food.”

Manager is also very angry and he shouts you back. “According to the rules, it is your duty to
pay. Do you mean that a poor man has no right to eat good food? He has only exercised his
right. If you refuse to pay, I have the power to attach your car, your house and even get you
arrested.”

How do you feel in such situation?

Would you ever go to that restaurant again?

I would certainly not go to that restaurant again and I would also advice all my friends not to
visit that restaurant.

One of the important wisdom to life is to know that there is no free lunch.

When you don’t pay for the lunch, someone else pays for it.

In the same way, when you don’t pay for the WiFi, someone else has to pay.

And that “someone else” is certainly not the politicians or the government officials.

That someone is you and me, the taxpayers, who has to foot the bill for the free Wifi for those
people who are given this connection free of cost.

While you may use your Wifi prudently when you have to pay, those who are given it free would
use it freely, because they are not bothered about paying.

The freebies are the greatest disease for a nation.

By such acts, government acts like Robin Hood.

They rob Peter to pay Paul.

Such things are quite popular in movies and between the masses, but that kills the soul of
the nation because such actions penalize the hard-worker and rewards the non-worker.

19
Over 2 crore candidates apply for 1 lakh Indian railway jobs. Has the government failed to create jobs for
the people? How can we make this better?

The problem is not the lack of jobs, but lack of skill sets and qualifications.

At our company we have plenty of open roles [mostly in software], but find it hard to find the
right talent who can fit those roles. The same case in most companies. In a relative’s company
over 70% of the requirements are not filled.

Most of our schools and colleges are terrible. Most candidates don’t have right commitment and
hard work to learn the skills that the companies want. They just glide through the system and
hope to get a job because they acquired a piece of paper.

When governments advertise generic jobs, a lot of them apply as they see the career as
something not requiring special skills and they can once again glide through life without much
change. From dropouts to Phd candidates apply for them - and majority of them lack skillsets
needed by the market.

We have to fix the skills gap. Because that is the problem. Jobs are a plenty for those with the
right skills.

What questions are asked during arranged marriage meetings in India?

I have this one interesting experience to share.

Disclaimer: I am more than happy to marry a girl who earns more than me.

My salary on my profile : 35000 per month.

Girls salary - real as well as on profile : 70000 per month.

Girl : Software engineer from Pune.

Me: Doctor working in Pune.

Location: Cafe coffee day.

We met and talked for quite a bit of time.

I ordered and paid for coffee. She did not offer to pay at all.

We were almost to the end of conversation.

There was a kind of arrogance, an absence of the shyness in the girl. I felt I was talking to my
sister. This girl didn’t look interested in me at all. Though we did not click but we talked for
quite long time.

20
And then 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave: She asked with a bit of arrogance. Do
you know I earn almost double than you. Is it okay with you ?

I said I am more than okay. I won’t have to work harder after marriage.

But there was something I did not like the way she asked that question. A sense of attitude was
there. She was kind of ready to reject me then and there. I could see a fair bit of demands
coming out from her because of her salary. One amongst them she laid out was that I
would have to settle near her parents house only.

So before leaving, I told her the profile on the matrimonial does not reveal my true salary. It is
1.5 L per month.

Next 5 mins I could see a typical Indian shy girl before me with smiles and that thing they do
with their hair (Reference : Vidya balan’s hair in Munnabhai 2).

And guess what her next question was: Shall I ask my dad to call your mom to take matters
ahead?

I told her will let u know.

What are some confidence hacks?

1. Fake it till’ you become it. Sound dominant, more on the masculine side. Speak up. Your
goal is for everyone around you to shut up and look at you when you speak.
2. Do not be afraid to tell jokes. What’s the worst that can happen? Nobody laughs. Well,
no one is laughing when you are silent either. At least mentally flip a coin, and aim for
that irresistible charisma.
3. Take more space than you need. This doesn’t apply to public places where everyone is
neatly aligned like sardines.
4. Raise your arm as high as you can and straight as an arrow. Don’t let it be half folded or
barely visible.
5. Playing safe isn’t really living. It’s called existing. Here is one of my favorite quotes,
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing”
(Aristotle).
6. Your biggest enemy is yourself. Overcome self doubt. Get rid of victim mentality. The
only person stopping you from achieving what you want in life is yourself.
7. Finally, there are 7.4 billion people on this planet alone. 100 billion galaxies. Trillions of
ants on our land. Do you think your fears matter in the big picture?

Is cohabiting with your girlfriend/boyfriend before marriage the right thing to do, and why?

LISTEN UP PEOPLE I AM ONLY GOING TO SAY THIS ONCE!

Do NOT get married to anyone unless you have lived with them through all 4 seasons and for at
least 12 months. If the sex isn’t great, it doesn’t get any better after you are married, so take that

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shit into consideration too. I don’t care what your religion says about it, or what your family
thinks about it, or how it looks in society… fuck all that. You don’t buy a $100,000 car without a
long test drive. Well, same theory applies here. You MUST do this or you will regret it every day
for the rest of your life.

When I was married the first time, my ex-wife didn’t want to live together for “religious” and
“family” reasons. She slept over at my place for the 6 months or so before we got married in
June, but still had her own place. The change in seasons impacts mood and how people are.
Spring and Summer people are great! Fall and Winter brings out the other side in them. Beware!
I wish I had this advice. If you have a partner who has an issue with that, show them my post.
You will thank me later.

Why does the Coca-Cola company not use its logo in Indian languages when they sell their products in
India?

In China and other large nations, people take pride in speaking their local language. English
speaking is very limited. Thus, Coca Cola and other companies have to design everything for
Mandarin.

In India, the educated middle class [who are the primary consumers] are comfortable with
English. Even if not all can speak English, there is a social status for English. Thus, companies
can get away without customizing their products with Indian languages. In some places putting
the local language might even “harm” them as we attribute high quality to the high level of
“Englishness”.

We let the global companies get away with ignoring our languages.

Sure, Coke does have a Hindi logo, but not used widely. Interestingly, they have Tamil logos
when they sell in Singapore and Sri Lanka.

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Finally, Quora is now launched in language editions with fewer speakers than major languages.
But, will there be a Quora Hindi or Tamil anytime soon? Not likely. We just don’t give enough
respect to our languages and demand for them.

Which famous person in history who is idolized, was actually a horrible person?

“The only true genius motion pictures ever produced”- G B Shaw had said of him.

Genius who was a repeat sexual offender, hebephile-targeting young female co-actors, cheated
on multiple women, alleged wife-beater and other scandalous credentials to his otherwise
glittering career.

Chaplin’s first underage victim was Mildred Harris- who was a child actor. After a brief
relationship with her, Harris was found pregnant at the ripe young age of 16 and gave birth to
Chaplin’s child. To avoid being prosecuted for statutory rape, Chaplin married Harris—a trend
he would use the rest of his life.

Chaplin mentally abused her and frowned upon her for not being an intellectual equal to himself.
They divorced as she turned 18.

Then Chaplin set his lusty eyes on a young Lita MacMurray, who was 12 when she was cast in
Chaplin’s The Kid. She was impregnanted by Chaplin at the age of 16!

She was pressured by Chaplin to abort the child and was removed from a film she declined to
abort. However, when Chaplin realised he ran the risk of being labelled a rapist, he married Lita
under duress and telling friends that “marriage was a better option than prison.”

McMurray’s 3-year marriage to Chaplin was a nightmare. Divorce documents from court
revealed that Chaplin used only as a child sex slave!

She was forced to perform cruel sexual acts that were deemed illegal in California during the
1920s. Chaplin also coerced her into taking part in a threesome with another woman. On one
occasion, he screamed at her: “All married people do those kinds of things. You are my wife
and you have to do what I want you to do.”

Chaplin, as a 55-year old, had an affair with a 22 year-old actress named Joan Barry, who he had
promised to make a lead actress in his film. What resulted was two-terminated pregnancies and
the subject of the suit, a girl named Carol Ann. Chaplin supported the girl financially until her
21st birthday.

Chaplin, who died in 1977 aged 88, boasted frequently about his conquests, and said he had had
sexual relations with more than 2,000 women!

Thus, Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest contributors to motion cinema, was a ghastly being
who operated much below the dignity of a human!

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What are some of the mistakes of Indians that are destroying their financial lives?

The biggest mistake Indians do is we consider Insurance as an Investment. When I say Insurance
it means Endowment policies, ULIP, Whole Life Participating policies, etc.

You should never ever ever ever consider Insurance as an Investment.

Grab a cup of coffee, this answer is long, a real story and an eye opener for you.

This is an incident which happened in June 2012, one of my colleague Mr. Ronad, we both were
working in the same organisation and in one of our conversation during lunch he mentioned to
me,

“You know Vipul, I have purchased LIC Jeevan Anand policy of 20 lakhs and agent told me that
after 20 years the amount would be 45 Lakhs rupees.”

(By the way I call LIC agent as “Messiah”, that’s how you treat them)

I did some calculation on the fly and informed him that,

“It will not give you more than 6% returns which means that instead your wealth being
appreciated, it is depreciating day by day and secondly forget about the returns you have
constantly kept your family under danger.”

Below Image represents the returns of Jeevan Anand policy.

If you look at the returns of Jeevan Anand (It could be any traditional policy) it is a mere 6% and
in past several years inflation was more than 6%. Which means your wealth is depreciating
instead of appreciating.

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His second question was “How is my family under constant danger in-spite of Insurance?”

I explained to him that imagine if something unfortunate happens to you, your wife will receive
20 Lakhs and so-called bonuses of another 5 Lakhs from LIC.

That is rupees 25 lakhs.

Now your wife doesn't understand investment so what she is going to do, she is going to keep
these money into fixed deposit.

I am talking about 2012 when interest rate were around 8%.

Considering this scenario his wife will receive rupees 2 lakh on 25 Lakhs of Sum insured at 8%.

i.e 25 Lakhs * 8% = Rs 2 Lakhs.

“If you divide this 2 Lakhs by 12 months that is 16,666 rupees per month.

Can your wife survive with Rs 16,666 for her life expectancy of 75 or 80 yrs of age?

Can your wife carry household expenses + Children education expenses with Rs 16,666?”

His answer was a big “NO” (I am sure your answer will also be a NO).

He asked me for a solution.

“The base minimum insurance required is your yearly salary multiply by 100 divided by the
current interest rate.”

His salary was 15 Lakhs per annum which means 1500000 x 100 / 8 percentage i.e Rs 1.5 Cr.

But while doing financial planning all worst case scenarios have to be considered.

Interest in 2012 were around 8%, considering a what if scenario I told him what if tomorrow the
interest rate comes down to 6%. (Now the interest rate is at 6%)

I replaced 8% with 6% and the Insurance amount required to him was 2.5 crore.
Again the same formula (15 Lakhs x 100 / 6%).

It was suggested to him to purchase a term insurance of Rs 2.5 Crore.

We had a scheduled meeting because of which we could not continue our conversation.

Next day, he told me, Vipul instead of 2.5 Cr I have purchased an insurance or 1.5 Cr.

I forcefully told him to purchase another 1 Cr of insurance because 2.5 crore was the base
minimum insurance required to him.

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Because we had not factored in inflation for child education, tax component from the proceeds of
insurance amount, etc. etc.

He did not listen to me and as usual, Indian typical mentality “Kya Hoga Yaar kuch bhi to nahi
hoga” (Nothing will happen)

In Sep 2014, my phone rang and I received the news that my same friend died in a swimming
pool.

It was a shocking news to me.

I could not believe what I heard because he was a good swimmer.

A person who used to wake up at 5.00 in the morning, regularly used to do yoga, walking and
occasionally swimming. How could he die?

He was just 38, in fact that’s the age to live the life at fullest.

I along with my other office colleagues reached at swimming pool, police was also present.

Police took his body for Post-Mortem at Bhagwati Hospital in Borivali,Mumbai.

I bet you will not be able to stay in post morterm room for more than 30 seconds, They cut the
body like we cut a banana. It was terrible.

We received his dead body after few hours and cremated as per Hindu rituals.

His family kept a prayer after 13 days. I wanted to speak to his wife about Rs 1.5 Cr Insurance.

I didn’t had the courage to ask his wife, I mean how could you ask a woman whose husband died
just 13 days ago.

I gathered some courage and finally asked her about the term insurance of Ronad.

To my surprise, she was completely unaware of this insurance policy.

I knew Ronad’s email and the insurance company from where he purchased the term insurance.

The challenge was as he died even the password died along with him, we recovered Yahoo email
password through OTP stuff and finally the policy details.

Claim was filed while providing all the papers related to death which included panchnama, death
certificate, post mortem report, etc, etc.

His wife received Rs 1.5 Crore cheque after few days and that was the day I realized the power
of insurance.

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After this incident, half of the office staffs came to me for insurance planning because they saw
what happened.

This incident made me realize that such a casual advice saved a life of a widow, she will not
have to beg in front of anyone, anymore. Imagine the scenario where she would have received Rs
25 Lakhs from LIC. (Can’t even think of it)

That was the day I started spreading awareness towards financial literacy. It gave me a goal in
my life. (Majority of you don’t even know why you are living this life)

My mission is now to educate 1 Crore Indians towards financial literacy for which I started
blogging, webinars, conducting seminar in society.

There are few societies which pay for tea, coffee and chairs while some don’t. Those who don’t,
I pay from my own pocket.

What I learned and you should learn from this incident,

a) Messiah, be it LIC agent or any other Insurance company agent are behind their premium not
behind your family security(Exceptions are always there).

b) Insurance is not an investment at all. Don’t do this wealth destroying mistake.

c) Do buy term insurance and secure your family in case of an unfortunate event.

d) All your bank details, Insurance details, Shares, Mutual Funds, email along with passwords
should be known to 2–3 family members.

Why 2–3 family members, there are cases where entire family dies in a car crash.

My fight is against of Lakhs of messiah in India, I don’t know by which date I would be able to
achieve my mission but I will continue my fight…..

I would like to end this answer with famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi

“First they will ignore you,

then they will laugh at you,

then they will fight at you,

then finally you WIN”

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