Do you like your bristles soft, medium or hard?
That's the most choice kids have these days.
We had much more back in the summer holidays spent in Kerala.
Wake up in the morning and make our own toothbrushes.
A new one every morning. It allowed us to pick and choose
We'd walk around the compound to find several mango leaves lying under the tree
Some of them would be spotted and orange with strange patterns
But we didn't care. They tasted better than the plain green ones.
Then it would have to be folded into a tight roll. So, you had layers and layers of leaf tightly bound between thumb and forefinger.
And then, start brushing.
The edges of the leaf would fray as you brushed vigorously.
Like scraping off a carrot, you would wear the rolled leaf down to a stub you could barely hold in your fingers.
The flavour of the leaves comes rushing back along with the memories.
No toothpaste. Just the varying flavours of something that tasted vaguely of mangoes.
But your mouth felt so fresh, it was unbelievable.
Try it sometime.
Even the mintiest toothpaste wont be a patch on this one.
Nature packs a real punch.
Bhakarwadi is a delicious mouthful
If you've never eaten bhakarwadi, pause right here.
Place an order at the link below.
Chitale Bandhu is a landmark in Pune but people across India are just as familiar with the wide range of food products that people line up for.
What is bhakarwadi?
I'll help myself to this delightful description written by NDTV food.
The favourite item of choice at Pune's Chitale Bandhu is a deep-fried disc of dough, stuffed with a wealth of spices.
It unites the gentle sweetness of dried coconut, and the musty, warming flavours of poppy and sesame seeds plus, cumin seeds, with the tang of dried, powdered mango, and the potency of chilli.
The origin story goes back to 1939 - as a dairy farm.
Generations and experimentation later, the Pune brand has gone from local to spreading its wings across the world.
It's one of the sweetest pleasures of the internet.
You no longer have to trouble friends and family for the authentic delicacies at faraway stores.
Several Indian startups now supply the original right to your doorstep.
It's not instant gratification - but fully worth the wait
Which is your local favourite?
Would you keep going with an idea for 10 years?
Being stubborn helps.
And so does being in Romania where top engineers cost considerably less than talent in Silicon Valley.
The problem with Robotic Process Automation is the name. It's hard to understand.
UI Path built its products through a series of hits and misses over a decade. Took them over 10 years to get to $1 million in revenue.
What they understood was that as organisations grew, the repetitive processes within multiplied as well.
So, people were unproductive doing repetitive work.
Hospitals filled out forms to admit and monitor patients. And doing it manually led to huge backlogs
The same thing happened in insurance companies.
The difficulty was in breaking the processes down and figuring out how to automate each stage.
But UI Path persisted.
They built modules that would help people get repetitive work done with minimal intervention.
The company's philosophy in one line: We make robots so people don't have to be robots.
Like the operating system simplified computing and made it accessible to millions.
As the CEO Daniel Dines puts it, "I want a robot for every person"
The company grossed over $450 million in revenue in 2019. Current valuations are over $10 billion.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it with friends. Or Tweeting the link. The more people we can get to tune in every week, the merrier. Thank you.
Share this post