I now walk into the wild…

After having an amazing journey with D. E. Shaw & Arcesium for six years, I am now shifting to the wilderness. Indiahikes 😍 will be my new family, Trek leader 🧗‍♂️ will be my new job title & Himalayas 🏔️will be my new address.

Lately, people have been asking me many questions about this, for some it was Why did I take such an odd decision at the peak of IT career?, for some it was What motivated me to take such bold step? So here I am, giving you a sneak peak into my new life for all curious folks 🙂

LIFESTYLE 🧘‍♂️

I always wanted to follow a natural, minimalist, green & active healthy lifestyle. I can get this all nowhere better than in the wilderness. As a trek leader, I will be mostly living in the tents and trekking to the high altitude, I will be able to live a life with simplicity and frugality. I cannot imagine a better lifestyle for the best of my physical & mental health. ⛰️

LEARNING 🐒

Nature is the best teacher and also, nature is the best setting in which one can best seek knowledge. I am a knowledge hungry person and I am really looking forward to learn from the nature itself & from other people in the outdoors.💡

IMPACT 🌲 😇

There is not better time than this to realize that we must take big steps to take care of our environment to save ourselves from any more disasters & epidemics. Powerful initiatives at Indiahikes like Green Trails & Sustainability Champions gives me (and everyone) an opportunity to really make a difference. 🌲

Also, I see around a large number of people today are not really happy in today’s fast paced lifestyle. It will be a great opportunity for me to educate trekkers more about nature & natural lifestyle, lead by example & leave a life changing impact on trekkers. 😇

WORK 🧗‍♂️

High altitude trekking is favorite adventure & is a perfect Type 2 fun for me. Many might think I am going for trek leading to be able to trek across Himalayas, but the truth is that.. it is work after all. However, here the work adds meaning to my life. Indiahikes is the best value based organizations I ever got to know and its values are aligned perfectly with mine. 🤸‍♂️

I am super excited to thrive in this new role, new lifestyle & new phase of my life. Wish me luck 🙏 & lets trek together sometime. If you want to keep yourself updated with this new phase of my life, you can follow this blog using button in side panel & be part of a broad community of learners & explorer.

I now walk into the wild… 🥳

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June 5, 2020

Invest in Mutual Funds right away! These 5 points explains everything you need to know before starting.

There is no better time to invest in Mutual Funds than this time. I have consolidated few of useful articles & links which will help you get started easily (For now it mostly contains links & headings only, I will revise this blogpost with more rich content soon). This blogpost is followup to my previous post about investment tips for beginners.

1. What is a Mutual Fund & Why should you invest in Mutual Funds

MF in depth – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mutualfund.asp
Why to invest in MF: https://money.mobikwik.com/resources/mutual-funds-best-way-start-investing
My reasons:
- In simple terms, to at least beat inflation your money has to earn money.
- Habit of savings
- For having security

2. Why is this the best time to invest in Mutual Funds

Given the share market at very low at this time, buying stocks or mutual funds will get you more units & you get benefited most when market gets better. You can read more in this article.

3. Prerequisites & other useful info

Choose between regular and direct investment: https://groww.in/blog/direct-vs-regular-mutual-fund-reasons/
- Options for direct investment –
  - Buy from individual fund houses directly from companies
  - Or buy from vendors like Groww, Zerodha etc (pro – track at single place, con – information leak chance)

For direct investments from fund houses, you can manage folios at CAMS & KRA apps.
Get KYC done (one time)
- Check KYC status – https://camskra.com/ (KYC Status for should be “KYC Registered”)
- Video based eKYC- https://mf.adityabirlacapital.com/Pages/Individual/Customer-Service/EKycLandingPage.aspx

Useful terms to know before proceeding further
- SIP – Continuous investment over a period of time, mitigate market fluctuations risk
- Lump sum investment– one time investment
- STP – Transfer investment from one fund to another in installments
- SWP – Withdraw money in installments
- Debt, Equity, Hybrid – Types of mutual funds
- Small cap, mid cap, large cap, multi cap – Types of equity mutual funds.
- Value oriented, Index funds, Arbitrage, Tax saver – Other types of mutual funds

4. Set goals & choose funds

Set goals based on time horizon & risk appetite:
- Very short term (< 1 Yr)
- Short term (1-3 Yrs):
- Medium term (3Yrs+)
- Long term (10Yrs+)
- Retirement

Select fund type
- Debt
  - <1 year, low risk, low return (~6%)
    - Liquid debt fund: Less fluctuation, good for lump sum investment
  - 1-3 yrs, moderate risk, moderate return (6-8%)
    - Short duration debt fund
  - 3-5-10 yrs, high risk, high returns (8-10%)
    - Hybrid aggressive hybrid debt+equity fund: SIP ONLY
- Equity
  - 5-10 yrs, very high risk (10-12%)
    - Large & Midcap
    - Multi cap
    - Value oriented
- Tax Saving

Choosing fund to invest in:
- Compare funds at
  - https://www.valueresearchonline.com/funds/ or
  - https://www.moneycontrol.com/mutualfundindia/
- Check ratings, returns, expense ratio
- Check direct fund only
- Youtube research: Dhirendra kumar videos
- Prefer Growth option (than Dividend) & Direct (than Regular).
- Note, there is a lock-in period for all tax saver ELSS funds.

5. Track, Taxation etc

When to stop: Either met the max time set or met max amount set
Example folio for beginner:
- Short term: 1000/month – 3Yr – 36K+4K (8%) –
  - https://www.valueresearchonline.com/funds/15752/axis-short-term-fund-direct-plan
- Long term:
  - 1000/month – 5Yr – 60K+20K (12%)
  - 1000/month – 10Yr – 1.20L+1L (12%)
  - https://www.valueresearchonline.com/funds/15684/axis-focused-25-fund-direct-plan

Tax on Mutual Fund redemption:
- Short term (debt < 3yrs, equity < 1 year)
  - Debt: Income tax slab
  - Equity (65%+ equity in balance/hybrid funds): 15%
- Long term (debt > 3yrs, equity > 1 year)
  - Debt: 20% with indexation
  - Equity (above 1L interest): 10% (w/o indexation benefit)
- Read more at https://scripbox.com/mf/tax-on-mutual-funds/
- Read about indexation at https://cleartax.in/s/indexation-helps-reduce-tax-debt-fund-gains

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June 4, 2020

Support Navodayan Suman Jangir Recover From Ovarian Cancer

UPDATES:

* Few friends are too worried whether she is in good condition or not:
Good news! Suman is doing perfectly fine as of now. She has been recovering very well at home in Delhi after her last surgery. Its just that her cancer got discovered only recently and she was recommended to get the surgery done by Max hospital doctors.
* When is the surgery:
In her consultation with AIIMS doctors today, they confirmed that she is doing fine at this stage & since she recently went through a major surgery they recommended her to hold on for another major surgery. Although she will have to keep visiting hospital on regular basis & get different checks done. Based on how fast the cancer cells are affecting her the decision on surgery will be taken later (may be at the end of this month or later). Because of this we have also put active fundraising on hold for now.

* Another update on her health and the fundraiser:
Suman is doing fine and she doesn’t need any surgery in near future nor does she need any other treatment right now. She is under follow up with AIIMS delhi doctors and they said, it is very low grade so it may not grow for another 10-15 years also. TMH doctors also said that it may be preventable by healthy lifestyle and may never come back.
Also, given the situation have stabilized, Milaap fundraiser have been stopped. Though in the update on the fundraiser Milaap have said “the family is willing to donate the funds to other urgent treatments under Suman’s name”, the family members never said so and we are trying to get it corrected. In the meantime, all those who have contributed to the fundraiser can request a refund from Milaap by 16th July (else the donation will be given to one of other campaigns urgently needing funds). To get the refund you can send a mail as mentioned on latest Milaap update.

Hi Friends,

This is a call for help for Suman Jangir who is suffering from a very rare cancer disease – fibrosarcoma. Its a malignant cancer, which is capable of invading into adjacent tissues and may be capable of spreading to distant tissues, which means its spreading very fast into Suman & she needs a major surgery very soon to remove all such deadly cells from her body.

Suman was a talented student of JNV Kuchaman City, Nagaur Rajasthan, (my classmate for 7 years from 2008 batch). She has already gone through 2 surgeries in past including one major surgery which was done a few weeks back. The deadly cancer was detected only after the biopsy of tumour which was removed after her last surgery. This disease has already cost a lot of money to herself & her family. Now for her upcoming surgery she needs financial support from outside. Since this is one of very rare disease, various doctors (including few from AIIMS) are studying her case to decide on best course of action.

The minimum cost of her treatment is approximately 8 Lakhs INR for which we have already started a fund raiser on Milaap.org (https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-suman-jangib), and with an overwhelming response, more than 2 Lakh Rs have already been collected. You can contribute to this cause on Milaap campaign & also share the link with others who might want to help. Once we get more update from the hospital, we will keep you updated. We have put fundraising on hold till doctors confirm further details and estimates for her upcoming surgery.

Attached here are Suman’s medical documents FTR Download

Thanks a lot in advance for your support. 🙏

– JNVK 2008 Batch

Below is a file photo of Suman from a newspaper article covering her amazing performance in a Volleyball tournament last year.

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April 25, 2020

Getting bored at home? Try these 10 interesting alternate workout activities!

While many are feeling stuck at home and getting into negativity during this lock-down period, others are making the most of this time, enjoying this time to fullest and truly taking this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore various aspects and improve themselves.

If you also want to make this time more interesting, here are some activities of different types to try & throw the boredom away. I have curated the activities which needs minimal or no prop and I have been doing all these activities myself at home and they are amazing.

Lets start with cool coordination trick –

1. Juggling

First time when I thought about it, it looked very difficult. But once you learn the basic of how its done, then its only about how much practice you can do to get better at it. You might start by having just three rolls of socks. You can start here – How to juggle 3 balls.

2. Chakrasana (Bridge)

Very good for flexibility. This is also basis for backflip & advance tricks. You can read more about it on Wikipedia and simply try it yourself by looking at the images or by watching some videos.

3. Mayurasana

I am a fan of Yoga Aasanas and Mayurasan is something I was trying to do from long time. Finally after some practice lately I was able to do it. This video can help you how to better approach this.

4. Handstand T-Shirt challenge

Fun challenge, to put on t-shirt while on handstand. I am now trying to do this while facing the other side, you can do it this way?

Handstand T-Shirt Challenge ✅#Handstandtshirtchallenge pic.twitter.com/GAXnRFQuhF
— Ram (@ram_gurumukhi) April 25, 2020

5. Rope Skipping

I love rope skipping & if you want to get intense, try double under! I learnt it from the Paradise Crossfit, the Jump Rope Dudes are also cool.

6. Cartwheeling

Cartweheeling is really a fun activity. You need to record yourself / have someone at watch to give you feedback and get into perfect rotation. Thanks for Abhinav Parkour Academy where I first learnt about it.

If you are feeling more adventurous, rest of the activities are just for you!

7. Slack Lining

For this you will need some wide ropes or some other jugaad like niwar. I have set up one at home and practice slack-lining daily.

Jugaad slack lining at home using Niwar.#Jugaad #SlackLining #Lockdown pic.twitter.com/WsZDFszkxI
— Ram (@ram_gurumukhi) April 25, 2020

8. One hand pushup

There are various variations of pushups you can try, including one hand pushup, clap pushup and headstand pushup (facing the wall, like the t-shirt challenge).

9. Sword Fighting Tricks

Just get a heavy stick or a wide rode to try these cool swords tricks.

10. Handstand

I have been chasing handstand for a few months now, but with regular practice during last few weeks at home, I am able to do it well. If you don’t know how to get started with this, try to hold on to Head-Stand for good amount of time first. You can also try frog-stand, which is also known as foundation for Handstand.

I hope you liked the list of activities I mentioned here. Leave a comment (or tweet me) with your favorite one from this list or from your own list.

Thanks 🙏

March 31, 2020

Wilderness movies and documentaries to watch

Below is list of my favorite outdoor related entertainment content. Let me know, in comments, if you want me to suggest anything to try and add in the list.