4th July 1998, well rewind a bit more to mid October 1997, Swati was 8 months pregnant and facing the prospect of losing her job because the financial markets were in a bad shape, financial advertising was at its lowest. Back then her salary formed a major chunk of our income (now it is complete – I don’t get paid;) Thinks looked bleak – we had decided that once the baby is 3-4 months old she will move to Bangalore and try her luck at an opening which a friend had spoken about. I would stay back and look after the child till needed.
5th November 1997 Aasim was born!! he was in hind sight very aptly named by us, Aasim == Blessings. Parenthood changed our perspective, especially motherhood for Swati. Staying together as a family became a desperate need… … Nothing else mattered, whatever we do the three of us will not separate.
19th January 1998 SANIsoft was launched. Back then it was just me and Swati on a single 486DX2 in a corner of our bedroom. Swati did marketing and graphics – I did HTML, graphics and a smattering of perl, java (and PHP 🙂
Nearly 6 months passed – Swati used all her contacts with the industrialist and businessmen of the city, everyone promised but no one gave… … It looked like we had tried and failed.
4th July 1998 sometime in the late noon Swati got a call from Mr Vilas Kale (a prominent city businessman and chairperson of Vidharbha Economic Development Council) he wanted a website in 3 days. Same evening while going to the clinic I picked up our advance fee, a check for Rs5000/-
That was the end of the begining…