How I Ended Up Working With Dr Malpani

Before I begin, I want to make one thing very clear.

Dr Malpani has forced me to write this article.

I do not enjoy writing. I have avoided it my entire life. If you gave me the choice between writing an essay and debugging a thousand-line JavaScript error, I would pick the thousand lines with a smile. He insisted that I write my story. So here we are. You can blame him for everything that follows.

Life before all this

A few months ago, I was a call center employee. I used to work on the HP Printer support line. It sounds simple, but the reality is far from it. It was a night shift. I would log in by eight or nine at night, and I would handle back-to-back calls until five or six in the morning. By the time I finally returned home, my mind was exhausted. I had been shouted at, insulted, blamed, and sometimes even humiliated by people who were frustrated with their printers.

Night shifts change your body and your mind. You sleep when the world is awake. You eat when you are not hungry. You pretend to be cheerful when your eyes are begging you to close for a few seconds. But you keep going because you have to.

I slept around seven in the morning, woke up around two or three in the afternoon, and in the remaining few hours, my only escape was coding. No matter how tired I was, I would still sit down and write code because it was the one thing that made me feel like I was building something instead of just surviving.

During that time, I built LifeOS. It was a small personal tool to track expenses, write daily journal entries, manage tasks, small habits, and routines. I even wrote a daily journal for twenty days. That might sound trivial, but for someone who dislikes writing this much, it was almost a miracle.

Those hours of coding after a long night shift became the anchor that kept me from burning out.

A casual scroll that became a turning point

I had been following Dr Malpani online for a long time. I never interacted with him, never commented on anything, never imagined he would ever know my name. He was like one of those familiar faces you see on the internet who shares interesting and thought-provoking ideas.

One day, while scrolling through Twitter, I saw a post where someone complained about potholes. Under that tweet, I saw a reply from Dr Malpani. He said something simple that struck me immediately. He suggested that someone should build a website to track potholes.

It looked like a normal comment. For some reason, it hit me like lightning.

I felt something very strongly in that moment. A frustration that I was wasting my talent. A realisation that I had skills that could solve real-world problems, not just create side projects for myself. Something inside me said, this is your chance. Take it.

I replied to him saying that I would build the website.

This was the first time I ever interacted with him. I promised him publicly that I would build IndianPotholes.com. A stranger on the internet. A man I had never spoken to. A person I admired only from a distance.

But something told me to do it.

And sometimes in life, that small instinct becomes the beginning of everything.

The birth of IndianPotholes.com

Shortly after my reply, a Twitter account named World Affairs bought the domain IndianPotholes.com. Around twenty-five to thirty people joined a group to help build the project. There was excitement, ideas, energy, and discussions. But then it slowed down. People got busy. Replies reduced. Momentum faded.

It began to feel like real Indian bureaucracy. Waiting, waiting, and more waiting.

I am not good with waiting.

So I decided to build the website myself. I sat down and wrote it from scratch. At that time, I did not know how to properly use coding AI tools. So I wrote everything by hand, the old-school way. It took me a day or two to finish the core version.

When it was ready, I replied on the Twitter thread telling him that the site was live.

I had no idea that this one action was about to rearrange my entire life.

The first call that I ignored

While travelling one day, my phone rang. Unknown number. I am an introvert. I get nervous talking to strangers. I did not answer. A few minutes later, I received a message from Dr Malpani on Twitter. He said he had tried calling and wanted to discuss how we could ensure the project would not die out.

To be honest, I panicked. I did not know how to talk to someone like him. So when he asked thoughtful questions, I asked ChatGPT and gave those answers to him. At that time, ChatGPT was my secret assistant.

But he appreciated the thoughtfulness, and then he gave me his number. When I finally gathered the courage and called him, we spoke for twenty to twenty-five minutes. That was the first time I truly understood what kind of person he was. Direct. Clear. Curious. Encouraging. Patient.

During the call, he said something that completely surprised me. He wanted to give me a grant of one lakh rupees.

I refused. Taking money from a stranger felt wrong. And IndianPotholes honestly did not need that much investment.

The launch and the storm of support

IndianPotholes launched and the response was incredible. The number of actual pothole reports was small, but the attention from the Twitter community, developers, civic tech enthusiasts, and volunteers was huge. For the first time, I felt like something I built mattered in the real world.

After that, things moved quickly. We bought the domain IndianGarbage.com. We bought EmpoweredIndian.in. I still had not met him in person, yet we were brainstorming ideas, possibilities, and public tools that could make India better.

I did not know it, but he had already started forming a picture of what I could become.

The question that changed everything

One day, I was in my office bus on my way to work. My phone rang. It was him.

We spoke about many things. And then he casually asked, "Roshan, what is your salary?"

I told him the approximate figure.

Then he told me how much he could offer me.

And he asked if I wanted to work with him.

I was shocked. I had not even applied anywhere. He said I could write my own job description. He wanted me to build meaningful things, help NGOs, support civic tech, and use my abilities for something real.

I was twenty. I had never met him in person. And here was someone offering me a chance that many people never receive in their entire life.

He trusted me before I trusted myself.

Research, fears, doubts

I discussed everything with my family. I researched him deeply. I read the controversies, the articles, the debates. And the conclusion I reached was simple and clear.

He is a fair man. He speaks what he believes. He fights for what he thinks is right. And most importantly, he gives genuine opportunities to young people who are often ignored or underestimated.

That was enough for me.

Trying to meet him and failing because Mumbai exists

I tried to meet him in person, but Mumbai rains had other plans. Local trains stopped. Roads flooded. Everything was chaos. So instead, we did a long video call. In those thirty to forty minutes, he cleared every question I had.

By the end of the call, I knew I wanted to join.

I served my notice period. And the day it ended, I told him I was ready.

Most people would say something like, "Give me three or five days." He immediately said yes. He told me to start. Within forty-eight hours, I received the offer letter.

That is how I became an Entrepreneur in Residence at Malpani Ventures.

Looking back at the chain of miracles

When I look back at everything today, it feels unreal. One tweet. One comment. One decision. One website that I built in two days. And suddenly, my life changed forever.

I went from taking angry printer calls at night to working with someone who believes in creating a better India with technology and young people.

It makes me grateful. It makes me emotional. It makes me believe that the world still has places where talent, effort, and honesty can open doors.

This is only the first chapter. There is so much more I want to write about my experiences, our conversations, the lessons he teaches without even trying, and the projects we are building now.

But I will save those for another time.

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For now, this is the story.

A strange, beautiful, unlikely story.

The kind that only happens once in a lifetime.

And again, let me repeat the most important part.

Dr Malpani has forced me to write this article.

If you enjoyed it, please thank him, not me.

See you in the next chapter.