Harsh Snehanshu

Author. Pan-India Traveller. Young India Fellow.

Harsh Snehanshu is the author of Because Shit Happened: What NOT to do in a start-up! (Random House India, 2013). After graduating in 2011, he had a year-long unsuccessful stint with entrepreneurship. In March 2012, after having quit his company, he embarked upon a whimsical solo journey across the country. He traveled for a year during which he covered twenty-three states, discovering India and a bit of himself.

In June 2013, he was selected for the Young India Fellowship, a prestigious one-year academic fellowship in liberal arts, which he is currently pursuing. He is a prolific short-story writer and is working on two projects right now: one, a short-story collection; the other, a travel book.

Portfolio
Bricolagemagazine
Bihari: the Portrait of an Artist | Bricolage Magazine

by HARSH SNEHANSHU * A look at Subodh Gupta's exhibition Everything is Inside through a Bihari's eyes. The ornate Jaipur House, originally built as a residence for the Maharaja of Jaipur in 1936, now serves as an integral part of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA).

Tehelka, Cover Story
The Making of an IITian Author

2014-02-15 , Issue 7 Volume 10 The summer of 2007 was an unusually warm one in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, but the heat didn't deter the flurry of guests who came to our house on that stuffy afternoon to congratulate me. The IIT-JEE results had just been declared and I had secured an all-India rank of 993.

Dnaindia
02/26/2014
Investing in innovative ideas

When you think of an Indian company that has made it big, what comes to mind? Infosys, Flipkart, Naukri, Redbus, Makemytrip? All these companies have one common denominator. They are services companies - companies that provide services. Try to think of one Indian IT product company - either an app, or a game, or a networking website that has made a mark globally?

Tehelka
The Painted and the Tainted

2014-03-01 , Issue 9 Volume 11 If you live in a metropolitan city, chances are your calendar is dotted with festivals, not of the religious kind but the cultural. Don't tell me you don't have a list of events such as the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the Tata Literature Live - Mumbai, the Hindustan Times Kala Ghoda Festival or the Comic Con India that you attended or wished to attend.

Berfrois
02/13/2014
Man, Mask and the Truth

Harsh Snehanshu philosophically analyzes the Oscar Wilde quote: "Give a man a mask, he'll tell you the truth,"

Kafila
02/05/2014
Are you celebrating free speech, Mr. Lit Fest? Harsh Snehanshu

Guest post by HARSH SNEHANSHU This January, in a session at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the award-winning writer Jerry Pinto said something that sent most of us into a tizzy. "We are sitting in the 'Google' Mughal Tent discussing how crucial the freedom of expression is for us writers," Pinto said wringing his hands...

The Hindu

Thehindu
10/12/2013
The unforgettable

Imagine if every time you recall a memory from childhood, it brings along with it a distinct voice singing in the background. When I look back, I remember one such voice - bass yet soft and mellow - playing on the stereo every morning until my father left for work.

Thehindu
08/19/2013
Yes, I'm from Patna only

Ever since I started reading books, books with cities as protagonists, be it Suketu Mehta's Maximum City or William Dalrymple's The City of Djinns, my eyes inadvertently searched for a city that had been comfortably ignored, as if of no significance, in contemporary literature for a long time.

Thehindu
10/06/2012
Pangs of Wasseypur

What do you expect to encounter when you visit a locality in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, that has crept into the hearts of millions of Indians ever since it was projected, in theatres, as the hub of barbarous violence? Not peace, certainly. And this peace seems to have rendered the place unremarkable, invisible.

Thehindu
04/28/2012
Chai on the highway

I was in Odisha recently. On the way back from Konark to Bhubaneshwar, I decided to do something that I would have feared earlier. I thought of getting a lift on a truck. Trucks have held my fascination from childhood. The big and beautiful structure, its imposing presence, the cacophonous horn, the graffiti and catchy slogans have always impressed me.

Miscellaneous

Theindianrepublic
01/25/2014
Book review: The Lowland

A week ago, I was at the Jaipur Literature Festival. Jhumpa Lahiri was there too, talking about the thing called a global novel - a novel that transcends national boundaries, caters to the world market, and has the literary as well as the popular appeal.

Theindianrepublic
12/13/2013
AAP - From Cloud to Cloud9

It has been almost a week since Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) out shone every pre-poll speculation and astonished the media and political bigwigs with its spectacular debut in the Delhi Assembly polls. Its volunteers and members are on Cloud 9, and ecstatic after witnessing how Delhi's population rewarded their hard work.

Theindianrepublic
11/29/2013
The Other Scorecard

Standing at the Midland Bookstore in Hauz Khas last Thursday, I casually glanced at the magazine covers, amused to find certain uniformity in all of them. Half of them had photographs of Sachin Tendulkar, the remaining had his name, some prefixed with a phrase that has been the latest addition to his list of earlier [&hellip...

Forbes | Business Insider | NextBigWhat

Forbes
09/16/2013
What Does It Feel Like To Be The CEO Of A Startup That Fails?

It feels as if you have just lost your child. You try to look back at it and can't refrain from feeling sad about it, about the amount of passion you have invested that didn't bear fruits, about the grand dreams that were trampled in a snap of a moment, about the convincing promises you made to your parents which didn't come true.

Businessinsider
03/12/2013
This Is How It Feels When Your Startup Fails

It's relatively common for startups fail.In fact, three out of every four venture-backed startups fail, according to a recent report by The National Venture Capital Association. But that reality doesn't make it any easier on entrepreneurs, who likely poured their heart and soul into a product, to watch their company fail.

Nextbigwhat
08/30/2012
The Entrepreneur who wore knickers: A very short story

The Entrepreneur didn't need to brag about his achievements now, as numerous newspapers and magazines did it for him. The hiring strategy was strategically chalked out and while The Entrepreneur was busy giving his first TV interview, there was something else cooking up in his office.

Nextbigwhat
08/08/2012
Dear Entrepreneurs : It's Your Facebook profile, Not Your Startup's

The point is: there is your profile and there's your start-up's fanpage. Your friends/networked connections are connected to your profile - because they want to keep up with you: your life, not with your start-up. If they want to keep up with the start-up, they have the option to follow your start-up's fanpage, which some of them would have already done.

Nextbigwhat
06/09/2012
"Thinking Scale": Why is it important for startups?

The youth of today is empowered, it doesn't fear to choose the path less travelled. As more and more youngsters venture into entrepreneurship, it becomes very important to understand the value of scale.

Nextbigwhat
03/19/2012
Startups, Beware of Facebook pages. It can make you complacent

What's even more difficult is when you have your website ready, it's very difficult to migrate the FB audience to your website. And the truth is, you can only monetize the traffic on your website, rather than on your FB fanpage.

Nextbigwhat
12/15/2011
A Letter from an Entrepreneur to his Mother

Dear Mother, I've been fortunate to be the reason for your happiness since my early childhood. Perhaps that's why you named me Harsh. It has always been my endeavor to make you proud of me in things that I give my heart and soul into.