Hello, friends! 10 Million subscribers. 1 Crore people. It's such an unbelievable number it's more than the population of countries like Switzerland or Norway. First of all, a heartfelt thank you to all of you. You made it possible,
you took us to this milestone. Secondly, I decided to do something special for this occasion. In the history videos, we discussed several historical events. So I decided to take you into my past. I wanted to show you my childhood videos,
and tell you stories from my childhood, those that I have never shared before. Come, in this video, let me take you on a journey, into my life. This story begins in October 1994. I was born in Rohtak, Haryana to a small, middle-class family. My parents were quite young, about 24-25 years old. My mother was a teacher, and my father was an engineer. Together, they earned about ₹4,000 per month. There weren't many videos back then, because video cameras were rare then. There are some photos like these, but I hid my parents' faces for privacy. Friends, in my childhood, I got to travel a lot. Though I don't remember any of it, because I was a weaning infant. But there are several photos from the snow in Srinagar
to Jaisalmer's desert. This is because my maternal grandfather worked in BSF. You'd know that if a family member works in the army, they are frequently posted in numerous places. All across India. This is why when my parents would go to meet my maternal grandparents, they got to visit all these places. Of course, I do not remember the first few years My earliest memories are from Rohtak. Playing in Rohtak's lake, and playing at my paternal grandparents' home. Some years later, my parents moved to Delhi for better job opportunities. My father was offered a better job at a better salary. They told me that around 2002-2003, their salary was around ₹17,000 per month. There was a big turning point in life in 2003, when my father was offered an even better job in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And so he moved to Malaysia. But my mother, my brother, and I didn't go there, because though the salary offered was a lot, but it wasn't enough for the entire family with the increased living expenses, it would've cancelled out the salary boost. So we lived in Delhi, but once a year, we went to Malaysia. So during the summer vacation, I got the opportunity to visit abroad for the first time. That was my first foreign trip. We lived there for 1 month during the summer of 2003. There were new experiences in the new country. I remember eating a waffle with maple syrup for the first time. I loved it. And this was the first time I got to play with Lego. Lego had a large impact on my life, as you'd see later in this story. But it was in Malaysia that our family bought our first digital camera. So there are some videos from then. Like any other 8-9 year old child, I had a lot of free time. And friends, this was when I made my first video. Yup, that's right. The first video was in 2003. The thing is that we had a computer, and we recently bought a new webcam for the computer. You'd recall that the internet was very slow back then. When my parents wanted to talk to each other from Malaysia to India, they used Yahoo! Messenger. The dial-up internet. Video calling was a recent addition to it, you could see the person you were talking to. Though the internet was so slow, that the video was heavily pixelated. I don't know what was the resolution of the webcams back then, perhaps it was around 240p. But I learned one thing from this webcam, perhaps my father taught me, you could click on it and capture photos. There was a button. I learned that if 24 photos were placed one after another, and played them successively, it could create a video of 1 second. I learned about the concept of frame rates. What is 24fps? Basically, in a 1-second long video, there are 24 photos. This was a mindblowing fact for my young mind. Because I realised that I could create animated films. You remember playing with clay, right? I created characters with that clay, and kept a white sheet as a background and used the webcam to take a photo. I moved the clay character a bit and took another photo. Move a bit more, and took another photo. And eventually, I took about 50-60 photos, And created a 1-2 second long video. In which these clay characters were seemingly moving on their own. This is known as Claymation. The video was like this. You weren't expecting much, were you? I was a child of 8-9 years. What more could you expect? Like other kids of that time, I enjoyed reading comics. Specially Tinkle comics. That was my favourite. Of course, I enjoyed watching cartoons on TV back then. "Mowgli is eating a banana here." "Oh, no! Someone is setting the tail on fire." "Oh! It is Mowgli." "Who else could it be?" Popeye was my favourite cartoon back then. I'd say that my obsession with eating healthy stems from here. One should always have spinach and other vegetables. It's unfortunate that the cartoons presented to children nowadays often, unhealthy food is promoted in them. A cartoon promoting laddoo. Fortunately, vegetables and spinach were promoted when I was young. You won't believe this, but since I was 12 years old, I haven't had any soft drinks. I stopped drinking soft drinks like Pepsi and Coca-Cola at 12 years old, because I was obsessed with eating healthy. 2008, when I was around 14-15 years old, reading became a passion. I loved reading books. The credit lies solely with Satyajit Ray's books. At this point in time, had you asked me, what I wanted to be once I grew up, I would have answered, "A criminal investigator or a detective." This is because I loved the Feluda series. I read these detective stories every single day. And it kept playing in my head. Of course, soon I realised that today, detectives weren't the same as depicted in novels. After a little research on the internet, I found that most private detectives hired nowadays, were hired to catch cheating spouses. And the serious investigators working with the police, didn't work the same way as written in the books. Overall, a terrible career option. Around this time, I developed an interest in Mechanical Robots. "You need to turn this to make it move." "Light sensor." "And the touch sensor is on the bumper." "Press this here." My parents had bought me this set that I absolutely loved. These Lego blocks could be used to create robots with touch sensors and light sensors. They could be programmed. I was so obsessed with it for hours that I made my own robot, programmed it, to carry a digital camera so that whenever it hit something, it would activate its touch sensor and it would change direction and continue going forwards. I wasn't born a genius. neither was I a talented child. If you see the marks I got at school, I was an above-average student. I got about 70%-80% at school. I believe that if any child is given such toys, and if the child spends enough time with these, anyone could build these things. And thankfully, there weren't any social media to distract me. Or to waste my time. Which allowed me to spend time on these. Fast forwarding 2 years, in 2010, In 2010, had you asked me what I wanted to be once I grew up, I would have answered, "a host on National Geographic or Discovery Channel." At this time, the programs on these channels were my favourites. Like Bear Grills' Man vs Wild. Or the shows on Travel and Living Channel where new countries and hotels were explored. Luckily, I'm doing something similar on my vlog channel now. I believe myself to be very fortunate to get this opportunity. But back then, I had no idea about how to choose this career option. How did one get to interview with the TV channels? If one wanted to choose this career path, what was to be done? What should one study? I had no idea. In December 2011, Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, and other social activists, began protesting against rampant corruption all over the country. Media gave a lot of positive coverage to these protests. Something that is impossible to imagine nowadays. Any protest getting such positive coverage. But friends, this began my interest in politics. The sole reason. Because friends, in my family, relatives, even among the far-flung relatives, there's not a single person that has any connection to politics. Zero political connection. This is important for the people spreading misinformation about me, that I have a connection with such and such political party, or that so and so family member is in a political party, they're lying. Before 2011, I had zero interest in politics. Traditionally, in most Haryanvi families, 2 professions have been the most common. Begin in agricultural or armed forces. You'd see this in my family too. Three of my close relatives are in the Army. My maternal grandfather and 2 uncles. Several people are involved in agriculture. In fact, it was rare for my father to be an engineer. Anyway, getting back to my story, After 2012-13, my interest in politics deepened. When the AAP government was formed in Delhi for the first time. Arvind Kejriwal's famous 49-day government was formed. And when Narendra Modi became the new Prime Minister in 2014, my interest in politics deepened further. Like many people, I was delighted to see the Congress government lose power. A person who promised to bring back the black money within 100 days, to end corruption, back then, my political ideology was 100% anti-congress. I hated the Congress party, because that was the narrative set by the media and TV channels. It was only later that I found out the level to which the media could fall. But even before that, it took me only a few months to realise the misdirections. Black money wasn't going to come back. In fact, RTI was going to be diluted. Foreign funding for political parties was going to be legalised. Corruption began at a larger scale, but it would be hidden. Media would be bought. Seeing it happen, in a bought of frustration, I published the initial videos on YouTube. But enough about the politics. But the very first video published on the channel was a travel vlog in 2014. To understand how that came to be let's rewind to 2012. That was the year I completed my 12th board. I got 85% on it. My philosophy was always the 80-20 rule. Though I didn't know about the 80-20 rule then, but I always used this subconsciously. I believed one should study only to get a good enough score. That would be sufficient to show people that you're a good enough student. But not to expect a topper. I realised that if you had to study for 2 days to get 80% marks, you had to study for 8 more days for the remaining 20%. It means that it's quite easy to get 80%, But it is increasingly difficult to take it to 100%. It takes a lot more effort. Why should I put in the extra effort? I wasn't interested in being a topper. You'd say that it's important to get into good colleges, or else you won't get admission. You're right, but I wasn't very interested in going to top-notch colleges. And thankfully, there wasn't any pressure from my parents for this. My parents were content with me not being a topper because I was good enough at studies, they believed I'd manage well. Friends, I learned about the 80-20 Rule later, and started applying it in my life. This rule basically says that you do not need to be 100% perfect in everything. Instead, put in the bare minimum efforts to be 80% perfect, and for many things in life, that will be enough. Obviously, if you aim at being a topper, you need to be 100% perfect at your studies. But this strategy can be used in all aspects of life. I talked about this in detail in my course on Time Management. If you haven't enrolled for the course I recommend that you try it out, if you are a student or work at a 9-5 job, you can learn how you can maximise your time. I learned this from my experience. How am I able to manage the channels and travel all at once? I talk about all of it in this course. I tell you practically how you can use these techniques in your life, and improve yourself. The link to this course is in the description below. Honestly, those who have taken this course, say that it has been life-changing for them. The first 500 people to buy this course will get 50% off with the coupon code DR50. Go join it ASAP. Getting back to my story, you'd be wondering what I chose after the 12th. I wanted to have all my options open. I took the admission tests for various colleges. Such as Manipal University, IIT, JEE, Back then the two IIT and JEE were separate exams. But unfortunately, none of the ranks was so good that I could secure admission. So yeah, the 80-20 philosophy isn't a good idea if you want to be a topper and secure admission to IIT. Apart from these engineering exams, I sat for the NDA exam too. Actually, to be honest, joining Indian Air Force or the Indian Army, was my first choice,
instead of these engineering colleges. There were 2 main reasons for this. First, when I think about office jobs, it seems astoundingly boring to me. A job with the Army is more physically challenging and adventurous. Second, as I told you before, several relatives were in the Army. So I made sure to study really well for this exam, because it was important to pass that. Friends, there are 2 stages in the selection process of NDA. First is the written test. And the second is the SSB interview. After passing the written test, I was called to Varanasi for the interview. I was very confident when I went to Varanasi, because there are 2 stages in the interview stage. One of which was the physical test. I was confident that I would easily pass the physical test because I considered myself to be very fit. And then was the actual interview. Friends, this was perhaps the most ironic event in my life. In the interview process, candidates are given a topic, and they are asked to discuss and debate it. A group of 10-12 students are formed. And the group is given a topic to debate on. I was a part of such a group. And when it was our turn, they gave us a topic, And we were asked to start our debate. Before I could even think about it some people started to debate it passionately. I looked to one and the others, and could get in only a few sentences about what I agreed with and what I disagreed with. And within moments the debate ended. Back then, I wasn't good at putting my point across. I talked slowly. And in this interview, they were looking for people who could talk straightforwardly, loudly, and clearly. With a powerful voice. And do you know how my speaking style was? Like this. "Integrated within the gearbox. And now as a belt-driven system for more flexibility and shock-handling capability." Obviously, I failed this interview and then we began planning for what we could do next. Which college we could choose. Then my parents began looking at colleges outside of India because they believed that better than getting admission to any C-grade engineering college in India, was studying abroad. And then we chose Germany. You'd ask why Germany. It was simple. The other English-speaking developed countries such as the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada have high tuition fees. Studying there would've been very expensive. On the other hand, in Germany and other European countries studying is almost free because there're no tuition fees. Especially if you study in their local languages. Obviously, there would still be living expenses. The living costs are quite expensive. For that, my parents took out an education loan. The applications were sent to several colleges and universities. And the acceptance came from 2 places. First was the Eindhoven University in the Netherlands. And the second was Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. We saw that they were among the well respected and high-ranking universities in the world. How did I secure admission without being a topper? All I can say about this is that perhaps, it was luck to a large extent because back then in 2012, not many people went abroad to study, and the number of foreigners applying to these universities wasn't large. So there wasn't a lot of competition. The other reason that might have played a role in it was perhaps that the foreign universities don't focus much on marks. They focus on other skills, hobbies, and experiences. Perhaps when I showed my interest in Lego robots, and mentioned it on the application, that might have played a role. Because the course I applied for was In August 2012, at 17 years old, I moved from India to Germany. Here, if you ask me why I chose Mechanical Engineering one of the reasons was that the interest in robotics and technology that I had since early childhood, but the second but bigger reason was that at 17 years, which child knows what they should do? Most of my friends and classmates were choosing engineering and back then, it was often said that if you don't know what you should do, you should do engineering and then decide what you really want to do. So even though I wasn't 100% sure, about what I wanted to do, engineering seemed like a good option, so I chose to do that. Later, I found it quite interesting. And I completed the Bachelor's course in 2015 after which I did my Master's in Renewable Engineering from the same university at Karlsruhe. This university, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, I made a vlog on the university tour. In case you haven't watched it,
the link to it is in the description below. Interestingly, in 2014, during an internship, I move out of the University for an internship at the office of a company, It was a bit away from the main city. About a 1-hour trip daily by tram. On this tram, I met a girl, Juli. We took the same tram every day Juli would be on her to her school,
and I'd be going for the internship. Exactly 7.5 years after this, we got married. 2014 was the year when I uploaded my first video on YouTube. This happened a few months after meeting Juli. This was the time when my fascination with YouTube began. I discovered the existence of such a platform. I was interested in making videos since my childhood, so I started using this platform. And eventually began uploading videos regularly. We crossed the 50,000 subscriber mark in 2017, but my parents didn't think that it could be a career option. On top of it, I believed that even if it did become a career option, perhaps this wouldn't generate a respectable amount of income. So I decided to continue with my studies. And then in 2018, I got my Master's degree. And another Bachelor's on Economics and Business Management. But this was purely out of interest. So that I could make better videos. So that I could do this better. After 2017-18, I put YouTube as the #1 priority, and kept education on #2. Because this was my passion. I started believing that this was possible. That I could definitely do something that was never done before. And that was it, friends. When one is passionate about something, when you truly enjoy doing something, It is easy to bring consistency and discipline into it. I won't say that it's entirely easy, you still need to put in your efforts and hard work. But to a large extent, it is comparatively easier. Remember that dialogue in 3 Idiots? You should study to be capable, not successful. "A great man once said, "Study not to be successful, but to be capable." Don't chase success. Excellence, chase excellence. And success will follow you." Remember this. I never focused on reaching a certain number of subscribers. Throughout my YouTube career, I focused on how I could keep improving myself. On how I could improve the quality of the videos I produce. And how I could better deliver my message to you. I simply hope that you keep enjoying future videos. If you want to ask me anything, you can ask your questions in the comment section, Since this is a special video, I will try to answer as many questions as I can. And I'll see you in the next video. Thank you very much! "Today's weather updates." "Let's take a look at the sky." "There's no chance of rain." "Sun is shining brightly." "But not very brightly." *Saare Jahan Se Achha song playing* "Today's sports news, a new game has been invented. Hockey-Football. In this video, you can see him play it. How is it played? "This is a hockey stick. A hockey stick. -Can you see it?
-Yes, I can. We can see it! And what inspired you to invent this game? I joined 2 games and got this idea. But where did you get this idea? That's a football and this is a hockey stick, and when these come together,
you get Hockey-Football. I invented this new game."" "This is an imaginary ball. Where did this ball come from?" "Today's sports news. Today, we have a man with us who has started playing a weird sport." "Bye-bye. This is was for today's sports news."
