Namaskaram everybody! This is Vaibhav, the founder of Piso skateboards. This is a series of articles where I will be narrating stories of me and my team (Homies) on how we are crafting out our lives through skateboarding. I will also be sharing stories & insights of my skateboarding journey after spending nearly a decade on my skateboard.
I hope this series helps people/skaters out there to enhance their lives through skateboarding. The founder series is about how skateboarding has transformed my way of looking at life around, and within me!. Through this series I'll be answering some of the questions which I get asked very often :). If you have any questions to ask/address , do comment below. I'll try my best to answer them as and when I get time through this series in upcoming episodes.
So why now after 5 years such an article is being written by me.? I'm always been asked how did you start, did you have passion for skateboarding, what were the challenges, how does it feel to be running a skateboard brand in India etc etc and so on!. I usually prefer to be underground, silently watching the whole scene. But now I feel there is a need to open up so that the upcoming generations get to experience what skateboarding is all about. It's not just a sport or a hobby, It is something much more than that :)
Why Skateboarding?
So why did I choose skateboarding as an activity to craft my life and take care of my survival.? What was/is so special about skateboarding which made me take this huge risk to give up on all other things and pursue a skatelife dream. To answer this question - WHY SKATEBOARDING?, its going to take a lot, there is lots to cover. I have tried my best to answer the question in bits and pieces in this article series. If you really want to know why I choose skateboarding, do follow along the founder series and I will answer this question bit by bit :). Lets begin with how all this started.
The Beginning: (2013)
I will briefly take you through my childhood story in fast forward -> Well its not some special story, normal engineering story which most of the Indians have!. Since birth our society always influenced to come no 1, come 1st in your class, security, get a good college etc etc I did all of the above things, got a good college and now the skate story begins :).
During my college days is where the twist of events happened. I was terribly heart broken when I realized what is taught in any engineering college and what I wanted to learn had no relevance. Education system in India is fully outdated. Worked so hard to get into a good college but realized its of no good. Feeling was almost like a depression haha! but then Skateboarding entered my life :)
Skateboard entered my life in 2nd year of college, this was around the year 2012. I always wanted to buy a skateboard. I had 4000/- in my bank account back then and decathlon had a board exactly for Rs 4000/-. I spent it all on my first professional skateboard. Let me tell you Rs 4000/- in your college life was a big amount back then. You can do a lot in 4000/- when you are in college. I decided to spend it all on the skateboard, it was my scholarship money to be honest hahaha!.
Through skateboarding I made few skater friends in India and also other parts of the world. Back then there were just handful of skaters in the whole of India, you could literally count them. Meeting other skaters and understanding the skateboarding culture really opened my perspective on the way I looked at things. I had restricted myself so much in the process of being so called successful in the society. All my creativity and curiosity of the life around me had all gone by the time I got into college. But...To my luck and fortune there was this big event happening for the first time in India - The Third Eye Skate Tour.
The Skate Story:
So this big event, The Third Eye Skate tour was happening in Bangalore somewhere around the year end of 2013. For the first time in 18 years I travelled out of my home city, alone. Saw different kinds of people skating and having fun. All of them were doing their normal daily routine stuff but having fun too in life. I realized, yes I can be happy too, regardless of what is happening in life. Since birth we are always being told and influenced to come 1st in your class or to compete with others, pressure being put in everything that you do. In this process and societal influence we loose the essence and beauty of life. By seeing the skate community just happy and skating around in Bangalore, felt like someone just pressed a refresh button in my life.
After coming to Goa, I decided to start a similar skate community in Goa (my hometown). When we started we were just 2 local skaters in full of Goa. Now after meeting Sam and Anveer we have a full fledged and a happy skate community in Goa called - 'Skatelifegoa'. Will share the skatelifegoa story more in detail some other day :).
As time passed by I did not even realize how my life started taking a U turn. I never had plans to start a skateboard brand, I still do not have one!. I choose to sell skateboards only because it made me realize that the happiness is a choice within you and not outside. I want everyone to experience this feeling through skateboarding - The feeling of being free and joyful in life :)
Piso Skateboards:
Well, running a business does take a lot of your time and energy. But I did take this choice full heartedly as I wanted to gift skateboarding to the people out there. I want skateboarding to touch everyone's life like the way it has touched and transformed me. I want everyone to enhance their life in some way, to free their mind, make them forget about what is cooking in their mind and let be for a few moments.
On the other side its true that by not being business/corporate minded Piso's sustainability was/is always a question mark in the journey so far. So many successful individuals/advisors have advised us/warned us that one day Piso will all collapse. hahahaha!. Me and our team always laugh when we get to hear such things from people around. 'A Building will collapse only if we build one :). Well Piso is not a building, its a small story of a team of 4 (for now) wanting to share the joy of skateboarding with the world. The way this story has started beautifully, we know it will end some day too! We just want to be happy as long as we are living this story and of course end it one day once we are done with our work (not collapse). There is still time for it though. We are not ending it any time soon :), much more is incoming!'
If you have been following Piso Skateboards instagram closely, you would know how our plans have changed course in past few years especially since COVID-19 lock down. For new readers out there, Piso is working on a farm project, building a school for all ages(Kids to adults) to introduce the joy of learning and living, skater/artist development program is also in the works and much more. All of Piso's future plans and courses are aligned in a way such that it gets the joy back in our society which we have lost due to various factors in the process of survival and influence.
In recent years so may suicides amongst reputed people are happening, actually all sorts of people. Doesn't matter what gender, race, nationality, age group etc etc you belong too. Depression and false peer pressure + influence of being successful can attack anyone. It doesn't spare anyone based on your class of living. Teens suicide news are surfacing slowly slowly, teens aged 12-13 are committing suicides. This age is when kids should play and explore their life and not hang their lives!
This is a serious call for this generation that we are doing something terribly wrong with the society. It's time we act on it and act now, may be we could save a few lives. Hence this article series and the brand Piso skateboards :). If my team is reading this article - LETS MAKE THISSS HAPPEN HOMIEES!! Lets add a little bit of Joy and balance in peoples lives through skateboarding:)
So that's a wrap on today's episode of the founder series. Today's episode, which is our first episode was on how it all started. The next upcoming episode will be more specific to skateboarding and the question - Why am I doing all this?
So the episode No 2 will come out next Friday. To stay updated on our blogs, sign up to our newsletter (Sign up box is on our homepage, at the bottom).
See you in the next episode, stay tuned :).
Keep pushing.
Vaibhav Rasam
Up Next (releasing on 28th July 2024)
Episode No.2 - How to convert passion into reality?
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On 22nd Dec 2024, we completed 10 years of Piso. Can't believe its been 10 years in the making! Time just flew by! On this occasion we thought of releasing 10 uncut/raw stories of our 10 years journey on how did Piso happen after all. What started with a small tiny push on a skateboard has led us to so many beautiful memories and experiences of life.
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