Its been almost five days and India is getting habituated to wake up without Steve Jobs. His company, Apple Inc. has always treated its Indian customers with disdain because here the products were launched months after their international release. Yet, I can see more than 90% of the country mourning on his death like the rest of the world. The studies recently showed that Steve Jobs was very closely related to India in the 70′s even before he founded Apple. Like many others, it was a bitter relationship that he shared with India.

That time young Jobs was working with a video game company called “Atari” and visited India with his friend Dan Kottke. To be precise, both of them were in India between the year 1974 and 1976 and most of the time they were traveling in Northern part of the country. It is found that he was too mystified by the philosophies here which increased his quest for learning. He was always interested in solving the unanswered questions of Science.

I am sure most of us do not know that Steve Jobs had his own autobiography written called “iCON” which was not released officially. There Kottke states, “ He was always eager to go to India and solve the unresolved pain. It was during this time when he also hired private investigator to track down his mother “

He stayed in New Delhi for a while and used to wear lungi and go bare foot there. He always used to embrace the culture of Indian heritage. All he discovered was that India is bundled with beggars on the street and it was during that time when he learned about the poverty of India.

But I guess worse things were awaiting him. He went to Nainital with Kottke and there they met a holy man who was known as “Neem Karoli baba” and was actually a fraud and by the time Jobs realized it was too late. It was that time when Steve realized that maybe Thomas Edison has done a lot more than Karl Max to improve the world and this Neem Karoli baba just added the fruit to it.

By now Jobs was too sure about the spirituality of India. The emotional turmoil has now taken place of physical discomfort. Both Steve and his friend was down with fever due to unforgiving Indian summer. Kottke described this time as the worst phase of their journey and prayed to any God that could hear them to help them with this fatigue.

After few days they both decided to travel in the beautiful valleys of Manali and finally all their fatigue and problems disappeared.

These incidents proved that India traumatized Jobs a lot and changed his life. He also learned a lot about Buddhism.

After spending a year or two in India, he finally joined back Atari where he met his high school mate Steve Wozniak who was then working with Hewlett Packard. Both of them together started a venture called Apple Computer inside Jobs garage in California, Palo Alto to be precise.

I am not sure, Steve Jobs always less favored India maybe because he had to suffer so much frustration and chaos in India.

No matter what the reason is you will always be missed. RIP Steve Jobs, a true iCON for me at least.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. ~ Steve Jobs