Anurag Dod and Gaurav Mishra Cofounders, Guruji.com

Remember Mohan Bhargav of Swades? A young scientist working as a project manager in NASA, he returns to India on a quest to find his childhood nanny only to discover the plight of rural India. This makes him leave his coveted job and set up base in India to serve his nation. There’s a real-life version around in Anurag Dod and Gaurav Mishra, cofounders of Guruji.com. These two young IIT Delhi graduates left India to study abroad. They too came back, though their service to the nation is in a very different field.

Dod and Mishra, the brains behind Guruji —India’s first local Internet search engine — share the same passion: a love for sports. If Dod prefers badminton, Mishra is all game for cricket.

Both hail from typical middle class families and had only one mission — making it big in life by securing a good job. Which they both did, only to realise that entrepreneurship was what they preferred. While Mishra hails from Varanasi, Dod is from Himachal.

“I spent almost 12 years in Calcutta and Ichapur where I did my schooling and went on to do BTech from IIT Delhi,” says Mishra. It was here that the two met and then parted ways to study and work abroad.

For about a decade both worked as software professionals in the US for companies like Synopsys, eBay, Microsoft, Pillar Data System and Nokia.

So what made them leave their jobs and move to India? “During late 2005, when I began evaluating search engines available for India and their strengths and weaknesses, I realised that Indian Internet penetration was growing exponentially and there was no focussed search product at that time. The idea of an “India-focussed search engine” hit me. I shared this with Gaurav, whom I knew from my IIT Delhi days. We had long discussions till we were both convinced that an “India- focussed search engine” was indeed needed and it would give us a huge opportunity to serve the Indian market. Once we were convinced, we took the plunge,” says Dod.

Their experience abroad helped a lot. “My first few jobs were as a software engineer in small companies. Those jobs helped me see how companies are built and how the passion and energy of small teams make a big contribution. We at Guruji are trying to do the same,” says Mishra.

But with portals like Yahoo and Google around is there any need for a desi version?

“Yes, there is,” says Dod. He explains: “Various search intents need to be better served whether it is information-related, movie timing or city-related searches. Search results need to be put in the Indian context — an Indian user searching for “prime minister” is more likely to be looking for the Prime Minister of India. We were pioneers in this field (of customisation) and now big players like Google, Yahoo and MSN are jumping into it.”

So what do these tech wizards do when not developing their portal?

While Dod is into outdoor activities and driving, Mishra loves to play squash and cricket. One can find him reading if not playing. “I lived in a small neighbourhood called Chetla in Calcutta. As a student, my two passions were cricket and maths.” says Mishra.

“A lot of what I am today was learned in my childhood and I think the Bengali spirit played a huge part in shaping my personality. Long discussions about art, cinema, politics and science had a role in defining my vision of life.”

Hailing from different cultures and demographic strata, both share a common belief and passion. They speak almost in chorus when asked about their dreams: “To see Guruji becoming the best and the most popular search engine in India.”

Both also believe it is a passion for excellence, the desire to do things right and deliver, that separate a leader from the rest. “You can see it in any walk of life,” they say. In Guruji, they are walking the talk.

Based on a conversation with Shabina Akhtar in Calcutta