Classrooms were meant to create order. Textbooks and limited knowledge ruled the room. There was no sense of questioning things that were taught, let alone looking past them. But does everyone like to be boxed? Einstein once said, “Curiosity has its own reason for existing,” and Suraj was already living the quote. He was one of those few little oddballs, sitting in row three, tapping his feet against the floor, eyes glued at the moving clouds, thinking in all different dimensions. Something in him never sat still.
When most kids his age were collecting Pokémon cards, Suraj was collecting retired gadgets. “I’d get home from school, toss my bag, and run to the neighbours to check out junk scraps. Dead batteries, ball bearings and a magnet or two that had probably lost half their power. One day, I put together this wobbly moving model out of all those spare parts which looked like it might fall apart any second, but I was very proud. My friend and I treated it like our own version of LEGO. I wouldn’t shut up about it for days and anyone who walked past my room was getting a full demo. “Look, it moves!” That was it. That was the show.”
Maybe it was a sign. Early in college, Suraj realized the best lessons were the ones he taught himself. Curiosity has grabbed him by the hand so much so, that during his initial engineering days, he simulated a moving train with C programming, while his classmates were still learning to draw squares with it. Was it necessary? No. Did it heal something deep inside? Also no. But that’s just how he operated. That beautifully avoidable train pulled some attention and even a few new friends which to him was a reward. It took him unholy levels of patience and a deadpan face that screamed nothing and everything at once to live in a 9-to-9 with coding born out of pure curiosity and he secretly enjoyed every messy, sleep-deprived minute of it.
As code became his second nature, he developed new pet peeves. Staring at the cluttered interfaces wasn’t pleasing to his eye. Any wonky, unbalanced button on a website would instantly get on his nerves. He slowly developed an inclination for clean, well-behaved UIs and the obsession was built to last. The more you know about his projects, the more normal it feels for him to surprise you. Most of college felt like waiting for something interesting to happen, so he kept himself entertained by chasing every “what if I try this?” that crossed his head. He once wanted to get more from his laptop webcam, so he built an app that turns it into a fingertip-tracking cursor, following his finger’s every move. You could call it a very early version of “airclick.” In his final year, he co-created a custom attendance-tracking app for teachers that caught some eyeballs and was used in the college for a whole year. That small win gave him enough confidence to enter a campus hackathon hosted by Frappe Technologies. There, he and his friend created a live polling app where users could cast their votes. Knowing many other teams were gunning for the same prize, Suraj assumed he'd soon blend into the background. But your impostor syndrome rarely reads the room right. He won the hackathon and unknowingly triggered a very long chain of events.
“Placements didn’t make sense to me. I wanted to build something real, and startups felt like the best place to do that.” After the hackathon, he was introduced to Frappe where he fell for the culture, the smart crowd and the unique energy in the air. He wanted in. But maybe nerves got the better of him, and it didn’t work out then. He soon joined another tech startup and gained a full-stack experience of about 2 years. While he enjoyed the work, something inside him wasn’t fully satisfied. He naturally quit his job without a backup plan in his mind. But when time decides it’s time, it’s time. Not long after, he got an offer from Frappe and he did not think twice.
Early days at Frappe went by absorbing the culture, sitting through open days and fixing small bugs here and there which he enjoyed. He started off working on the Framework and slowly carved his space in it. Writing clean, quality code (the no-brainer at Frappe) came naturally to him. With time, Suraj went from just helping out to becoming one of the top 2 contributors to the Frappe Framework. He gradually earned trust and got to work on the massive website redesign project of Frappe Framework v13. Almost for four years, he kept showing up with the same creative energy, and jumping in wherever needed. He became the go-to buddy for major-minor fixes, the unofficial photographer and editor, coffee maker and whatever else the day demanded. His teammates would tell you he was the kind of person who’d put aside his own work just to help others. He slowly branched into mentoring younger developers and realized leadership is less about giving just instructions. He made sure he is giving his best everyday but even the strongest gears wear out when they’re always in motion.
After ages of Suraj being Suraj, the cracks finally started to show. His mornings began with exhaustion, nights went into overthinking. Sleep was a myth, and he woke up drained. The cycle quietly stretched into weeks and then months. “Job started feeling like job and existential fog crept in”. He stepped back and decided on a four-month sabbatical to break free from the routine that had quietly worn him down. He started with a 10-day Vipassana, travelled solo across Gujarat for the first time, attended a culturally-themed wedding in Rajasthan, stared at oddly shaped rocks with profound interest, and touched sand. Detachment wasn’t easy, but Suraj knew when he needed it. All that factory reset to come back with a fresh, clearer mind.
"Seeing the laptop after so many days felt weirdly nice." He resumed focused and was looking to dash into a big project, this time, a creation of his own. Overtime, he developed the taste to code pretty websites with clean, minimal UI and smooth UX with all the projects he worked on. So when Rushabh casually floated the idea of creating a site builder, Suraj was already in. With this vision, he launched Frappe Builder, an open source, no-code, web creation tool that powers all of Frappe’s web pages today. Frappe Builder has been in action for 3 years now and is only getting sleeker. “Now Rushabh recommends sabbaticals to everyone at office," he laughs.
When Suraj’s not debugging, he’s deadlifting. Working out has been his coping mechanism for many years now. Rumor has it that Suraj’s workroom is an architectural illusion where the length is greater than the breadth which looked small from the outside but very roomy inside (even his room has its own personality). Seven years into Frappe, he’s gone from doing things his own creative way to launching Frappe Builder. It’s not just about curiosity anymore. It’s about what you do with it when you’re in the right place. “If only there was alternate schooling back in my time, I might’ve leaned into creativity sooner” he muses. But maybe this was the long route curiosity meant for him. Either way he aims to be known for his work and seen differently. For now, if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s “Have fun while you’re in this creative journey.”
