More friends...

In my first job, although I was paid a paltry sum of money, it was compensated by some great friendships that I developed over there. I had many of them but I want to talk about a few who were real close to me. I am not going to name them 'cause they might not want to be talked about. So lets say they were B, V and S. Yes, four of us made a great bonding which helped us made the workplace a place to have fun. We enjoyed being together, made fun of each other, felt sad when any one was absent any day and shared workload if any of us was overworked any point of time.

B was most matured amongst all of us. He was the only guy I had ever met, who, I thought, could sell anything to anybody. He also said to me one day, that, he was ready to sell anything but a human being and his own conscience. I agreed. He made more money otherwise than working there. He was involved in buying and selling of used cars and real estates. He made a name for himself in that industry in Delhi. He was always practical and never showed emotion in his work. He was a shrewed employee and a clever businessman. Overall he was a great friend.

V was very immature than his age. He had to be guided by B all the time. He was a great family man though. No matter what, he would put his family on top of his priority list, which was liked by all of us. He was one guy who will always stick to the policies and was loved by all.

S was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen so far (I am sorry biwi, but thats true). In one word she was damn beautiful. She was always smiling, very naughty and never said no to anything. She was the livewire of the group. Very naturally, I fell in love. But thats it. Never gathered any courage to go and tell that to her. I did not express my feelings to anybody, but B&V used to make fun of boh of us. While I used to get angry with them, S never said anything to them. She just smiled and ignored it. She was awesome !

This bonding broke when S got married to someone and that jerk made her quit the job. That was the only day when we saw S crying. She cried like a baby. That was her last day in office and we never met ever again.

In search of a good fortune (part II)...

The first thing I realised when I started searching for jobs that it was not as easy as I thought it would be. I did get offers for some sales job, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do that. I was very bad in public speaking and worse in convincing others. So I knew, selling was not my cup of tea, but I was not sure what exactly I was looking for. I kept on visiting the offices of the job consultants but no result. I also applied to some places after seeing their job advertisement on the newspaper, but did not hear back from any of them.

I sometime stood on the balcony of mamaji's 2-bedroom company-provided apartment and stared at people going to their workplaces. There were so many people who I didn't know, but looking at them I used to feel that I would probably do their job better than them. After sometime I started envying everybody who had a job. Frustration was at its peak.

In between, I appeared for a couple of interviews but couldn't change my fate. Slowly, like any other unemployed youth, I started getting upset with the whole system and contemplating changing everything given a chance. Somehow, I had it in my mind that if I deserve a job I should get one. Years later I learned how important it is to have a correct approach to everything that you do. My experience has taught me its not about being better than the best, its about being able to do things differently that makes you stand out and be recognised.

One day, I got a call from one of the consultants who asked me to appear for an interview with a pharma company. I went there with a 'hope-less' mind but with high hopes from my family members. I was offered the job, which obviously made me ecstatic, but that joy of mine was short-lived, as the salary they offered me was just as good as what I was earning from my private tuition in Kolkata. Moreover, I was asked to sit on their other office which was 50 kilometers away from my place. I thought for a while and found the offer better than sitting on the balcony and watching people.

I started liking the job as it exposed me to a whole new world, it pushed me in that crowd which I used to watch from the balcony everyday. So what I did not earn much, I did have a workplace to go to everyday as any other grown up individual and I was proud to have one. Very soon I noticed a change in people's behaviour while talking to me. Earlier they used to tell me how difficult it is to get a job just to sympathise me, now they were telling me how to make money thinking I was earning as much as they did. I did not mind at all.

The organisation had other sister concerns as well. After working for six months in the parent company I was asked to move to one of its smaller sister concerns. This proved to be a very important move in my career. First of all, I got an opportunity to work with a young leader (he was the son of the Managing Director) who was ready to experiment and very dynamic in his thinking, secondly, I got a lot of opportunities to show my skills. I managed people, managed the office and contributed in devising the marketing strategy too. I learned a lot from my boss. My salary got doubled after the first year. I had never felt so motivated before. One truly said, money speaks.

The company started growing and I grew with it. In this journey I made lot of friends, a few of them left a lasting impression on my life.

In search of a good fortune (part I)...

I went to Delhi with great expectations from my parents, who, by all means, were convinced that it was the last option available to me to build some sort of a career. By that time, most of our relatives started to ridicule me, one of them approached me to start working  as an agent under him and sell life insurance products. I looked at my father, but his silence said, "what else are you good for?" Somehow, I did not have to venture out to find customers for life insurance since I only had two days to leave for Delhi - the wonderland.

Delhi became the wonderland for my family ever since my mamaji went there and got established. He started with a small paan shop in Greater Kailash - II and at the end managed to get a job in NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation). The way he struggled and became successful is a story in itself. He showed guts, got a great lady in form of my maami who chose to be on his side no matter what and two of them together built a life which is no less than any other 'rags to riches' story. It still seems unbelievable to me when I think of their life. Somehow, their success story made my family believe that I could also do that with a little help from mamaji.

In my childhood, mamaji was the one who used to take care of me for most part of the day since both my parents used to go out to work. My dad's place and my mom's place were in the same locality. So he used to come to our house every now and then to see what I was doing. I stayed with my grandma who was more than 70 years old which made it a herculean task for her to manage me. Mamaji chose to help her since he had nothing else to do at that point of time.

So, when he came to know that I was going to stay with him for sometime, he was ecstatic. This gave me a good reason to go there and meet him. Before that I was feeling a bit uncomfortable for the very fact that I was sent there just because I was a failure here.

I did not inform any of my friends before leaving the city as I myself was not sure of what I was going for. I even went for a movie with them the day before I left. Initially I planned to stay there for a month or so and come back after trying my luck 'cause I was sure nothing was going to happen, so no point sticking there and add more frustration.

I never thought it would change my life.

Start of a new life...

Dad was persistent for a long time on sending me to Delhi to my maternal uncle. I somehow managed to avoid that by diverting the discussion to two of his favourite subjects - politics and sports. Every time he raised concern over my career and started convincing me why should I go to Delhi, I gave him a new idea to buy some more time for me.

I was very much enthusiastic to start my own business one day. I found some of my friends interested too and ultimately we started our own computer hardware business. The name of the company was 'creative systems'. We spent a week to design the company's logo and once finalised, we had our letterhead and business cards printed. All of us had the same designation - 'partner'. The feeling was so great that it still gives me goose bumps whenever I feel nostalgic and think about those days.

We started visiting offices to get orders for new computers or maintenance for the old ones, but after a week of doing so we found it was easier said than done. We held at least seven meetings and devised as many number of strategies in as many days but one thing that eluded us was - the first order.

Ultimately, we bagged our first order to supply a monitor and we made a profit of 600/- rupees...WOW !!! That night we partied to celebrate our first sale. We spent around 1000/- rupees to celebrate a profit of 600/- rupees. Anyway, we were happy thinking that we did something. In childhood I read several stories of 'rags to riches' which inspired me every time I read those. After making the first sale I considered myself as the next subject of these stories. It was a classic case of counting the chickens before they were hatched.

Creative Systems never received its second order. Two of us got good offers and went to Bangalore. One went to his hometown Ahmedabad and joined his dad's business. Other two realised that staying with me might ruin their future, so they left too. I was all alone, dejected, somewhat rejected and a bit disappointed about the failure of my brainchild. That was the end of my 'rags to riches' story.

Later on I heard one of my friends who took all the letterheads along with him earned good amount of money by issuing fake experience certificates to people. It gave me some satisfaction that creative systems ultimately did make some money.

The stint with creative systems earned me something invaluable - experience. It changed the way I looked at my life. I stopped taking everything for granted 'cause I understood everything was available in this world as long as I earned them.

It took me a week to get out of the dejection and as soon as I was ready to roll again, I booked my ticket to Delhi.

Friends...

Those were the days when social networking meant meeting with people, visiting their homes every now and then and sometimes calling them only if both parties could afford a phone. We were a big gang of friends who used to meet face to face everyday. We had common hobbies - playing football regularly, cricket occasionally and watching movies very rarely. Everyone of us was well aware of each other's activities.

There were four of us who had their nicknames starting with 'R'. Twice so happened that we bought movie tickets and got tickets for row #R. It sounds very childish today but that point of time we became very happy about it. There was one guy who was a bit richer than rest of us. He was the one who used to treat us on his birthday every year. Rest of us were so shameless that we didn't even bother to give him a gift many a times. And as they say, history repeats itself, trust me it does, now its me who does the same thing. I am not complaining, this friendship is one of those prized possessions I have in my life.

At that point we used to look at girls as if they were from a different planet (later on I came to know they were from Venus, how true I was). They pretended to be very delicate yet mature, all of them acted as they had many followers and tried to teach men etiquette at every step. While most of them were unbearable, some were really thoughtful, mature and stylish. I did not have a girlfriend then (I anyway never qualified to have one) but I did like those few who stood out in the crowd.

Then came the time all of us had to choose life over friends. Everybody started moving to different directions giving friendship a break. Meeting with each other started becoming a weekly affair and after sometime a monthly affair. For me it almost became a yearly affair after I moved to Delhi.

Moving to Delhi was the best decision thrusted on me by my parents. It changed my life, more importantly it changed the way I looked at my life. Its going to be a long story. I hope to talk about it sometime.

Early days...

Here comes the story of a depleted mind who has grown big in size and shape and the depleted mind of his decided to tell you his story. I wonder why people will read this piece, but you can read it when you have nothing else to do and not feeling sleepy. It still works better than a sleeping pill. Here you go...

I am not here to talk about my childhood. It was like any other middle-class kid in the world. I was not bad at study, not so good either. Did enough to be called an 'above average' student. So it will be very ordinary and boring story if I start talking about those days. Lets talk about the phase which was more interesting, the phase when I transitioned from a boy to a man.

This was the time when I ultimately realised that I had to start earning on my own. Mom and Dad almost lost hope and started planning for their retirement which also included me as their one of the major burdens. I was anyway earning enough by delivering private tuition to some boys and girls, who, as students, were called 'below average'. This status of them made me qualified to be their teacher and guess what, they started doing well. The technique that I adopted while teaching was to motivate my students to study themselves and slowly I became a motivator, not a teacher. I had to do that 'cause, pretty soon I realised I did not have more knowledge than my students, so I made them understand that they were good enough to study on their own which they did. Results were good so was my compensation. I earned enough to pay for my cigarettes, tea/coffee and occasional outings with my friends. Dad was still taking care of my fooding and lodging. The only time I spent some money for my parents was when I gifted them something before Durga Puja every year. 

Years passed by and I realised I had to make it big. It was no more only cigarette and tea; pizzas and burgers were already in town, but my employers did not find it a good enough reason to increase my compensation. I started looking for serious (in other words, well-paid) jobs. In Calcutta (that was the name then) people were either doing a Government job (my parents were no different) or working as an Accountant in a small private company or running a distributorship for grocery items. As any other jobless youth I hated all of them, had enough reasons to show them whatever they were doing were of no use, and debated in favour of not doing anything than doing what they were doing. But in my mind, I envied them for earning way more than I did. I never believed in God (was somewhat politically influenced) but still prayed to God to get me a decent job. Hypocrisy all around.