growth......in the face of hardships

My recent visit to my home, mumbai, had a specific goal in mind. On the outside, I had gone to sort out my tax saving investment plans, but internally, my aim was to invest for the future. It was all about PERSONAL GROWTH PLANNING. Yes, I have been working now for little over a year and this is the ideal time that one needs to sit down and plan ahead, so that the big money-hogging neccessities like house, car and probably marraige don't seem that bad the monsters they really are.

So the plan I had in mind was to invest small for starters, but keep doin it regularly, so that a few years down the line I can inherit a fortune.....however small it may be. My dad had arranged an appointment with a financial consultant who shares his first and last name. So to say, I went with Ganesh Shanbhag to meet Ganesh Shanbhag!!!! ..... The former being the person, whom I have looked upto as my biggest mentor, MY DAD, and the latter, who in our first visit inspired me to look in a direction which till today has been a challenge - FINANCE. But before I state my views on growth plans, its important that all of us take a look behind and relive the hardships that we have faced to stand where we are today. It is after all these experiences that teach you to become strong and face life with a spear in one hand, a sheild in the other and a smile on your face....which will decieve your enemies and onlookers. So, this blog is dedicated to the hardships I have faced to get here.

I must say, god has been kind to me. I have never been in a situation where money has eluded me......even in australia, I always happened to find a decent job when my bank balance levels were at bare minimum. But getting those jobs and fullfilling their requirements wasn't really an easy task. My first job as a marketing rep for Energy Australia had me knocking doors when the sun shined at its zenith. It also thought me to be patient amongst all the door slamming and the badwords that were showered on me. I learnt not to take up jobs where luck is the major factor, hardwork was the way out for me. But getting an hourly pay job was really difficult and I took up another marketing assignment with American Express, to sponsor my daily bread. This job had me shouting out to people to come and sign up for credit cards. I used to picturize myself like one of those bhaji wallas we see at the market place here. Somedays you made a small fortune, when 4 - 5 people sign up. But most of the days, there would be a drought. It used to get worse when such failures at work would affect my studies. I wanted to get out of it as fast as possible.

Than after 5 months I got a job to correct papers online at Persons Inc. I had to getup daily at 5am in the freezing winter and travel for over and hour to get to office. Correcting 10,000 of the same question in a day was like mental torture, yet the money that I so much needed by now kept me going. This was just a small project that went on for a month. The first few months in my second semester were punishing. Subjects got difficult and I cudn't assign to many days for part time jobs. I decided to keep weekends for the jobs and the weekdays for the studies. Planning on paper was always easy. But working two days a week and sponsoring for the whole week was difficult. I had to do causual jobs and spent many weekends without earning a single dollar. Than there were weekends where I went two days without sleep and on a single sandwich running from a petrol bunk at one end of the city to a factory at the other end. Exams and assignments in between made my life even harder. It was also that time of your foreign visit where I really started missing home and mummy's food.

It wasn't untill the end of the second semester in Nov 2005 that lady luck finally smiled on me and gifted me a high paying job at a factory. I not only earned and saved enough to sponsor my third semester fees, but also learnt a great deal about corporate culture, internal politics and managing businesses. I owe everything I learnt, to my manager Raphael Aaron. It was like studying in one of the elite IIM's and getting paid for it.

I guess, in the end, the saying LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.....always holds. We as humans need to go through such churnings every now and than. Some succumb to the waves, but those who are able to swim through the storm emerge as winners in the end. 99% of the time, there is no one who appreciates your efforts or awards you at your victory. But I strongly beleive that if we keep going, there will be a day when people will stand and take notice and applaud you for the person you have become.

Today, I stand at the juncture in my career where every step I take and every task I complete, multiplies my growth factor. Financial planning is slowly coming into the picture and the future holds a lot of promise. As I continue to swim, I must dedicate a large chunk of my success today to all my present and ex colleagues, managers and friends. A special thanks must also go out to movies like Shawshank Redemption, Life is Beautiful and dozens others that kept me inspired through my times in adversity :)