Kya Paya Kya Khoya

A decade has passed. So it is the right time to take a holistic view and assess ‘Kya paya kya khoya’ – What I gained and what I lost in this decade.

Exactly 10 years before this time, I was busy preparing for 12th board exam. My 12th result was not that great. Then I was screened out in IIT JEE, screened out at SSB, Bhopal for Naval College of Engineering, Lonavala. Luckily, I joined engineering in CET, Bhubaneswar (the then best engineering college in the city) and it is the time I started my entrepreneurial dreams – started working with a start-up while I was in early third year of engineering, made my first income (a thousand rupees a month) while I was in first year of engineering by tutoring couple of 12th class students and then continued teaching and earning during most of my engineering days, launched first web site while I was in second year of engineering in 2004 January which I am still proud of but it’s a shame that I did not continued. I joined a job in 2006 and continued there till I prepared to migrate to UK in 2009.

Looking back at the decade, I can conclude that it was a decade of mediocrity. Nothing I did or achieve was that outstanding – neither study nor work. But, I dared to dream and I’ll continue doing that! For this decade there would be no place for mediocrity. I could not make it to IIT – fine! I told myself, ‘if I would go for masters then it would be such that any IITian would respect it’. It is one of the dreams of last decade to be full filled in this decade.

The best achievement or moment of pride of the decade came sometime in March 2006. I was teaching a course (preparation for campus selection) to a group of ITER (a reputed engineering college in Bhubaneswar) students. I was trying hard so that all the students would get selected by the first company visiting them. Sooner or later all the students got placed by some company or the other, but most of them made it to the first company and few of them were also the best performers during the selection process. The best moment was when I got the news – it’s an extraordinary feeling when you see things shaping up and finally getting realised and more than that when you see people achieving. You actually touch life when you help people achieving and when you empower them in some way or another.

I had many learning in this decade. I would mention a couple, which I feel, the best: ‘When you try to visualize the bigger picture the current state of problem fades away!’ How I learned and applied it may follow in another post. And the other which I learned very recently at B-School is: ‘Entrepreneurship is all about what you know, who you are and whom you know’.

Last year I set the theme for the year as ‘Thinking big’ which I followed to certain extent, at least while making decisions. For this year the theme is ‘Small is beautiful’.

I had been lucky more than once in the decade. I would mention couple of ones: I passed out as an IT graduate in the year 2006 which was the best year for Indian IT Industry till that time. Again I landed in UK in 2009, during the period when it was worst hit by recession. It was my good luck that I managed to get a job despite of that within a very short span.

It would be unfair if I forget the abundance of love and affection, the extent of help and support I enjoyed from the people in and around me, from the friends I made and from the relationships I cherished. With that gratitude I welcome 2011 and the new decade.

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