A little story

Bhaumik Shah. Born and brought up in a typical middle class family. As you all can imagine, my parents had a dream – that one day their son will become an ENGINEER and serve a multinational company.

It was April 2001 when my SSC exam results were declared. With 86% on result card the most obvious choice was to choose science stream – and lay a path towards engineering.  Now let me be very honest – at the age of 16 many of us actually don’t know what kind of career we like! Some of us get this enlightenment at early age, but that’s not the case with most of us. I also didn’t exactly know what I wanted in my life! So I also followed the herd – I got admission into Diploma – Mechanical Engineering. And then 7 years of machine studies were started – 4 years diploma followed by 3 years of Bachelor degree.

I spent 7 years of my life studying machines. Thanks to our education system I was also able to grab 3 consecutive gold medals for best performance award in academics 🙂 (mugging up things and throwing them out on answer sheets wasn’t difficult for me)

 

During engineering I also started volunteering for various NGOs. (Lesson:  You need to explore things to figure out what you like. Discovery of passion is not easy, but it’s worth). While volunteering with various orgs I realized my liking was more towards working with children, youth, communities rather than machines. The most important realization of my life came a little late :/.  I started doing research on career options I can opt for to walk on a path I like. I figured out that masters in Rural Management would give me an opportunity to learn and explore my own liking. But this was completely different than my graduation subject.

It was March 2008 where I had to decide destiny of my life. On one hand I had 7 years of education, a job in hand (yeah, I was selected in campus interview) and on the other hand I had a path full of risks, uncertainties but something which my heart wanted to try.

My parents asked “Do you really want to waste 7 years of your education?”

I replied “I don’t want to waste rest of my life”

That’s it. Decision was made. I got enrolled in Rural Management (Of course all possible social dramas were occurred before)

In life we often get opportunities to decide our own destiny. Life puts us in these situations multiple times not only once. So here what was happened next:

After my masters I got recruited by a development research consultancy firm.  With good salary and great job prospects it was a dream job for any fresher! However, yeh dil always mange more 🙂

It was 2011 when I got an opportunity to start working with a start up.  People who decide to leave comfortable job, join a risky start up, decide to work with pay cut are termed as “abnormal” folks in “normal” society.  Regardless of what others think, I was already on a path laid by myself. I joined a start up 4 years ago. At present I work with the same company, and without a single element of doubt – journey of last four years – seeing a company from getting registered to grow at mid level scale is one of the best learning I have in my life.

Caution: I am NOT encouraging anyone to leave engineering. NOT motivating anyone to leave current job and join a start up. But I definitely would encourage everyone – to explore your own calling, to follow your own heart, to do what you like and to do what you love.

Love Life. Live Life.