How successful should one aspire to become? Stereotypically successful. And how does one become stereotypically successful? By making a positive impact on the lives of millions, nay billions.
An early memory of mine was when my simpleton grandmother told me,
“you should become as successful as Birla or Tata”. She hails from Pennagaram, an interior village in Tamil Nadu which got road connectivity within the decade. She has limited formal education, and yet, she knew about Birla. That is the impact on the life of every Indian one should aspire to make.
I was an observant kid who had a keen eye for brands. In every medical or CII or Rotary conference I was forced to attend, I observed that my father, the keynote speaker, the Governor of that Rotary district, and the celebrated guests had one thing in common - a crown or a
“Louis Philippe Khakhis” trouser lettering. I made mental notes, and had associating Louis Philippe with stature.
My father was even more observant of his son than the son knew, and it was in the ninth grade when he bought me my first Louis Philippe trouser - a black Permapress. I wore it everywhere every week, heedless to the ridicule (and envy) of my classmates’ “you look like an uncle”. I was basking in the glory of sharing something with all these men I look up to.
Till date, my wardrobe has almost everything Louis Philippe, in strict hierarchy sorted based on importance of event and colour of choice. Every time I open my wardrobe to dress up for my intellectually challenging day at IIM Trichy, I sift through my four identical black Permapress pants among my other Louis Philippe apparel of course, reminded of the stature the Upper Crest comes with.
The Soaked Bandaid
“Indeed, what is to come will be better than what has gone by”
Realising that my thumb didn’t taste of cerelac and toy car tyres anymore after my father had plastered it in a bid to foil the thumb sucking habit, the drowsy infant me waddled to the tap, held the plastered thumb upside down in running water which made the plaster soak and fall off, and returned to bed like nothing happened. My Psychiatrist mother woke up to a running faucet and soon figured out what had happened. With this instance among others, she identified and honed my mindset along problem-solving paradigms and was instrumental in ingraining in me the positive impact one can make on the world around with novel solutions.
Fast forwarding to a score years later. I walk into the cardiac ICU to hear the cardiologist say, “his life hangs by this thread” - the six words that have made a man out of me. He recovered, but the family income took a big hit, and savings don’t last forever. I had to do something to make up for this loss, at least partially. An opportunity presented itself in front of me, and I took a big risk: rejecting a coveted research role under the CTO of the worlds largest IT consulting companies to establish a small bootstrapped blue-ocean business.
Those four years were the most difficult ones in my life, and ironically, the most blessed. It taught me the importance of family, the role of society, and the transience of life. It made me become grateful of everything I have and everything I am. It taught me that one can do great things if one believes one can, or at the very least, if somebody else believes. Had it not been for that trying time, I would probably be in a cubicle running advanced R scripts; unhappy.
Did that risk pay off? Two years later, the business is in its third profitable year and I am in my hostel room in one of India’s most coveted business schools, writing for the leadership program of one of the world’s most coveted conglomerates.
I would like to think so.