Moved to Melbourne when my wife began her master’s. The shift in geography also presented opportunities to explore new things professionally. Joined a strategy and planning role at a tech company. Loving the city—great quality of life (infrastructure, pace, culture, things to do) and warm, welcoming people. Loving the work—aligned to my interests and past experience, surrounded by very smart colleagues, in a high-growth environment.
Started dating Cearet, my first girlfriend and my eventual wife. Clearly, she was the one. The best part of it was how naturally the relationship progressed— mutual love and respect, a high degree of overlap of values and interests, with zero debates on what the next step is and when we should take it, and (very important in the Indian context) with immediate acceptance from the families (despite our religions being different). This companionship is a source of joy, love and warmth, and has enriched my life in all aspects.
Returned to corporate life and lucked into a management consulting role. The learning curve in structured thinking was steep, but a supportive peer group and great managers kept me going. Over time, I grew to love consulting: exposure to different industries, structured problem-solving, the importance of documentation, the thrill of presenting to senior management, the joy of project travel and air miles, and, most of all, leading energetic, smart juniors.
I became fixated on impact. I appeared for the UPSC Civil Services Examination with the intention of getting into the Indian Administrative Services. I felt that this is the most impactful job of all. I loved the process— reading up on a lot of history, economy, polity, etc. But the disillusionment was brought on by the ‘luck factor’ in the exam, and at one point superseded my motivation. It was a good run, and it ended at the right time.
Joined friends to pursue entrepreneurship. We were building something at the intersection of personal concierge and hyperlocal delivery. Loved that, but alas, that love doesn’t always flow to the bottom line.
Started as a Data Analyst at Indus Insights. This one was not too bad. Loved the problem-solving aspect of individual projects— it was fun to code your way out of millions of cells of data to discover some business insights. Still felt I was too far away from making a direct impact.
Start of my professional career, of sorts, with an internship at Goldman Sachs. I had to code things in Java for the internship project. I felt the project was too far removed from the business impact (or I was too naïve to understand the connection) to make me excited about something that I don’t have a natural knack for— coding.
I joined IIT Bombay for B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering. It was the time of my life there. I loved the institute and the peers. I had ample time to explore a ton of things— notably leadership roles and writing activities.
One of the pivotal decisions for me was to enrol myself in IIT-JEE coaching in Kota. It is a matter of luck that it turned out well for me - staying away from parents independently at the age of 15 could mean getting into bad habits and derailing life, or having all the time in the world to focus on just one thing - IIT JEE - cracking it to secure a relatively easy future.
Looking back on my school days, the main thing going for me was the discipline of caring about homework and results. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go the extra mile to get top rank, and looking back, I love that I had an easy childhood— play, study, have fun, excel.
Given that my dad was in Indian Railways, it meant two things:
Born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, India, in a family of four— Dad, Mom, me, and a younger brother.
Dad worked in Indian Railways. He started as a humble technician and had an unassuming integrity (hard for someone in a government job) and an unassuming dedication to the job— he went over and above (without doing calculations on how that would benefit him materially, etc.). It worked out well for him— he retired as a fairly senior officer (possibly a p99 outcome among his batchmates). It worked out well for the family— his integrity and hard work rubbed off on us, and fairly significant career progression came with right and measured capital infusion for the education of the kids.
Mom had the typical sacrificing attitude, coupled with intellectual depth (she had a PhD, back in the 90s, in India), upon which my (and my brother’s) academic successes were built. Parents cared about us doing well, but they were so non-prescriptive about anything in our lives— which was liberating.