Summer of '09

 Date: 10 – 04 – 2009, Time: 22.00 hrs

This day and time, a year ago I boarded a train for a quick trip to my native and to see a lot of saints, relatives and of course temples. Wondering why I am recalling this particular journey? Because the reason why this journey was undertaken never got off the mark, though the journey happened and happened quite satisfactorily. I did all the things that I was set out to do. Just dint do what I was supposed to do after this journey, what I prayed for and met people for during this journey. I was supposedly set out for Finland after this journey but who was to know a journey right after the end of the start of a summer at one of the best places I've spent 2 years of my life got over. I was supposed to fly and not just fly; it was supposed to be a Finnish start for all that I hyped it. I thought it was going be a start of scaling new heights, how about a flying start to an upcoming career and a life time opportunity?!

So, as planned the trip to native and north India for other purposes happened and so did I join my Finnish company, but not quite yet, I had just joined the Indian office of the Finnish Company and awaited my visa and other documents to be ready for me to leave for my Scandinavian endeavor. I was supposed to wait just for a week as told initially, week turned to a month then to 2 and not too late to 3 and some more and then came a day when I stopped fighting!!

No it wasn't a fight with my colleagues or anyone; it was a fight with myself. Every single day was a challenge, during the day the challenge was to kill time, to keep away boredom and to avoid stress, stress of not having much to do in fact anything to do. Each of those 109 days took a toll on the tiny little brain that I have to think and better myself on ways to while away time and feel normal because, if that didn’t happen I would feel unproductive and useless and so I did, did all sorts of stupid things to while away time, always sad and upset. That was supposedly a flying start to a dream career!!

The moment the digital clock on my office pc turned to 18.35, I hardly took any time to leave the lavish premises of my work where I seldom worked to go to my home sweet home which I was gonna supposedly miss for the next year or more and there I was at home close to 7 with a dull stupid day at the back of my mind, with a mild head ache and of course the war that I was having within my brain which asked me a single question in different ways and contexts repeatedly all through the day and night :- Am I going to Finland? Should I? Does my mom want me to? Will my dad be ok if I go? Is this the career start I even thought of/wanted? What if I don't want to go? How do I make things at home easy if I really am going? What's good/right for me? For my family? When will I come back? Or will I? The head felt like a complete army is shooting at me from all possible directions and all at the same time continuously and neither was I a Jackie Chan or a Rajnikant to be able to save myself from even a single bullet of these questions that were shooting my head.

Pressure kept mounting day after day as did my preparation and the delay in the process of obtaining the required documents. One not so fine morning I was late to office, (not that I was on time any other day) as my boss and team had arrived before I did and to my surprise(was a shock actually) the process of obtaining the documents for my travel were almost done (something that hadn't even moved for almost 100 days) and this news was given to me by my boss himself waiting for me near my desk for me to arrive for the days work(he kinda thought I was working) and congratulated me and asked me to be set to leave anytime in the coming week! Instead of cheer there was fear kinda expression on my face with a made up smile which did look fake though it got over looked because of the summer heat that I was entering the office with already some sweat. The fear was of the unanswered questions I had in my mind that got triggered every now and then and now it was almost time for me to answer them and zero in on something else I was up for a big disaster with in. I was about to explode any time soon, it was time I took a decision, the biggest ever decision of my life till that day.

The days following that shocking news got even tougher, pressure built on as at the one end I was just getting set to leave and was shopping and packing and meeting and what not, all the things for me to leave for Helsinki and at the other end my mind kept fighting the same old questions and thoughts and it sort of found an answer which was a very daring and bold one. Not many were going to back it except a few who have been vouching for that answer for quite a while and many others who shifted from support to retaliation and vice versa making things worse for me mentally. But I knew I had to take my own call, no matter who thought or said what, it was my heart and mind that had to decide and so I did.

I decided to give a pass to a career start that lot of like minded and/or like aged would envy. For me my family came first. As I thought if I can help things remain normal at family level I could figure out something for my career and concentrate on it better than worrying about both(which I was literally doing for the 3 months that had passed) and being bad at both. It was a Sunday that I had decided to be the last day to take a call and on Monday morning I would go ahead and communicate my decision to everyone concerned, whether they knew about such thoughts earlier or not. It was going to be the toughest day and meeting of my life. I had to tell my boss that the faith he had in me and the resources that he had spent on me were all going to be a waste as I was not in a condition to take an abroad assignment due to family concerns.

I wouldn't have been embarrassed with myself any more ever than that day, I could hardly manage to see anyone in eye and neither could my voice go beyond a certain level. I was feeling that low and embarrassed, but my boss treated this whole thing extremely well, he dint speak a single word in anger or disappointment which was a bigger shock for me than the shock that I was already in by doing something which I never imagined I would do so early in my professional career. He in fact asked me to stay back in the company at Chennai itself and take up some other profile, but I had other plans in mind long before I took this decision. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't imagine working at that place any longer. Not only because I wanted to do something on my own but also because I never again in my life wanted to go through the same kind of embarrassment.

So I called it a day for my professional working career that day. I knew this was going to be my first and last employer, I never wanted to work for too long and especially for someone else whom I am not sure how comfortable I would be with. So with a really heavy heart and mind I walked out of the office finishing formalities generally that take quite some time in a matter of few hours because I wanted to be saved of those questions and gossips and self respect issues and boy I guess I did well, the fear and worry that I was carrying in my mind for the last 100+ days had gone once for all in  a matter of few hours and you bet that I was relieved, though I dint know what I was gonna do the next day, I was sure I had nothing to worry about, the guilt pangs remained for quite sometime but I at least could catch up some sleep after having not slept like for ages, worrying every night about what was in store for me in the near future and how was I going to handle it and that night I slept, I slept like a baby. No worries about the next morning/ day at least. A break from a lot of tensions and the everyday mental agony, that lasted indeed for more than just a summer. That was my summer of 2009!!

Epilogue – The next morning after I quit my job, I woke up a little late than usual, it was a phone call that woke me up. To make things even weirder it was one of my uncles who I respect a lot who called and said ‘Now that you are not going to Finland and you say that you want to do your own business, I have an opportunity for you right away!! Why don’t you go to South Africa for some export business??’ Its but obvious that I shot his request down at once!! After a struggle of almost 6 months on going abroad or not, after rejecting a hi fi opportunity to make things comfortable at home, I got another abroad opportunity right away.. bah!! I was not even over the guilt pangs of the previous days happenings and here I was with another chance to fly, a flying start again may be. That’s how life gives you what you don’t want the most when you don’t want it at all..!!

P.S – Just got the courage to put all this down in writing, it took almost a year! Keep watching this space for more on the last few months as a continuation to this, post summer ’09 & the big fat entrepreneurship dream – in the making, coming soon!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Silence speaks volumes, if you can comprehend!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Catch my breathe (West Life)