My grandmother was a nurse for more than 40 years. Who does a nurse look up to? Since she was not able to become a doctor herself, she transferred the dreams to my mother.
My mother being an ardent fan of Rhyme Scheme said, “ Being your daughter is very easy but becoming a doctor is not that easy” and she transferred that to her first son.
You will become a doctor | You will become a doctor
My grandmother used to tell me these during Pongal, Diwali and New Year and pretty much every time when I touch her feet and get the 100 rupees along with her blessings.
She always wished that I should grow up and become a doctor. For those of you who know me, even the first part of her wish hasn’t come true yet.
I finished my 10th Standard and I chose Biology Group and my grandma said – “ Well begun is half done “. If choosing Biology group is well begun, I am sure there will be equal no of doctors as Engineers.
When I was in 11th STD, I participated in Inter District level Caption Writing Contest. I was shown a room where there were a lot of pictures stuck with numbers. And I have to write captions for all of them. As I had already mentioned, my mother was a fan of TR. Her rhyme scheme somehow found a way into me and when others were walking around the room, I was rocking around the room.
I saw a picture of a bull with its horns painted during Pongal. I wrote “Today being a bull, I will not be asked to pull “
I saw a picture of a parrot ringing a cycle bell – I wrote “I can tell what you tell and also ring a bell “
Guess what – I came first in Caption Writing amongst five districts. That was the defining moment, I wanted to do something that would help me nurture this newly found talent of mine.
The 12th Std results came. I scored 119 marks in Biology. It was out of 200 and not on 150. Somehow my grandma still believed that I could get a medical seat.
For all of you Engineers seated here, you would have had different reasons to choose Engineering. I had one of the strangest of reasons. My grandpa said
“ You are our first grandson.”
I said, “ Yes “
“ You are their first son “
“ Have to be. Please go ahead “
“How can we put anything other than a doctor or an engineer next to your name in the marriage invitation? You should do Engineering “
My mother was like “Yes. You should do Engineering “
And that got me into Engineering – one of the most sought after courses of the Century. Everybody was becoming an Engineer. Go to the tallest building in any metro or a tier-1 or a tier-2 city and throw a stone down – it will definitely hit an Engineer.
In other countries, if you want to become a musician, you get enrolled in a music school. You wanna become a artist, you get enrolled in a fine arts school. In India whatever you want to become, you do Engineering first and then become what you want to become.
Once I completed my Engineering, I was placed in Infosys. I terminated the contract and started my Startup journey. Its been almost four years now.
Startups are the places where your quirky ideas would be encouraged, your little amount of talents used to the fullest potential and lots of time to learn by doing mistakes.
Here is one of the best rebranding campaigns that I had come across recently. And should I even tell you that it’s from a Startup.
I discussed with my parents and my grandparents and God made sure that they got convinced of what I wanted to do and they have stood by me till now.
Now I work with a leading animation production agency that does killer explainer videos for Startups, MNCs and more.
I am an active Toastmaster for the past four years and that’s where my ideas gets transformed into speeches and I validate them through the received feedback.
The message was quite clear
Little things that happen in your life when introspected can give you heads up about what you are good at and if you lookup to your heart and pursue what it desires, you will never regret your choices.
And as far as my grandma is concerned, she wants to make sure there is a doctor in the house and now she is looking for a doctor girl to get me married to 🙂
Well written…great message.