Tryst With Destiny

Do you believe in destiny? Do you believe that things that are meant to happen, will happen, regardless of what you do? Does fate decide the course of your life Or are you responsible for your future and there is nothing called as luck? Personally, I'm not sure what to think. I do know that the last four years have completely changed my life. And thinking about it, all of this came down to a single decision, sometime in April 2011.

I come from a middle class family. Right from childhood, I’ve always dreamt of reaching a point where money is not an issue. When I was a kid, I used to love visiting my cousin because he always had the latest gaming consoles and toys. I used to envy him so much. I always used to get a cheaper substitute of what I actually wanted for my birthday. As children, me and my sisters never got any pocket money either. If we wanted something, we had to ask our mom for it. And then, she decided if we get the money or not. I remember collecting whatever coins I could lay my hands on so that I could join my friends when they went out to eat. This might sound like sacrilege to the younger folks out there, but it wasn’t that bad. Deep inside I’m glad all of this happened actually. All these small things ensured that I’ve always valued money.

I’ve seen my parents bargain for every single rupee. Many a times walking away from buying something because of few rupees. And countless times killing their wishes to save money for what we wanted.

I was pretty much living my parents dream. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know what an IIT was. And neither did my parents. My parents knew whatever advice the successful uncles and aunts gave. And with that, I joined a mediocre under-grad university picking up “Information Technology” as my major, since my uncle told my parents it had a lot of demand.

I wish I could get the four years of my under-grad life back. They were such a complete waste of time. I did not learn anything and had not done anything of value there. While I did particularly well in the technical subjects because of inherent interest, I had no idea what I was actually learning. The knowledge was completely theoretical. Most of my batch-mates were interested in doing an MBA post their undergrad and so they never bothered in the technical subjects. Engineering was just a means to an end. The ones who did not want to do an MBA, wanted to do a Masters from US. Since I was not interested in MBA, I assumed that Masters must be my thing.

Somehow, my parents were not convinced. I kept postponing giving the GRE exam, since my parents kept dodging the topic entirely. The registration fees was 160$ which was hell lot of money. Others had finished giving the exams and had moved to the next phase of the application process. I kinda had to threaten my parents that I won’t be giving my under-grad mid-terms (they were in a week) till I gave the exam. They reluctantly agreed. I immediately booked the date giving the exam after two days, since I felt prepared. I got a 1510 on my GRE (333 by current standard), which was pretty awesome. Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t afford to do a Masters that time. Financially, it was not a viable option for my family. I accepted it and prioritized getting a job instead.

I remember celebrating with my friends when we got a job offer from Infosys. It was paying 3.5 Lakh INR per annum and we thought we had struck gold. It was a really big deal for us. I was getting calls from my relatives congratulating me about this feat. I found out that a friend of a friend was buying a house that time. It was in a very old building in a relative inexpensive area. The 1 BHK he purchased cost a whooping 60 lakhs INR. I realized that with my current salary, it would take me 20 years to own even a very small house. Considering if I use all of my salary (after taxes) for 20 years! It dawned upon me that there was no way I could afford a house in Mumbai. I wondered how will I make it in life. I decided the day I was able to earn 1 lakh INR per month, I could call myself successful.

For a variety of reasons (that’s a blog post for another time ;) ), after working in Infosys for a short time, I decided to leave Infosys for good. The decision was quite sudden actually and I caught my family and friends off-guard with it. I had just got a call from a friend saying they needed someone. And that’s all I needed. I simply quit. I didn’t even wait to get an offer from the other side. I don’t know why. I just knew I had to leave that place. I was ready to work for free as long as I was working on something meaningful. I joined my friends startup(MIME360) and decided I would apply for a Masters that year itself. I’d take up an education loan if that’s what it took. Like any startup, I was working pretty much on the entire stack. Since I had not done anything during my under-grad, MIME360 was the place I actually started to code! Every day was a new learning experience. And it was fun! At MIME360, I got a chance to be mentored by Rahul Chari and Sameer Nigam, the co-founders, two people who I look up to the most in my professional life. I’d leave everything in a flash and be with them if they ask me to join them for a new venture.

Soon, MIME360 got acquired by Flipkart (biggest marketplace in India), and my life changed instantly. My salary tripled in a day. Suddenly, I was surrounded by folks from IIT, BITS, IIIT, and other top universities in India. I had to work my ass off during the first year to keep up with them. It was like somebody had turned on a fire hose of information pointing straight at me. I tried to soak in as much as I could without getting blown away. The growth I saw as an engineer in that one year tremendously gratifies me. In time, I picked up learning new things on my own and started sharing back. The same brilliant IIT, BITS students were now coming to me for advice. I loved the work I was doing at Flipkart. And I was getting paid shit load of money to do it as well.

Remember the definition of success I had? Out of nowhere, I had reached my target. And so, the definition of success changed again. During the three years at Flipkart, my definition of success kept evolving with my growth. By the end of it, I could buy that house in 2 years. And still have money to spare. I had reached a point that I never had to be concerned about buying something I wanted.

And yet, there were times I felt guilty about it. Many times I interviewed people much much older than me and it made me realize that my decisions will be affecting their careers. I saw people working for tens of years and still earning one fifth of what I was earning. And I was not even 25. This world was not a fair place. I decided to leave Flipkart for a new challenge. After hearing the experience of my colleagues over the years, I yearned going back to studies and relishing a proper engineering education. And now, I could sponsor the education myself. What’s the worst that could happen? Even if a Masters didn’t work out, I could always come back and recover the cost in less than a year. I had already vested my Flipkart ESOPs as well so I knew my family had something to fall back on.

Thanks to the work I had done at Flipart, I got into Columbia University even though I had a mediocre under-grad. At Columbia, I got a Teaching Assistant job, which led to a scholarship and eventually an amazing internship, all because of my work at Flipkart. Unlike most international students at Columbia, I had immense clarity on what I want to do. The network of friends I made through Flipkart have been invaluable for this. I don’t think I can even come close to quantify the impact the three years working at Flipkart had on me.

And all of this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t quit Infosys that day. I didn’t know anyone who had quit so early. The HR folks did their best to scare me about leaving. And yet I did. I just knew one thing. It felt right. I took a risk and it paid off. No guts, no glory, right? Was I lucky? Hell yes. No matter how hard you work, there is always Murphy’s law to screw things up, so I like to believe in luck.

I always wonder where would I be now if I hadn’t decided to quit? Or what if my friend hadn’t called? What would life be like? Would I still have found a way to be at this level? Would I have found such awesome people to guide me? There’s no way to answer this. All I can do is be thankful that it happened and I followed my heart. I’ll let Robert Frost summarize things for me.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference