Education,Job, Money, Mother and Separation

Let me be like a bird and fly to my nest.

It was Monday, my class teacher had thrown a generic question on the air: “What do you want to become in your life’’? I raised my hand faster than anyone else, by the way, it was my bad habit to respond faster in anything in my school and college life. Still, I carry this habit with me and get insulted by my boss in front of peers to misguide him about some unknown facts after raising my hand. I told my teacher “I want to become a soldier”. He said, “why”? I said, “I am tallest among my siblings and I want to feed my wife and kids”. The whole class was laughing at me. I was in seven grade. I never joined the Indian Army. But still, I feed my wife and kids.

First of all, I would like to comment on the selection of this topic ‘Work’ for the Medium Writer Challenge. It is going to be the toughest one for the Writers to craft an essay honestly and with integrity. Because to be in childhood dream job is like drawing a goat and you end up drawing a dog. In most cases, you will find a big disparity between dreams and accomplishments.

Coming back to my own story. I wanted to draw a goat and it became a pig. I did not give up. I took a turn from the detour and tried my luck in drawing something new. I wanted to draw a picture of a beautiful girl, but it turned out to be a middle-aged woman. So my work life is the most adventurous unwanted event of my life. Still, I am drawing…

At age of 15, I did a night venture with my childhood buddy and gained 100% profit. Before one day of the great festival named Eid, we went to a wholesale market of flowers and purchased flowers of one thousand rupees from there. Then we sold out all the flowers in our Eid Bazar. We made a profit. We divided the whole money by two.

I got admission to a Football Academy at the age of 11. I was crazy about football same like a boy for the first time loves a girl at his adolescent age. Four things were in my life: food, football, swimming and English. I was scoring badly in class as I was so much attracted to Rolando, Zidane, Baichung Bhutia. I wanted to become a professional footballer. I was dreaming about football day and night. One day I was insulted in the class to score badly in Geography. I felt bad. Insult in front of the girls hurt my ego badly. I divided my time, almost left swimming and started going to the academy on alternative days. Then I got promoted to class eight. I started giving attention to education and passed the first board exam aka Matriculation. Football fever came down and I wanted to focus on my studies.

I got admission to a High School and decided to peruse English Hons after class 12. I love English Language and Literature since my childhood. If you would like to learn the magnitude of love between English and me, I will tell you ‘English’ is my second wife. I decided on my degree while I was in high school but there was a mistake that nobody gave me a solution. After graduation with a major in English, what would be my career? I obtained a degree from university and still I was not able to decide what to do.

I had started giving private tuition classes to the professionals who completed their education in vernacular language. I started giving them a spoken English class. And I got admission to University to peruse post-graduation (PG). The convenient option for me was to become a Teacher. A 22 years old man didn’t make a solid career plan. I was dreaming about a corporate job, so I decided to pursue MBA after my PG.

At the age of 23, I was literarily disturbed by the pressure of my relatives and neighbours and all keen eyes were on me and my career. My core source of income was the spoken English class. Some relatives gave me free suggestion to peruse LLB, some well-wisher neighbours advised me to write Civil Service Exams, some other people suggested me to become Journalist. After completion of my PG, I managed to get a job in an Event Management Company.

Heck! I was never in a dream to be an Event Executive. My dream was to be a footballer that went astray, sometimes I thought to be a Journalist that too never happened. I was in a great dilemma in my life. Some part of event management was hurting myself and my soul. It was too much glamorous world, I was not fitting to it. Boozing was the reason that made me upset, I will not deal with boozing in my life. I have never been to a bar or disco or party where wine is served. I sound orthodox, let it be. I had to call my grandmother like a woman by her name as she was my boss. Sometimes I would call her Madam or Mrs. She would feel uneasy and correct me in front of others. We used to hire girls for some events, they had to go through many screenings, and for example, the girls were asked to wear special types of attire without their consent. I was part of the decision making of Events that lead to make my life miserable.

Meanwhile, I cracked MAT (Management Aptitude Test) to peruse MBA. I started attending Group discussions and Personal Interviews in many B-Schools. I got selected in few Schools to peruse MBA. One good option I had that to leave my bad job and get into B-School for MBA. One big hurdle: Bank Loan to pay course fees.

I was hating my job and I was not able to join my preferred B-School. While flipping around the paper after dinner I found an Ad for a Career fair. I bunked the office and went to the fair. After spending almost eight hours I made up my mind to go to Australia for my MBA. I collected all the details and learnt all the nitty-gritty from an executive about how to peruse MBA there in an Australian B-School. I broke the news at home before my parents. All was well. One big hurdle. Bank Loan.

I didn’t stop giving spoken English class, this was the only thing I was loving with my students who were older than me. As I was struggling with my own life, I assigned them a task. The task was to speak for five minutes about their aim in life. A student who was married and selling credit cards shared that he was making plans to go abroad for his next job as he was fed up with commissions and sales pressure. The class got over at @10:30. I made him sit and take all the details to fly from India to a foreign land.

I left Event Management job. I did some short courses. I went to Mumbai and Delhi to attend interviews with overseas recruiters. Eventually, my luck smiled on me, I arranged a job in 2010 and packed my self-respect and dignity in a briefcase and had flown from India in 2010.

Still, I did not complete my MBA. I have the zeal to peruse it. In these 11 years, I have come across many ups and downs, I go to India on vacations. The best part of my present job is after office hours I can spend time with my family. The worst part is I miss my mother drastically even in this long 11 years I am not accustomed to bearing the pain and agony of separation from my mother. I have been out of her nest and I am dying to be under her wings and badly wish to feel the comfort of mother care. The difficulty I am growing more and more because whenever I play with my daughter here I miss my mother. Whenever my son hugs me or kisses me I feel the emptiness of my parents who live on other side of the sea.

I am still drawing a picture of my dream job and this time I will tear the canvas, break the pencil and brush, trash them in this nearby sea and fly back to India to keep my head on my mother’s lap. Pandemic made this distance wider and making delay for me to fly and enter my nest in India.

Thank you for reading!