The Seeker
So, the kid is at school, a new phase of his life, away from home, away from all things familiar, away from family, away from friends, new friends to be made, a life ahead of him. A life for him to shape the way he wants it.
Amol and I were with a leading captain of industry, and an authority on the Startup ecosystem, just this past Monday, and the discussion centred around the rather vexatious subject. We discussed Scale challenges, operational challenges, skill challenges. We also discussed specifics about how certain well-known Private Equity, Venture Capital firms were struggling, and were facing serious challenges in finding viable exits or the ability to cash out.
Having seen failure myself, and having seen others around me fail, its given me a deep perspective on what not to do, how not to do it, and when not to do it.
What was amazing was the way people looked at me. This was probably the very first time they had laid eyes on an Indian, or for that matter someone colored like me. I exaggerate not, when I say that whole villages came out just to get a look! I could now understand what white skinned people feel when they visit India, and everyone is just staring at them, nudging each other, and passing remarks.
The only real question that matters is the one that the CEO asks. “You seem to have done a lot in your life, is there anything you can’t do?”. Instinctively I knew that the answer to this question would be the clincher, and my answer is, “Rumi, the only thing I can’t do is Kiss Ass!”. Little expecting such a response, (you had to be there) there is a look of surprise all around.
This true telling, begins with me having been out of work for several months now, and I am getting rather desperate. Family to support, mouthis to feed. It was the bottom of the spiral caused by tech bubble that had gone bust, and jobs were not easy to come by. I literally sat each and every day and scoured every advertisement in various publications, and finding anything remotely suitable, I applied, crossed my fingers, my toes and pretty much everything that could be crossed, so much so that reading, and working long hours at the computer, did leave me blurry and cross-eyed at times.
