About Me — Mitchel DSouza
A simple girl lives her dream.
In a quaint village on the coast of the Arabian Sea, lived a girl — Long hair, Average features. She had very little exposure to the real world… She was shielded and protected by her parents for whom she was the whole world.
On 1st, February 2003 — Her world and the real world were shaken by the Columbia disaster.
It was all over the news and the girl, then in higher secondary school was deeply impacted by the death of the first Indian Born woman to enter space. Kalpana was then a household name — the girl created collages, cut out news clippings, and mourned Kalpana’s death for a good long 2 months.
Kalpana Chawla left behind a legacy and taught millions of unprivileged girls in India to dream big. Yes, it’s death that made her famous.. but her life story to date inspires many people born without any fault of their own in low socio-economic backgrounds to dream.
And that is what this girl in the village did!
She dreamt of a better tomorrow… A tomorrow where she could create an impact in society by gifts provided by the Almighty. Little did she know, the pathway to those dreams was ridden with thorns and stones, failures and bruises. The shielded little Disney princess of ours had no idea what the real world was.
Many years later, after trudging along and coming out of her cocoon and having a fair amount of success and failures in her kitty, the girl now realizes she’s doing ok but she still has a long way to go to create meaningful impact. “One step at a time” will lead her there and she hopes she can proudly speak of her small contribution to this world on her death bed.
She also values the true privilege she has had for a long time — A loving, caring family. She values and treasures it while living her dream to create a positive impact on society — in her small ways.
Let me formally introduce you to this girl:
The girl in the above story is me. It’s truly hard to do a self-introduction. That is probably the reason why “Tell me something about yourself” is the most common and equally dreaded first question in an interview. “Dreaded” is probably for shielded, introverted kids like me :)
To make this path easier, In my mind’s window, I stepped aside from my direct perspective to see whether a 3rd person’s narrative would suit my character. Seems like it does… but now I need to add real-world corroboration to this story!
I am a VLSI Engineer by profession. VLSI stands for Very Large Scale Integrated devices. A term coined for a mega-conglomerate of transistors that make up our Computers, smart watches, smartphones, and anything “smart”. This article sums up my experiences as an engineer in the corporate world.
I have had the good fortune of completing my bachelor’s in engineering from a well-known college in India. Over time, I fell in love with my subjects. By the grace of God, I landed a job in the field of my study and the rest is history. Along with my job, I completed my Masters’s in an adjacent area that I wanted to explore. Overall, you could call my career an average joe lucking out among a bunch of smart kids!
After a few years of adulting — marriage and the likes, We as a family decided to move countries. The preparations were hard and things finally worked by the end of 2019 — only to be welcomed in the new country by the pandemic. I have summarized my emotions on this life-changing event over here.
Overall, throughout my few years on this earth, I have had good, bad, and horrible experiences which have shaped me to be the person I am today. Kalpana was one person who inspired me, due to which she has got a special mention in my personal story — No other important person on this planet has come close to the impact she had on my little brain many years ago. It could be the timing at which this disaster occurred and the impressionable stage of life I was in.
One thing is for sure, the older me finds it hard to get impressed or inspired by anyone. I truly wish I could get back that innocence combined with the wisdom that comes with age.
What do you say? Wouldn’t it be a delectable concoction?
That was a small sneak peek into my life. My character has a lot more sides than what you see written here. I invite you into my blogging world where you would see the layers of an onion being peeled one by one, slowly over the due course of time. It’s an easy click of a button. You can either subscribe or follow, and the stories will come to your inbox, fired right from my brain to yours :)
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