Hitaishi
A story of Dreams coming True
I want to tell you a story and for that, I need to paint a picture and you need to imagine. For I will be taking you on a journey across landscapes, villages, and cities; across the span of 28 years; to experience what gratitude looks like.
Early Life
It’s 2004, a different time, and life was as normal as it can be. The sun is shining with all its glory, and I can be seen hurrying up for plowing the field as I didn’t want to be late for school.
This can be described as a typical day in the life of 10 years old Somappa in the village of Sankarayanapuram Village, Kundumaranapalli, Tamil Nadu— waking up at the crack of dawn, rushing through the farming work, sprinting to school, and coming back to the same.
The stepping stones of my education were laid in Government high school, Kundumaranapalli. It was the only primary school in and around the village which had classes till 10th standard.
You would find this odd but I loved going to school. Maybe it gave me something to look forward to or it gave me hope of having a better, more comfortable life.
The importance of education wasn’t well understood in those times and children were mostly encouraged to earn some extra money for the family’s livelihood.
However, I was lucky enough to have Amma & Appa who dared to dream.
Yes, one doesn’t need much for a living but the thing is I never had the option of ‘much’. Amma and Appa worked hard on the farms to make ends meet. Amma made 25 rupees and Appa 75 rupees as daily wages.
When getting proper food every day is a struggle, one tends to prioritize. So did my family but they pushed me toward the education path.
You can limit everything but not the man’s ability to dream. So, they saw a dream and worked day & night to convert that into reality — This dream led me to finish schooling and aim for college.
College & First Job
I completed my BCA from MGR College, Hosur and boy was it tough!
I had to find a way to fund my graduation as my parents’ money was required for running the household. Working night shifts for paying the college fee became the new normal for me. But all this hard work paid off.
I still remember the feeling the day I completed BCA — utmost happiness, and a sense of accomplishment that still remains unparalleled. And I accomplished that with my own hard-earned money!
Soon after that, I started working for INDFRAG BIOSCIENCES Pvt Ltd and even though the joy of earning was great I still wanted to grow further.
Probably because of the seed of dreaming-big sown by Amma & Appa.
One day in casual conversation, Mr.Sudhakar & Mr.Krishanappa suggested going for MCA at SRM University. I won’t lie the prospect really intrigued me but soon I was filled with uncertainty when I saw the overall cost.
The three-year course had a 2 lakhs per year tuition fee along with a hostel fee of 1 lakh.
It might not seem a huge amount for many of you given today an avg private engineering costs around 9–12 Lakhs but it was a huge burden for me then and this time I couldn’t get through on my own.
But the seed had already started sprouting and to my utmost surprise, both Amma & Appa not only supported me but also came forward with the option of selling our agricultural land. The amount of trust and belief they put in me just strengthened my will to make the sky the limit. We sold the land in 2011 and then with a strong determination, I started my MCA journey
The second family — Knowledge Lens
From early life, I was busy carving my path because there weren’t many. Either you accept and give in to the same cycle or you break through the shackles. And for doing so, I had to study, and so I focused all my attention on getting better degrees and in turn missed another important aspect of growth — communication.
I always faced difficulty talking to people and this fear grew so much that I didn’t even attend job interviews after MCA. I somehow got a job as a lab assistant for Bigdata at Prwatech training institute but just for a 3k salary.
I knew this fear was costing me dearly and I was missing out on good opportunities so the moment one friend mentioned a startup named ‘Knowledge Lens’ working on the latest technologies, known for taking chances with individuals in whom they see potential even if they don’t fit the traditional requirements, I made up mind.
I took a leap of faith and connected with Sudheesh Narayanan, the CEO of the organization via LinkedIn, and somehow he agreed to meet me.
I still remember it plain as day, it was a Saturday and technically the first interview of my life. I was overwhelmed, nervous and whatnot. It did not go as I had anticipated as I lacked the practical knowledge of the key job requirements and I was unable to express myself due to my not-so-great communication skills.
I was disheartened but something in me just didn’t want to give up and I reached out to Sudheesh again and tried explaining my situation. I told him with utmost sincerity that if given a chance, I was more than capable of learning and excelling at anything because I am always willing to learn.
Maybe it was this conviction that he decided to take a chance with me and gave me a job as a Support engineer for their product Glens with one condition of learning Hadoop.
How is it going?
From here onwards, it was just an upward graph for me. I got the opportunity to work with one of the gems of this company, Mr.Sivaram under whom I learned all there was to learn. I worked twice as hard as I knew I had got my ‘magic beans’ as Jack and always had Amal & Sivaram by my side.
Soon, I was promoted to KL Infra Admin to manage the on-premise servers. From being unable to form a single sentence to constantly conversing in English throughout the day, the growth has been unbelievable.
In just a matter of time, I was able to get a hold of my financial situation and bring stability to my family. Today, I have been able to build my home and fulfill other aspirations that seemed like a distant fantasy at one point in my life.
And as a cherry on the cake, I was even able to buy back the land we had to sell for my MCA!
If I had to describe all this in one word, it would be ‘gratitude’.
I count my lucky stars to have such strong-willed parents who, in spite of the hardships, never stopped encouraging me and as a result, I got my P.G. certificate and was the first person in my entire village to do so, back then.
I will be forever grateful to Sudheesh for believing in me when no one would, to the entire Knowledge lens team for becoming a second family so much so that this is going to be my first and last company. If I ever leave the corporate world, it would be back to my first family, back to Farming!
And of course, I want to thank myself for not giving up!
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