Students today asked me what the priorities should be, in the initial years of one's career. I was remembering how my career took shape.
- Guwahati, early 90s
As a fresh hotel management graduate, I was posted as the F&B In-charge in a 4-star property in Guwahati. The going was tough and I was not getting enough cooperation from my colleagues (one of my batchmates got bashed up in the kitchen). I was not too comfortable being there.
- The offer
Meanwhile, I got an offer from a leading newspaper house, with a posting in Kolkata and a monthly package of INR 3500. I wanted to go back to Kolkata.
- The letter
When I wrote (STDs were yet to come) to my father regarding my decision to quit and join in the new role, he wrote me back stating that I was very fortunate to deal with such adversities in my first job.
- The decision
I stayed put and it turned out to be a very successful tenure.
I was feeling the heat of managing around 50 staffs who were elder in age and often not so cooperating. My father insisted that I stay back in Guwahati.
He thought, I was fortunate to face hostility at an early stage of my career. His logic was, if I come out successful, that would be a great confidence booster going forward. If I don't, the learning will still be immense.
What it led to.
Subsequently, my colleagues from Guwahati helped me in setting up my bakery business in Kolkata. That laid the foundation of my entrepreneurial journey and my subsequent professional career, where I could take up leadership roles at a relatively young age. That bakery is its own story.
This experience also cultivated in me a quality that is being valued today: "Resilience".
When I look back, I find the way my father guided me was very different and unusual. That is what probably made me comfortable in facing challenges and inculcated in me a feeling of fearlessness.
I feel I was so fortunate to have a father, who instilled in me a spirit of exploration and a feeling of confidence, that impossible is nothing.
Source: My Facebook posts on Baba's birthday: 'Students today asked me...' and 'Lessons from Baba'.
