Career conflicts

Career conflicts 

 What makes a career? What mars it? Do talents and hard work do the trick or destiny and the hand of fate intervene? I do not have the answers. I wonder if anyone has. To people I mentor, my message is simple; plan for the best, but be prepared for the worst. 

 My own professional career is a mishmash of events I planned and events that I did not. For every turn I wanted to take, life made me take a unique twist. My dream was to become a doctor but missed it by a whisker. Perhaps I was not smart enough to raise the bar that far. From then on, events took over. I drifted like a piece of wood in a mountain stream. 

Finally, I landed in an MBA program that had just come into the vogue then. Campus placement was not yet invented, but few smart companies wrote to the Course Director to recommend a fit candidate if they found one. Thus I found myself inside the lovely and wooded campus of a premier textile company called Calico Mills, Ahmadabad for an interview. I did not own a pair of shoes or a tie then but had a good sense to carry an extra shirt to change after cycling 11 kilometers from my hostel to their office. 

 After a day filled with conversations rather than the interviews, I was told at 7.30 pm that I was selected. My last conversation was with Ms. Gira Sarabhai, one of the owners of the Calico Mills who took me to visit the elegant textile museum as if I am her honored guest. The world was quite benign then. In the entire day, no one made me feel as if I am a candidate for the job. 

 My career with the Calico Mills crashed not for my fault but for the fault of the European Commission who slashed the quota for garments exports of India to Europe, crushing our business. A major milestone of my 3 years with this job was that I got married to my sweetheart girlfriend for 5 years. 

 After a brief search, I landed a job with a new company that was just started by the Government thus providing more security and comfort. I have not yet been able to figure out how did I stay for 20 years with that company. Growth, learning, job security, good people around us, moving to new places like Calcutta and Delhi and the birth of two girls in the decade of 1980 was perhaps a few of the many reasons.  

A realization that I am growing in the company, but my bank balance is not, made me search for new pastures. A headhunter arranged a meeting with Mr. Ravi Ruia, the vice-chairman, Essar Group. I took a cab to their magnificent glass tower offices across the racecourse in Mumbai on one rainy afternoon. It was an hour-long conversation with Mr. Ruia over a cup of tea. He finally shook my hand to tell me I have been selected. That handshake kept me tied up to Essar for 22 years. 

 I left Essar at an age beyond retirement. Even then, in a moment of ridicule or adventure, I looked around for another career, sort of change of scene. But the world had moved on. I was jostling myself with guys in the 30s and 40s who ruled the world. 

 And who can blame the world for opting for youth and vigor! 

 I remembered the words of Lord Mountbatten, who said that at 70, time is just right to become a spectator and to not be a participant. 

 That is what I have become now.