Career, Money, Designation, Roles and All that Drama !!!!!!!!!!!

I have arrived; the chase for money is over. Not that I have hit a black hole in my current role, career or I have called it shots on what am doing, but After climbing the ladder so fast and reaching the top, I now feel that the ladder was against the wrong wall.

Money was the criteria, dragged into a non typical Indian middle class circumstance, especially in an orthodox Brahmin family, were walking out of the house without an engineering grad is a crime, career was by force and not by choice. With enough brains and marks to support, groping in the dark for the next step ahead. With little money and lots of commitments, with lots of pride and lack of prejudice, with a brittle family and a brave heart, I wanted a job that could help me study and give me a push. Was the first offer letter that I got “my choice”, was that moment of Joy, that took me to Chennai a mere flash in the pan, On the contrary if that moment wasn’t there would I ever be blogging, flying from Jaipur – Chennai , business class.

“Money is not everything “, the statement never made sense to me, at 19 with looming financial problems and debts, for me money was the problem solver, the divine agent, the fix. I decided to give it a chase, to take shortcuts, to get what I wanted, my divine agent. Overtime, Shifts, Health was always regarded as excuses of spoiled brats. Employee relation, Job satisfaction, Work Culture was terms that never clicked, the divine agent kept me going. Like a log of wood in water, like a kite without direction I chased pay cheques. “I am a pay cheque player “. Does money give you a choice, after an endless chase, do you actually get to make a choice. Now that’s a question that needs to be answered, for all the youngsters out there, the answer is might be it does, but the real answer would be “chase a career you like and money will chase you”.

Not that I own a Merc or a three bedroom apartment, Not that I fly business class every day, Not that I dine at the Taj or Leela but my chase for whatever I wanted is over. A home in my village, an address which I never had for 23 years, three time food with no tensions of debt and collection agents, Lee, Levis and Nike to wear, A cute girl to hang out with, that’s all I wanted to do with money. To watch a cricket match without being forced to switch channels by a step mother, to go and watch a movie first day first show, to wear 5 different dresses a week, I always had to fight for the simplest of things in life, and fight became a part of life.

Today, I realize that I can go far and beyond, tearing apart the blanket of money, breaking the shackles of growth and designations. Not that I forgot where I walked in from, but that I realize life is much more than money and designation, that I realize that work is life and not a part of life. When 60 % of ones life is spend at work, the choice of the career must be as important as the choice of a partner. That a Pay Cheque is worth until the 5th of the month, until the “Milkwalla” is paid, the cable and telephone bills are cleared, the rent and food is taken care and when all this drama is over, you have with you, around you and within you, the work that you do, the people who surround you and the inner satisfaction it gives you. I will search, get where I want, as I have the luxury of thought, the power of choice, though I had to fight to get to the race, I will still run the race with all the heart, as in Jerry Maguire “I am all heart Mother Fucker!!!!!!”.