Understanding

As an army kid, the only life I’d seen growing up was in army establishments, in Pune, Rajauri, Tezpur (Assam), and Mumbai (then, Bombay). It was a great life, right from seeing the Uniform, the culture, to the fauji way of life.

Joining Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehra Dun in Jan 1979 further cemented the decision to make the army as my way of life. My aspirations crashed when I did not qualify the Services Selection Board for entry to the National Defence Academy, Pune. This was unexpected.

What next? There was no plan B. The situation was not foreseen. Having done Physics, Chemistry and Maths in RIMC, I was advised to take up the Science stream in the XIIth grade.

One would think after the class XII exam results were out, the future path of life would be clear. Our exposure those days (1985), living in the armed forces environment, was very limited. For a child who grew up living in and wanting to make the army a way of life, it was even more limited. Though the years in RIMC helped make us mentally tough and fiercely independent, I also had the sense to meet people and listen to their counsel. What two people (my Math teacher in XII, and another senior army officer) told me made sense. Their advice - do your under-graduation in the stream which gives you the maximum choices in terms of a career, and the curriculum which helps you build the maximum skill sets.

I joined Government College of Engineering, Pune (now, COEP Technological University), and was lucky to have got a placement with Siemens during the final year. The path forward was somewhat decided! Whilst working at the Siemens factory in Mumbai, I decided to take a break and do a full time MBA program. After three years with Siemens, I left a promising career and joined the Institute of Management Development and Research, Pune.

I resumed my career in the corporate sector after the MBA.

The ten years after leaving RIMC as a 16-year-old kid taught me a lot:

• There may be situations in life the outcome of which is not in your control.

• As you walk down the path of life, you may be given a stone; you can either throw the stone away calling it a useless object, or you can examine it and then sculpt it into something beautiful. This is in your hands.

And finally,

• For something to happen, something else before that must NOT happen, leading you in that direction

(this was shared on LinkedIn in Jan 2025)