From An Office Boy To A Web Developer

It seemed like just another day at the office of Shaadi.com, Mumbai, when 26-year-old Raju Yadav walked in confidently and seated himself amongst the web developers. Yadav has been working here for the past one decade. However, this day was different because instead of serving tea and running errands as an office boy, he would be coding for the web team. 

An entry-level job might not fancy a lot of people, but for Raju, who was a 6th grade drop out, this is no less than a dream come true.   

Raju was 13 when he first came to Mumbai from a small village in Jharkhand with nothing but hope and determination to make it big in the City of Dreams.

Life took him through several ups and downs, but Raju bounced back stronger every time and pushed himself to do better. Despite not being able to continue his studies as a child, he learnt that education was the only thing that could get him to happily sail through life. With support from his generous colleagues, he passed his 10th standard exams with 61% marks and later also managed to complete 12th standard.

 

Raju would often stay back at work and learn web developing for an hour or two. And when the right time came, he applied for vacancies for web developers at the office and got through! 

Not just that, Raju wants to continue studying and has enrolled for graduation at Mumbai University. He also wants to make sure that his son and wife don't have to go through the struggle that he had to.   

It's Your road...

People talk about ambitions, passions, future plans and careers all the time knowingly or unknowingly. What actually a career is?  Is it a systematically planned process or a destination achieved by hit and trial?  Or a mission that is achieved by the numerous advices and consultations with the parents, relatives, uncles and aunts who are well placed and can boast about all their struggle and hardships?

Is there any truth in the statement that "occupation" is a legacy that can be or rather should be passed on from generation to generation? Why engineer's family has to produce more engineers and same with the doctors too? 

Are we trying to produce socially conditioned people? Well! Its been many years for me and I am still exploring. I have met parents who are flexible enough to give wings to their child’s dream or an IITian parent who inspite of knowing the learning disabilities of his child pushes him to take science and be an engineer or a little more smart parent who carefully trained their child to be disciplined enough (so that he never disobeys them) and chart his each and every activity on the Microsoft excel sheet (Yes! That was the sole reason for them to learn how to create a time table for him and track any swaying). Oh My God! Yes, that was the expression by me too when I listened to their so well planned “career planning”.

From a not so educated parent to extremely well educated one, I agree that each of them are the well wishers and would never like to be a hindrance to their child’s growth but give them an opportunity to atleast figure themselves out. What is their dream and passion? Are they realistic about it? Is it a passion that can be turned into a profession?

For all the teenagers:

Give a thought to the following:

Is it your passion or a dream you nurtured right from your childhood? There have been examples where people have risen above all odds. They may have never been to school, never taken any degree but excelled because of their sheer passion for that "one thing". But passion alone is not that factor which will lead to success in life. With passion you also need hard work and perfection to reach to your goal. Are you ready for it?

Choosing a stream is just the first step to pursue your dream. Except India, every country gives you this flexibility to get what you want with your abilities, interest, skills and finances.

Liberal arts is the way to go. In future, each one of us would require to understand the social thread to succeed. It will not be Social Science, Commerce or Sciences but “Human Sciences” which will be learnt. So, gear up!