Day 17 - Crossroads and Defining Moment

Every decision that you make in your life is actually a crossroads decision. You always have choices and you choose one decision over another. This applies to almost every single thing that we do - right from what clothes to wear in the morning to what breakfast to have to what route to take to office and so on. Sometimes a simple mundane decision like what shirt to wear can have a lasting impression on that day.

But once in a while you come to a crossroad that defines your path forward. You may not know it at that time but in hindsight you can clearly identify that decision fork and you wonder what would have happened if you would have chosen the other road. How would your life have turned out then? Sometimes you are thankful for taking the path you chose and at other times you wish that you could have taken the other path.

My father says that the decisions we make are determined by our destiny. Our destiny is already written and we actually take the decisions that lead us to that. I contradict him with my perspective that our decisions determine our destiny and where it leads our life. We agree to disagree on the count that probably by the time I reach his age I might have the same view as his.

I put this in my pensieve and hope to get back to it when I get to his age.

When I look back I can clearly identify that one moment in time which decided on the course of life where I am today. The interesting part is that I did not have to make that decision.

!FLASHBACK!

August 1994 (15 years back), I had just gone back to Dehradun after a few bad months of work and did not want to get back to where I was working at that time. I stayed put for a few months in Dehradun and then decided to go to Mumbai to try my luck and getting a job there. I thought that I would get any sales job there and we will take it from there. Refer to my earlier post on "What are you afraid of?" to get my perspective.

I booked my train ticket from Dehradun to Delhi and Delhi to Mumbai by Rajdhani. I had a waitlisted ticket from Delhi to Mumbai but I was confident of getting a confirmed one. I had done that quite a few times using a tout at the Hazrat Nizamuddin station when in college. I landed up early morning in Delhi and got in touch with the tout who assured me that I would get a confirmed ticket.

!DRAMATIC VIOLIN MUSIC!

Come the time for the train and I did not have a confirmed ticket - not even RAC and I had to miss the train. Decision Fork came up then and I had a choice to either stay back for a day and try for a ticket for the next day or just go back to Dehradun and figure out what to do.

I called home in Dehradun and told my mom that I was coming back. Dejected and seeing my Mumbai dreams chug away, I took the train and reached Dehradun at 2am the next morning.

THAT WAS THE DECISION THAT CHANGED MY LIFE!

I decided that I would work for some time in Dehradun and study for the management exams. I did that for a year working at Radix Technologies selling Modi Olivetti computers and Tektronix Test and Measurement Instruments. I 'studied' for management tests.

I gave the first exam - Times School of Marketing - and passed through the written, GD and Interview landing a seat there. I decided to take it up and landed in Delhi for the one year course.

Studied, met Anindita, fell in love, followed her to Bangalore after the course, joined Genesis, then 3M, spent one year convincing Ani's parents to let us marry, married her, BuyAsOne, bought a house and car, IBM, Oracle and now at Citrix. Its now 13 years in Bangalore and 14 years of knowing Ani.

Why do I call that Rajdhani chugging away as my Defining Moment? Because if I would have got the ticket, I would have landed in Mumbai, got a job and never met Ani or any of my current friends. I would not have had the life I had.

Do I think back on what would have happened? Not really, coz I love this life that I have and would not trade that for anything.

So, what is your defining moment?