"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."
— Andre Gide
My Story
They say every good story has an anchor—a turning point, if you will—around which the story makes a sharp pivot and the audience gets lifted from their seat.
The story of my life? Yeah, it has been filled with many such anchors.
I was born in Calcutta, India—known as the City of Joy.
Have you ever seen a kid more interested in disassembling the toys than playing with them? I was him.
Throughout my life, I’ve had a deep curiosity about everything. In childhood, this curiosity made me fall in love with both art and science simultaneously—one promoted divergent imagination, while the other sought to converge on answers.
Interestingly, I also had a penchant for traveling alone (and adventure, I guess) planted in me at a very young age. The first time I left home to go alone on an overnight train journey was in the ninth grade.
Needless to say, I stayed awake in apprehension all night.
A few years and some major ups and downs later, I found myself as an adolescent trying to answer the single biggest question of his life—the choice of career (or lack therof). It was at this point—on the way to a 7am private Physics tuition—that my childhood best friend casually altered the course of my life by making the following statement:
“No matter what you want to do in life, if you get into an IIT, you’ll be able to do it.”
My teenage brain was blown away. It was the boldest thing anyone had ever said to me. “That simple?” I wondered.
Well, I believed him wholeheartedly and we both made it the sole mission of our lives to get into an IIT.
Now, reality might be slightly more complicated than the above. 🙂 But with a combination of hardwork and luck I got into IIT Kharagpur—one of India’s Top 3 institutes for science & engineering—and for the next five years of my life I learned the art of balancing “Load” with “Peace”.
When college got over, I landed a job as a “road-warrior”—aka Consultant in a Big 4 firm. I was lucky again, not because I got to work on breakthrough projects with some amazing people, but because I got a chance to explore my adventurous side.
I took over 80 flights in about 18 months. Even on Monday mornings, when I left home at 5 am with less than 3 hours of sleep, I’d be brimming with energy at the Mumbai International aiport lounge.
Consulting suited me. And I suited to Consulting well. But there was one problem: it didn’t allow me to pursue anything apart from itself.
“Is this all there is? Is this what I went to IIT for?” I had to ask.
I wanted to do a lot more. I wanted to continue the adventure, but I wanted to work on ten different things in parallel. Life had to bigger than this, right?
So in September 2018—after months of contemplation—I decided to resign and voluntarily let go of my job to embrace an uncertain future for an indefinite amount of time. I began on a journey—one that I didn’t know would turn into a rare odyssey afterwards.
For 15 months, I explored every personal and professional interest on my list. I traveled alone without the next destination in mind, pursued photography out of sheer passion, played music, then learned to play music. I created and designed this blog, started writing, read extensively about every subject imaginable, and focused on my health and fitness. I also formed a team and started working on a startup idea, opened a small-shop business, did freelancing, and just so much more.
I was so thirsty of curiosity, I felt like diving into an ocean of knowledge to voraciously explore and quench that thirst.
People couldn’t comprehend why I was doing this.
I left a well-sought-after job to create a large hole in my savings account and nurture some interests that were most likely not going to turn into a career. On paper, it seemed like madness, at least in 2019.
On some days, I’d be scared out of my wits and absolutely unsure of what I was doing. After all, there was no set plan in hand.
The only thing I knew from intuition is that I’m on the path that is meant for me irrespective of whether or not it has been for anyone else. So I stuck to it.
At the age of 25, it was a phenomenally difficult decision to make. Yet, I had to make it. In retrospect, I realize that it is decisions like these which truly make or break a person. In my case, it led to a transformation and the beginning of one of the most rewarding periods of my entire life.
Not only did I realize dreams that seemed vague and impossible at one point of time, I also had profound experiences that cannot be described in words.
Through this journey, I distilled the passions out of my interests.
But more importantly, I found the answer to the question that mattered to me the most—what do I want in life, and why?
I accepted my identity as an explorer. I’d never been a follower, so I couldn’t just retrace the standard career path, and money alone didn’t bring me any happiness. I wanted to amalgamate the pursuit of both art and science in life, like my idol, Leonardo Da Vinci.
I also discovered that my core desire to experiment, be curious, play with uncertainty, take risks, find thrill in improvisation, and adapt on the go were much higher than average, which—by definition—made me an outlier.
So I built a life where I could do all of those things together. I got into UCLA to pursue a Masters program, a goal I’d been deferring for five years. I made amazing friends with whom I created incredible memories.
I switched my career trajectory and found a job that makes me excited to work on Monday mornings, while allowing the time to pursue my passions. Between 2016 and now, I’ve taken 7 solo trips and lived in a different city almost each year.
If you think about it, I’m a Mechanical engineer who went into Management Consulting, quit his job and spent fifteen months exploring life on his on own, then pivoted his career to full-time tech, and still thinks of himself as an artist first. It’s half-crazy, if you ask me. 🙂
In the end, I guess each person’s story is unique and quirky in its own way. But why do events like these matter?
Because as the author of this creative masterpiece, we have some liberty to choose the chapters that we want versus the ones we don’t.
We can’t predict when the anchors of our story will arrive. But when they do—and they will—life has taught me to let it make that sharp pivot and wait to see what happens.
It might be great, or it might not. But without taking that chance and hitching for a bumpy ride, there’s no way to know where the adventure bus could’ve taken us. And there’s no way to know how our story could’ve unfolded in a parallel universe. 😉