Four Years Hence...

"Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you. "-- Don Juan as quoted by Carlos Casteneda


Four years back, 2002 March 6th, I came to Poornam to take a practical test. I was given a real tough question to implement DNS. It took me four hours and I do not know for sure, but somehow or the other, I was able to complete the test and I was elated. The elation was short lived as Amar then caught me and opened the sendmail's configuration file and asked me to explain the configuration. I just had no words to explain the misery I felt at that moment, I did not know a thing, I could not explain and I was real disappointed. End of the day, Amar said, join tonight itself! I was happy and I could not believe I had finally got my first job! March 6th at 10 pm , I joined shift and I was assigned to Vinu, ( A short time room mate of mine at CEC, he had left to join Model Engineering College and was regarded as a real cool guy who knew what he said and did have a very good IQ). From there, there was no turning back....

March does seem to be a special month in my family. March 5th, 1974 my mom got her job as a nurse in Kuwait and after 30 years of service in the same hospital, she finally retired and came down. March 7th 1976 was my parent's wedding and also my dad's youngest brother's birthday. Looks like my joining Poornam filled that gap. This year its all the more special, because my nephew, Joshua completes his 90 days on March 7th, my parents complete 30 years of wedded bliss and my uncle spends his first birthday of his life overseas in Sharjah! ( He took Voluntary Retirement from HIL, where he worked for 20 years and went for greener pastures in Sharjah). As for me, due to some twist in my destiny, I seem to have exactly rotated to night shift, so that I am back working at night to complete my 4 years of service over here.

I have had my up's and down's in life over here. There were moments of inexplicable joy and then there were moments of deepest sorrows. I have seen them through, and from the 15 member company that I joined into that day, we have reached 150 since the past four years. From a 3 bedroom apartment converted to office space, we today work in 11000 square feet plus office space. Times have changed and so have the friends. I cannot forget Vinu who taught me my first lessons in Poornam and he was too good because he had the patience to teach from scratch and coolness to handle pressure. (oops he smokes to get the coolness). I made many great friends and if I start to name them, the list would become endless.

I have not made much money, or rather I have squandered all the pay I have got, but I have lived my life richly. People usually work to save money and have nice things in life. My philosophy was slightly different, right from my first paycheck, I was in the exoribant mood of treating my relatives, buying gifts for my Grandma, parents, sisters, cousins and finally treating friends. I always tended to spend more than I earned, but I never felt remorse as like my uncle always reminded me, if you give properly and sincerely, remember God will give you back. Three months down the line, I bought my first 29" television and home theater set. I think its from that day that I have decided to take up consumerism. Take loans, buy things I want and then repay in installments. This became a way of life for me.

As for life, I have had to give up my nice life of being a tech to take on responsibilities to help build this company move up in this world. How much I can contribute, I do not know, but like the quote above, I wish to continue as long as I can keep my heart in it.

"True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." -- Helen Keller

My constant being around with fellow colleagues, people of varying diversity, I have learnt to realize that different people with different backgrounds have different priorities and that is a truth I need to learn to accept. More than a senior-junior employee relation, all of us are more like friends and that I think has been the key so far for the growth of Poornam. All good things must come to an end as at each level of the company's growth, substantial changes occur and you need to have the drive in you to accept those changes and build it further from there or else you quit on various basis, sometimes genuine, sometimes silly.

"The world I am trying to understand is one in which men think they want one thing and then upon getting it, find out to their dismay that they don't want it nearly as much as they thought or don't want it at all and that something else, of which they were hardly aware, is what they really want." -- Albert Hirschman


I have truly enjoyed my life over here with its twists and turns. I know that I have learnt a lot and for me now the challenge is not to relax; But to continue this momentum and growth to the next level so that the fresh Lijoes' who join this company, can be moulded to fit that culture and trustfully see where they will be four years hence.