Dream comes true

My wife , I and my son lived a happy life in India until I was 41 years old. We have moved from place to place to pursue my career but never made an overseas trip. I worked for a premier R & D organization in India for a period of 4 years and every person who worked for this organization went on at least one overseas trip but for me. My interest to travel overseas grew over a period of time quietly in my head without working out the details as to how and when. My dear wife felt that even if the family does not make an overseas trip, at least, I should make an overseas trip once on business. I kept telling her that when the time comes, it will happen but I knew inside me that I was only saying that to make her happy. But that burning desire to make an overseas trip was high and every time when the opportunity was available, it used to brighten my mind and when it was turned down. It used to face disappointment. Will this accountant ever make an overseas trip in his life or will he die without fulfilling his wishes? How did this desire to go overseas came into our mind when we were leading otherwise peaceful life?


Then, one of my friends who worked with me in that R & D organization called me one day to tell me that a CEO of a software company is looking for a good finance person for his business in India. He also told me that since it is a US Corporation with an Indian subsidiary, they would pay well when compared to the salaries paid in an R & D organization. I immediately rushed my resume to this CEO and within a week, I got a call at 9 p.m. in the night from the US. This Indian entrepreneur who lived all his life in UK, Canada and the US called me and spoke to me for an hour. At the end of the call, he told me that he would like to meet me in person in Mumbai as he was planning to be in India within a week. As scheduled, I left for Mumbai to meet him. As soon as I walked in, he asked me, “Do you have any questions for me?’ I told him, “I don’t as I have already reviewed information about the Company.” He said, “You can go now. You will get an appointment letter in the mail. After speaking to you, I am convinced that you are the right person to be appointed. I just wanted to meet you to find out how you look like.” I was stunned and left within an hour after reaching Mumbai.


I assumed the post of Vice President – Financial Planning. Within 6 months I became very close to this CEO and he made me the 2nd in command in the Indian operation. A year later, I was inducted into the Board of the subsidiary and later was appointed as CEO of the Indian operation. I stayed in that position for a year. My wife asked me, “Why don’t you ask your CEO whether you could move to the US operation?” I asked her, “Are you serious?” She answered in affirmative and told that she would do anything for my professional growth. She was the only child for her parents and our son was only 7 years old at that time. One day, I built courage and told the US CEO that I had done everything possible within the subsidiary and either I should move on to do something else or do a larger role in the corporate headquarters in the US. He said that he would like to have a dinner meeting with my entire family.



The next day, we met him in a posh restaurant in Mumbai. He told my wife and me that he had decided to move me to the corporate headquarters in the US and would process multi-national executive visa called L1A for me and family. We were stunned. Within 3 months, we migrated to the United States with the entire family. That was our maiden trip overseas and we never thought that our first ever travel overseas would be to live in another country.


After I migrated, the Company was listed in NASDAQ and I was handling some crucial responsibilities relating to that public offering. I also had an opportunity to work at high level executive position for many years. 3 years after I did many roles, I was asked to be Vice President of Business Development to execute the world wide acquisition strategy. I reviewed over 400 companies, visited 60 of them and acquired 14 companies in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, UK and the United States. I was making several international trips and domestic travels within the United States besides regular travel to India both on business and for vacation. I got literally tired of travel and hence after serving the company for 9 years, I resigned and started to pursue a career as an Investment Banker to help small to mid-sized companies to acquire businesses or sell their own business in the market or raise equity capital for those companies from private equity firms.


The business was booming so well within a few years and at this stage I decided that I would try and work remotely to the extent possible so that I do not have to travel a lot. I realized that the life came full circle from a burning desire to travel overseas to not wanting to travel anywhere anymore. I think aversion for travel started 13 years ago, when I was on a trip to Australia. I traveled from the east coast of the United States for 5 hours to get to the West coast and then traveled another 15 hours to go to Sydney. When we were in a meeting in Sydney with a prospect, we were told that the next day we were to fly to Paris, i.e. 9 hours travel to Singapore from Sydney and another 14 hours journey to Paris. Within a day, we left from Paris to get to the United States. In other words, we went around the globe in 4 days. I am 57 years old now. Enough is enough and now I enjoy being with my family wherever they are. I understand in the evening of my life that less desires mean more pleasure.

 

Thank you very much for your kind feedback. This experience humbled me a lot and I learned a great lesson of doing our effort and leaving the results to the Universal Absolute.

Viswa

 

Tuffyshri,

Thank you for your kind feedback. Your words of encouragement are the biggest inspiration for me. Despite my age, I remain young in spirit and smile everyday because of the friends who made the difference in my life. Now it is the IL members such as yourself who makes me smile every day.

Viswa

 

Thank you for your note and there is nothing important in that message. I was going to give you my Twitter Account where I post my thoughts for younger generation in 140 characters. I have posted 402 of them. That is what you see now in Wisdom Twits I post in IL.

I am always afraid of giving my Twitter account to wonderful persons like you as I do not control who are the people who follow me in the Twitter. However, I came to the conclusion that thoughts expressed are much important for you to read than the peripheral issue of worrying about the followers.

Thank you as always for inspiring me.

Viswa

 

Pallavi,

Thank you for your kind words as always. I had written a separate blog about how much I learn from people younger than me. It applies very much to what I learn from your blogs.

Thanks for being a great inspiration for me.

Viswa