Life - a learning institution

Since my childhood, I was attracted towards aircrafts, rockets and all those flying technologies – exploring the darkness of the universe. Though I was an average student in my academics, but I was persistent about my dream – to look at the earth from the sky! Being an average student in school days was like getting additional advantage of being active on various non-curricular activities and hobby of reading lead me to explore more about the space.  This passion developed a dream into me – to create my own identity among the stars!

So after schooling, I chose Aeronautical engineering as my undergraduate studies where my horizon of knowledge got expanded it took me to a different orbit. At the same time, on a personal front, a huge wave of crisis hit the family with great amount of turbulence, but as we all know that disasters are always opportunities for a new beginning, this crisis helped me to look at the world beyond materialism, with a matured understanding of love, emotions, feelings and care. More importantly, through that crisis, I learn to develop my own wings and explore it for flying high into the sky. Yes, it taught me to be independent and courageous enough to accept the challenges in the life.

At this stage, vision to turn my dreams into reality opened up and I started focusing on creating a road map to achieve my dreams and setting up the stepping stones to reach the goal. Hence, I started putting more efforts in my area of interest and eventually my efforts paid off in a beautiful reward – my first patented innovative design of energy and cost efficient space vehicle system, which is not just focusing on next generation engine generating propulsive force using solar energy, but also providing an efficient solution to the upcoming threat of the aerospace sector – i.e. removing space debris from earth orbits. The first ever presentation of my project rolled out at the highest and most prestigious platform of the global space industry where it was well received with great appreciation. This has indeed motivated me with the great confidence and enabled me to focus on my career with more dedication. Followed by this first successful mile stone, I decided to undergo an nontraditional project as a part of my graduation curriculum at the ISRO by working on mission designing for the most exciting Mars mission of India.

By the time I explored a couple of major international conferences and workshops within and outside my home country, I learnt a valuable lesson of establishing and developing professional networking and effective communications. All these motivated me to pursue higher studies in the UK from one of the best universities in the world for Space Science & Technology. On the other side, my innovative project has taken a unique shape and the team has resulted into a civil society non-government research and development organization. So here comes my first little baby step into exploring R&D and business sector.

While studying abroad on an education loan from home country, paying high tuition fees, living on my own – away from family and friends has brought lot of maturity and early learning of the life. The first thing I learnt is managing my own academics, cooking for myself, surviving into totally different environment and above all, dealing with ‘the home sickness’. The very first challenge also got started when you have a limited amount of money and you need to manage your daily expenses. Being on my own, finance was also on my head and to manage my expenses and pay off my loans, I adopted a part time job as the library assistant in the university library itself. Things become easy on personal front as surviving became smooth. By working in the university library, helped me not just getting good connection with different students and professors but also provided me an excellent opportunity to satisfy my hunger of reading and learning new subjects which were not the part of my regular academics. This job helped me to learn to make myself organised, due to which I was been able to give enough time to my own organization, my regular academics and my survival. Gradually along with my regular academics and my library job in the UK, I started learning new subjects, new cultures, new languages and exploring new areas, and reading value added things which eventually helped me in developing my own life in better and organised way. I firmly believe that if we are thrown in the ocean, we either swim or die, and being focused on my way to achieve my dreams, I chose an option to not to give up and swim. Hence, I started also reading business ethics and management during my free time, that helped me in growing my own organization from local level to the global level standing high, with its own identity.

By the time, I completed my post graduate studies, I was already having an honorary doctorate, an international patent, a couple of scientific research papers, a globally recognised organization, an identity in the global space sector and, skills and knowledge of different areas of the global business sector; but more importantly my life was enriched with far better gift – understanding the struggles of life and learning of dealing and overcoming the challenges. At some little time, I also got myself associated with the theatre in UK where I learnt the beautiful insights of art and its rhythmic presentation. In short, I gained the vision to make my dreams within reach, along with enjoying the student life.

To give back to the society for bestowing me with all the affection and recognition, I moved back to India with a new hope to contribute in developing private space sector of India, pioneering R&D in this field. In a short span, I overcame major challenges and conducted of a few international conferences and projects. At the same time, I got myself associated with an international research firm to work on a few projects related to the climate change and sustainable development. On a complete different track, I also got myself engaged with an international production house to provide technical inputs for their international Sci-Fi movie. These both additional items in my plate provided me opportunities to expand my horizon and learn new subjects – Sustainable Development and Film Industry.

It was now a time for myself when I entered into a relationship with a hope to share the beautiful smiling ride of the life to achieve dreams of two soul-mates together. There is no perfect and always a struggle. One just needs to pick who he/she struggles with. Hence, to respect the emotions and feelings of the partner, I once again moved to a new country – Canada, where a new challenging journey kicked off! As a new immigrant in a completely new environment, I focused on limiting my present professional engagements in order to get me settled down in this new country. Meanwhile, a big storm hit out of the blue and things went south on the personal front unexpectedly. This made me to realise new people are new just for a day, after that they are just the people, who will excite you, disappoint you, scare you a little bit. It is tempting to run away when disasters happen in personal life, but eventually we end up in avoiding ourselves, avoiding people we love and ultimately avoiding life. As I have been persistent to keep my dreams alive and walk on the way to turn them into reality, I cannot afford to give up and hence I adopted a temporary job in a coffee shop, where I not only learnt to handle customer dealing in a fast paced environment and bake donuts, but also it helped me in making new friends and eventually to survive the downfall in personal life crisis. This big disaster led me ultimately, in learning managing stress and handling crisis in calm but quick manner. Later on with all these learning, I collected myself and managed to come out of personal life trauma, back with improved confidence. Once again, I was back on the track of my journey to achieve and live my dreams.

Now when I was able to think clearly once again, I managed to explore another area of opportunity in the solar industry, where I developed very good understanding of manufacturing environment and quality assurance. Giving considerable amount of time in this field, helped me to learn and study Canadian business market and renewable energy sector in the North America; enabling me to develop a bridge of technological understanding of sustainable development and space sector in the North America. This indeed boosted my enthusiasm and self confidence.

Meanwhile, the roughest patch in personal life taught me to analyse the crisis and managing efficiently and effectively with the available resources. Now after studying North American business scenario, to be more precise the Canadian industry scenario, I successfully registered a commercial wing of my international R&D business in the space industry which has been operating across the three continents in the world. This new Canadian company is established with an aim to operate in North American Space industry, under my leadership and with the same great team continuing the legacy of our mothership – our successful global space R&D business.

Throughout my life till now, I learnt many things at various stages, from my guides, mentors, advisers, friends and family, which have developed me in more polished manner with high amount of positivity and great confidence to not just live the life but to appreciate the life and enjoy the journey towards the goals with smile and satisfaction.

And finally, the journey has been continued with high energy and enthusiasm to explore new horizons, learning new things going to come at upcoming stages of my life.