the journey of my life

‘The journey of my life’
Dr Vikram Venkateswaran

The journey of my life began more than thirty years ago.
It was the best of times and it was the worst of times,
It was the spring of hope and it was the winter of despair.

The year was 1977, a watershed year in the history of modern India. It was the year of the emergency, the year the congress party was defeated in the general elections. So in my ways my coming symbolized a revolution.

My first needs as Abraham Maslow would describe were of food, clothing and shelter. I grew up just like any other kid fed on the stale diet of Bollywood and Cricket.
Everything changed when I entered Junior High school, to the horror of my parents I started getting involved in too many fights in school.

I think it was time for my security needs to be fulfilled, as Maslow would have put it. That’s the time my Dad and Mom stepped into my life, and played Good Cop (Mom) and Bad Cop (Dad) to perfection. My dad got some discipline and structure a child at that age would need. He insisted that I get involved in sports and I started taking tennis lessons. My mom laid the moral boundary to my thinking; she got me into the habit of praying a habit I follow to this day.

The next important stage in my life was when I entered high school, by then I had graduated to social needs. The need to be accepted, to be part of a social group was very strong. This set the stage for friendships and the dominance of peer pressure.
During this time I got attracted to this young lady in my class. On the advice of my peer group I wrote her a letter expressing my feelings for her. She promptly reported it to our class teacher. I got a rocket from my teacher for the latter, not because I had written my first love letter but because my spellings were terrible. To this day I remember the importance of spellings in my communication, due to the embarrassment I faced over that incident. That year I had to choose my profession and I sincerely think that the good cop won that year and I choose to become a doctor just like my mother.

Thus began a new stage in my life as I moved from the social needs to my esteem needs. Manipal, my Alma mater for my medical education was a Mecca of education. It was an island surrounded by the Arabian Sea on one side and drinking joints on the other three. It was an interesting time, as I was a carefree student ,on one hand yet reminded by my teachers that I had to be worthy of the noble profession on the other hand. And one fine day I was suddenly a doctor with a sense of aura. Doctors in India are treated a cut above the rest, often revered as the living gods until the patient sees the bill. At that time, the treatment is more the way we treat Satan.

One of the perks of being a doctor was my credit rating with all the banks. It was so high that I was considered a worthy customer for the entire portfolio specially the credit cards, and I had about half a dozen of them sadly with cards came extremely extravagant expenses and with them defaults on the payments. Another lesson learnt there.
Finally after a somewhat successful practice I wound up getting bit by the management bug and enrolled for management education, two of the most fruitful years of my life where I met some amazing friends and professors. I also met my future wife who still recalls our first encounter where she actually mistook me for a professor.
What does the future hold for me? I don’t know!!
As Shakespeare says in Hamlet,
“To be or not to be, that is the question
Whether ‘tis nobler in mind to
Suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles;
And by opposing end them.”

(This speech was voted as the best Icebreaker at the Covansys Chennai Toastmasters Club)