Author: Amit (page 1 of 2)

My dad had bought a plot of land in Bhubaneswar when we were kids, but he never had the chance to build a house on it. When he was about to retire, he decided to build on that plot. After spending most of his adult life working and raising two kids, he hardly had any money saved. So he took a loan of Rs. 1.5 lakh — a meagre sum even in those days. My brother and I were still looking for jobs at the time, so he gave us the task of building the house within that amount.

The process began. It was very close to my heart because this was what I had studied in college. The estimates I came up with weren’t looking good — they went beyond our budget. So we became ruthless in cutting costs. We removed anything that could be considered remotely fancy. A full structural beam-and-column construction was out; instead, we went with a stone and brick foundation just strong enough to support a two-storeyed house, even though the second floor wouldn’t be built any time soon. Marble or tiled flooring was scrapped in favor of bare cement floors. Wooden door/window frames were too expensive, so my brother worked with a local welder to fabricate door and window frames from L-shaped steel angles. Galvanized plumbing pipes were replaced with PVC to cut costs. The kitchen counter was fitted with plain, inexpensive Cuddapah stone slabs, which were half the price of concrete slabs. The walls were painted with lime and dye instead of fancy latex paints.

In the end, the house got fully built and we moved in.

Later, both of us brothers moved away and settled elsewhere. As the years passed, my parents grew too old to live by themselves. My dad sold the house and moved to Bengaluru. I visited Bhubaneswar many times after that, but I never went to see the house; I knew it would make me sad. Last year, I finally gathered the courage to go. When I stood in front of it, I couldn’t recognize it at all. The house had been modified beyond recognition. I felt emotional, and for a moment I wondered if I was standing in front of the wrong house. I looked closely at the plot number on the gate — 145, Paika Nagar. It was the same plot on which our house once stood, but it was no longer the house my brother and I had built, counting every brick, every bag of cement, and every rod of steel.

I didn’t have a wristwatch in college, and I never missed it — except during exams, when every minute counted. Our exam seating was fixed according to our roll numbers, so I always sat behind the same classmate.

One day, I noticed he was wearing a watch. I asked if he could take it off and place it on the table so I could see the time from behind. He agreed without hesitation. From then on, during every exam until we graduated, without me asking, he would take his watch off and set it up on the table, standing it on its steel band so it was easier for me to see.

Decades later, I reconnected with him. He had joined the Army and was now a Colonel. I told him how much that small gesture had meant to me. He laughed it off, saying it was nothing.

I, along with most of my friends who grew up in lower-middle-class families in India, carry a trauma—whether we acknowledge it or not. We grew up with limited resources for everything. There was never enough money for anything. Our parents always felt financially insecure and they passed down their financial insecurities to us on aluminum platters — because gold or silver platters would have been too expensive(sic). 🙂

We learned early to analyze every expense, calculating the ROI of that expense before deciding whether to take it on or not. In college, for example, if I wanted to go home for a few days, I would first crunch the numbers. The trip only would make sense if the travel cost was less than what I would have spent on food had I stayed back.

You never really get over this trauma. It stays with you. You save as if you’ll live forever, yet you never feel financially secure. You work until you’re either forced to retire or physically can’t continue.

This is what I call “The Great Indian Middle-Class Trauma”. It’s like waking up panicking you missed an exam when it’s been decades since you left college. The middle class trauma is waking up panicking you are poor when you are not 🙂

I had traveled to Chennai—back when it was still called Madras—for a job interview at a software company. My brother was working there at the time and had a rented place, so naturally, I went to stay with him. When I arrived he had already left for work, but he’d arranged with his landlord to hand me the keys.

After a shower I set off for my interview. Chennai felt like another planet—the language barrier was my biggest challenge—but I somehow managed to find the right local bus, I even got to my destination without getting lost. The interview went well,  or so I thought, and afterwards I hopped on another local bus to head back to my brother’s place.

The bus was crowded. Not knowing all the stops—or exactly where to get off—I was a little stressed and kept looking out the window for the landmarks I had made a mental note of during my ride that morning.

Finally, I spotted my stop, squeezed my way to the door, and hopped off. As I started walking back, I did what I always do—patted my back pocket to make sure my wallet was there. A cold wave of dread hit me. I checked again—nothing. My stomach sank. There was no wallet, I’d been pickpocketed.

It was my first time being pickpocketed, and honestly, it felt personal. The wallet didn’t have much cash, but it had all I needed for my return trip to Bhubaneswar. Back at the house, I told my brother. He laughed and said he had forgotten to warn me about pickpockets and to be careful. Then he handed me some money, and that was the end of it.

Years later, my brother and I were driving somewhere with my nephew in the back seat. My brother suddenly asked if I remembered the time I got pickpocketed in Chennai. I said yes—that I never got that job I thought I’d done well in the interview for—and that I probably still owed him the money he had given me. We both laughed.

In college, I wasn’t half as smart as my friends. All of them went places after graduating, while I was stuck in a cycle of trial and error. At the time, there was talk of several large software companies planning to set up shop in BBSR. So I dreamed of settling down there. I did the math in my head: my dad had a house in BBSR, so I’d save a lifetime of rent if I stayed. 🙂 BBSR wasn’t terribly expensive either, and I loved the place. It all seemed like it would work out—if only I could secure a job there.

But the damn companies never came to BBSR when I needed them most.

So, reluctantly, I set sail—away from home—to Delhi. Delhi, in my experience, was an inhospitable city. People were generally rough, the cost of living was high, and I never got used to speaking in Hindi. It felt like a foreign land where I would never fit in. So I began dreaming of moving even farther away.

One day, I was traveling to work on the company bus when a coworker sitting next to me asked if I planned to buy a house in Delhi. Without missing a beat, I blurted out, “Who’s going to settle here? I’m going to Irvine.” I had heard that our company headquarters was in Irvine, California. I had no idea if I’d ever get the chance to go there for work, but it became a dream nonetheless. After all, I just wanted to escape Delhi.

A lady coworker sitting nearby looked at me as if I’d said something very childish.

Three months later, my boss called me into his office and asked if I’d be open to going to Seattle for a project.

Life is strange. It doesn’t always grant you your small wishes—so you set your dreams even bigger, higher, and harder. And sometimes, you end up achieving them… even when you failed at the small ones.

I am a self-taught programmer, a self-taught watercolorist, and a self-taught many other things. But I have also failed at every one of them—countless times.

When I was teaching myself to code, I had sleepless nights because I couldn’t finish a project. I would get stuck. This was in the pre-internet days, when help was scarce and limited to thick, often cryptic manuals. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure things out.

When I was learning watercolor painting, all my attempts came out flat, dull, and lifeless. After many tries, I convinced myself painting wasn’t for me. I decided to throw away all my paints, brushes, and tools. But before tossing them, I figured I’d just finish the tubes of paint I had left. I went in with a kind of vengeance—there was nothing to lose at that point. I was giving it all up anyway.

This time, the goal wasn’t to paint well—it was simply to use up the materials and be done with it. There was no more fear of failure. I painted with no pressure, no expectations. My strokes were bold, confident, and spontaneous. And the painting came out lively, with a surprising sense of depth. Something clicked. At that moment, I learned how to paint.

It reminded me of learning to ride a bicycle. At first, you’re scared. You can’t go more than a few feet without slowing down too much and tipping over. Ironically, it’s the fear of falling that makes you fall—but you don’t realize it. Then, something shifts. The fear disappears. You stop overthinking. You keep your momentum—and suddenly, you’re riding.

The fear of failure is a wall. It’s wired into our genes, a relic from our caveman days. That fear helped our ancestors survive by running from lions. But we’re not running from lions anymore. Still, the fear remains. And it holds us back.

But when we figure out how to let go of that fear—that’s when we finally move forward. That’s when we succeed.

It was a cold winter night in Delhi. The bare concrete floor was hard and cold. I needed to catch some sleep before my job interview the next day in Gurgaon. 

During those days, I was still struggling to get a job in the IT & Software field. All my paltry savings from my low paying private construction job was spent doing my software training. I had finally secured an interview with HCL, a big software company in Delhi. They were going to reimburse my travel, but I needed a place to crash for one night in Delhi. I had asked a friend if he knew anyone I could stay with in Delhi. He said the Rajya Sabha(upper house in the Indian parliament) MP from Sambalpur was his Dad’s friend and he could have his Dad arrange it so I could stay in his MP quarter for a night. 

My Dad gave me 300 bucks when I was leaving home. I used to be very sensitive about taking money from my parents those days. I had been unemployed or under-employed for a few years by then, after graduating from college. My father had recently retired from his work. So the last thing I wanted was to still be dependent on him. I reluctantly took the money. Though I had no intention of spending it, I needed some money in case the staying arrangement didn’t work out and I had to find a hotel for a night.

When I arrived at the MP’s house in Delhi, he said there was already a person in the room meant for visitors. I could share the room with him, but there was no extra bed or bedding, I would have to sleep on the floor. I agreed without blinking an eyelid before he could change his mind. 

I put on two layers of clothing and socks. I wrapped myself up in the blanket I had brought with me for the train ride and lay down on the floor. It was still very cold. I somehow had to survive the night in the makeshift sleeping bag.

The next day I got up early. Got ready, had hot tea at a nearby stall, took a bus to Gurgaon for the interview. Unfortunately I did fairly badly in the interview, and didn’t get the job. From there I went to the railway station to catch my train back to Bhubaneswar. 

After all this, sleeping on a cold concrete floor, failing yet another job interview, I was still happy that I didn’t need to spend the money my Dad had given me and I would be able to return it to him when I got home. 

Unemployment.. it twists your mind and changes you as a person. It’s a trauma that always stays with you.

I see a STD phone booth right across the road. I cross the busy road and get to the phone booth. There are a few people waiting to make calls. I wait in line for my turn to come. 

Let me rewind the clock a bit.  

I have been trying to get a foot in in the software development field. With my background in Civil Engineering, it’s been a difficult journey. Those days IT companies preferred Electrical or Computer Science engineers. Being a Civil Engineer it has been hard to get a call for an interview let alone getting a job.

The year is 1995. After much trying, I have accepted a job at a IBM training center in New Delhi. My job is to  teach students software development on a certain platform. My salary is around 4000 INR/month. But my actual take home pay is even less. I live in a sublet. In Delhi, Govt employees rent out a room of their subsidized 2/3 room govt housing to make some extra money. That kind of a rental room is called a sublet there. You get one room, the landlord’s family lives in the rest of the house. There is one common bathroom that you share with the family. You have little privacy. Rain or shine you always go out to eat as you don’t have a kitchen to cook in. I hate this living arrangement, but with my salary that’s what I can afford in an expensive place like Delhi.

I get word that a software company is looking for programmers. Those days private agents used to work with companies to fill vacancies. The agents would run ads in newspapers, gather applications, shortlist them and send them to the hiring companies for job interviews. If someone they send gets hired the agent gets paid. If no one gets hired, the agent gets nothing. So it’s in their best interest that they send the right candidates for interviews.

I call the agent who is dealing with this company. I am desperate to get a software job. I tell the agent, if he can arrange an interview for me, I guarantee that I will get hired. I teach students who later go on to become software developers. In an interview, there is nothing that I can get asked that I won’t be able to answer. The agent laughs at my overconfidence but says he will get me an interview and he does.

I go to NOIDA for my job interview. The hiring manager is out of town. So I get interviewed by a senior programmer who reports to the hiring manager. After a few days I get a call from the agent that the hiring manager wants to do a 2nd round of interview. I go to their office again. I am told that the manager is in Hyderabad and he will call soon to do the interview over phone. At that time their brand new office is still being set up. I am given a chair right next to the receptionist in the lobby and asked to wait for his call. I have my interview in the lobby, out in the open, while everyone is walking by, asking questions to the receptionist. The interview lasts for about 30 minutes. Then someone tells me to go into a room and wait.

A gentleman with a paper in hand enters the room and asks me what my current salary is. I say 4000/month. The paper he is holding is my offer letter but I don’t know that yet. He says if they offer me 10,000, will I join. I am overjoyed. Not only am I getting into software development, I am also getting a big raise. I think for a moment. Gathering all the courage, I say I want 12,000/mo. He shows me the offer letter and says this one has a 10,000 offer.. Let me print you a new one, don’t leave without taking your offer letter.

After a while I step out of the office with an offer letter in my hand. I need to call my Dad to tell him that my struggling days are behind me now. This call has been long overdue. I imagine my Dad waiting by the phone to get this call. There are a few people still in line in front of me. It feels like I have been standing in this line and waiting for my turn to come for years when others have been passing me by. I can’t wait any more. Every minute I stand there waiting feels like ages.

Beginning of the month, after my dad received his salary, he would diligently sit down with a pen and paper and do the budget for the month. Every anticipated expense would be jotted down and totalled. One of the items in that budget would be our monthly grocery. Though the grocery budget wouldn’t be itemized, we (my brother and I) knew it included a very important item that we both cared about that would make our lives a little easier. It was a tube of toothpaste.

Back then, toothpaste used to come in aluminum tubes. These tubes would invariably run out toward the last week of the month. But we knew we couldn’t just go buy a new tootpaste from the corner store. We will have to wait until our dad got his next month’s salary and a new budget was written down.

So, the two of us would have our work cut out every morning. When the tube wouldn’t yield any more toothpaste after relentless and vigorous squeezing, the tools would have to come out of the toolbox. The first choice of tool would be a rolling pin—the one used to make rotis. The tube would be rolled flat on the cement floor to extract whatever toothpaste was left. That exercise would usually get us through a day or two. But the damn month wouldn’t be over yet.

After the rolling pin stopped yielding results, the next tool of the trade would be a pair of pliers. We knew the circular head/mouth of the toothpaste tube—an area the rolling pin couldn’t reach—still held some of our elusive paste. The pliers would now be employed to gently cajole the remaining toothpaste from that area. That would stretch us another day or two.

When even the pliers would stop helping, the final tool to come out of the toolbox would be a pair of scissors. The tube would now be cut open to surgically extract the last vestiges of toothpaste clinging to the inside walls.

By that time, the month would finally be over, and we would get a new tube of toothpaste—allowing our morning routine to go smoothly for a few weeks 🙂

My friend had paid me a visit. We had a good time catching up. It’s been a few years. We hadn’t met after college. He is working at a top private sector company, I am still looking for a job. As he was leaving he needed to tie his shoes. He had taken them off on our veranda as per common Indian tradition, people leave their shoes outside before entering the house. As he was having difficulty bending down and putting the shoes on, I told him to bring them inside and sit on the sofa so it would be easier for him to tie the laces. He did.

It should have been a fairly innocuous event, watching someone sitting down tying his shoe laces. But it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t help but notice his relatively brand new pair of shoes. They were Reeboks, they looked nice, they looked expensive. 

I looked at my only pair of shoes tucked away in the shoe stand in the corner of the room. They have faded considerably. I had bought them from a seller on the footpaths of Calcutta a few years ago when I was still in college. They were faux leather. They looked kind of cheap when I had bought them. Now they look even worse after a few years of wear and tear. I use them only during job interviews. That’s my only pair of shoes that can pass as dress shoes. Before an interview I try to get some shine on them by putting some shoe polish on them. 

My friend tied his shoe laces and left. I looked at my old pair of shoes and hoped they don’t come apart before I get a job.