A very special teacher

Growing up, I watched my father go through the stormiest financial phases in his business. It was a time of uncertainty, sleepless nights and unbelievable pressure. It seemed so hard to get through at the time. Reflecting back now, it looks like the most priceless lesson in resilience I could have been given.

I remember that while I was doing my undergraduate studies, the price of one commodity my father had stocked, dhaniya (coriander), went down in a single month by almost 80%. In the next quarter, as I came back home from Russia, I could hear conversations about my mother wanting to sell our bungalow so that my father could pay off the debts and sleep peacefully. He would always reassure her. What I was always inspired by was the quiet confidence he had in himself and his ability to bounce back.

And he bounced back. He paid off his entire debt in the next three years. And then he was so exuberant that he actually wanted to buy land for a new factory.

Every time I face a setback, I look back at the times he would simply bide his time, with an almost superhuman confidence in his own ability to bounce back.

I think that is one of the main reasons why, even in the darkest times, the idea of the relative safety of a job eludes me. I have kept working on projects that have had failures, and I have persevered.

He was the greatest teacher I have had or ever will have. I miss him all the more on Teachers' Day.