03:02 Read Free

kids who joined the NCC with me did so because it would look cool on their résumé, but for me it served a very clear purpose. It was my stepping stone to the military. While others bitched about the discipline and marches, I embraced them. My years of being in the NCC, my family background and my athletics were all going to be factors that worked in my favour when it came to applying to the Army.
    In my second year of college, I started reading up on what it would take to crack the Combined Defence Services Exam and the fitness tests that followed. Then came the cold dose of reality and a shock my father perhaps never recovered from. My uncle, Baba’s beloved younger brother, someone who had been a friend and a mentor to me, died in action in Kashmir, killed in a terrorist ambush. Coming on top of the fact that Baba had lost his own father in action, he forbade me from joining the Army. Then came the arguments and the fights. Baba reminding me of responsibility, of the fact that we were a middle-class family and could not afford to chase fanciful dreams; of how, when he retired, I would need to ensure I could be settled. He reminded me of how hard my grandfather and uncle’s deaths in action had hit the family. Of how the family could not handle another of its sons coming back in a flag-draped coffin.
    I argued, I fought and then, ultimately, I gave in. I remember the look on my coach’s face when I told him I was going to prepare for MBA entrance exams and could no longer play on the team, and that I would not try out for the Indian Military Academy. But I also remember Baba’s face when I got offers from several of the top business schools in the country and finally joined an IIM. It was the first time I had seen him smile since my uncle died.
    I guess you can never please everyone, can you?
    The Man of the Tournament trophy and the Best Cadet shield I held in my hand still felt good after all these years, but if Dhruv thought our jobs were all just numbers on a spreadsheet, weren’t these nothing more than hunks of cheap metal? No, I didn’t regret anything I had done. Baba had made his career in the government, and when I got my first bonus, I realized I was earning more than he had after decades of working. My job had allowed us to get the best treatment for Ma when she was diagnosed with stage three cancer, and to ensure Baba was comfortable when she passed. I had hated my old man at the time, but I also realized that a government salary like his would never have covered Ma’s chemo costs and all the experimental medicines we tried in our desperate bid to save her.
    Life is full of hard choices, and I had made mine. We just have to roll with the choices we make.
    I threw the trophy and the shield back in the box.
    Today was not a day to think of old dreams but to celebrate newer ones coming true. Just a couple of years ago I myself would have considered it a pipe dream, but now I could see a clear line of sight to it.
    Vice President, head of the Mumbai office, our biggest in India, reporting directly to the CEO. The logical next step was to be groomed to be the CEO. At thirty, age was on my side, and I was in no real hurry. One of Dhruv’s earliest pieces of career advice to me had been that the patient bird got the worm.
    I went to my bedroom but didn’t feel like changing. It was a Sunday the next day anyway, and I had asked the maid to take the day off knowing that I would probably want to loll around in bed, nursing a hangover. Then a walk down to Starbucks for a coffee to get myself to join the ranks of the living, and then figure out what I would do with the rest of the day. Most Sundays saw me in office or on calls—it was officially our day off but, in our business, days off meant little since most of my projects were with Indian entrepreneur-led ventures that worked 24x7 or basically whenever the entrepreneur wanted to work or needed advice or help. But this Sunday I would celebrate and give work a