It was a rainy evening and I was enjoying a cup of coffee with hot samosas. A soothing Rabindra sangeet truly made my evening. I truly believe in celebrating myself. While I was enjoying my coffee, suddenly the bell rang. After switching off the music, I moved towards the door. “Who’s there?” A male voice: “Open Sukanya, Dharmik here.” Me: “Ohh great! What a pleasant surprise! No prior notice and you visit my place, suddenly.” Dharmik: “Yeah, to give a surprise.” Me: “Great! Let’s enjoy coffee and samosas.” On hearing the evening snacks menu, Dharmik was super excited and started doing his favourite salsa steps. As he was engaged with his salsa, I went to the kitchen to fry more samosas and to make another cup of coffee. Samosas were served with green chutney to Dharmik. I served the hot samosas in his favourite plate; he grabbed them and took a bite with green chutney without wasting a second. His indulging expression can't be expressed in words. From here, our never-ending food chat started. We knew each other but he never visited me without prior notice. This was making me puzzled and to get the answer, I finally asked, “Is everything okay with you?” Dharmik: “Yeah, but today I feel low.” Me: “(My eyes popped out) seriously Dharmik, I never saw you in a low mood!” Dharmik: “Yeah, I am also human, I have emotions too” Me: “Why? What Happened? Please, open your heart.” Before starting the conversation, we picked samosas to start the discussion with some hot relishes. Dharmik: “Sometimes I wonder, what is the purpose of life? I have a wonderful career graph, worked with all big brands and now, I joined the topmost educational institute ‘Global Educational Institute/GEI’ institute to explore the academic world, learn lots of frameworks. I am, now, aware of what I will do after this.” Me: “Dharmik, no worry. Everyone has their own successful graph, in terms of professional and personal life. But one thing you know Dharmik! I have gone through a successful failure, in every aspect of my life, either professional or personal.” I added more details to elicit the discussion, “In my entire family generation, I was the only girl whose marriage sustained for only three months. My marriage was not fruitful. But after this incident, I realized the importance of me and my existence. Marriage is not the only relation. Other than human relations, I have a relation with Mother Nature and animals too. Similarly, my professional life is not too great. In my school days, I was an average student, so not attained great scores or neither my surname includes the name of Ambani and Birla. So, I had to continue my studies at an average college. Though my course structure didn’t meet with the great education system, I learned the most important skills i.e Basic human skills (where I learned to give respect and learned a positive attitude towards life). The second incident took place when I was preparing for government jobs. That too was a big failure for me as I attempted many exams but, fortunately, or unfortunately, didn’t get selected in any of the govt jobs, even in the Railway peon entrance exam. But today, I understood, God has some bigger plans for me. If I was selected in any govt jobs my life would be stagnant. There would be no scope to learn or explore new things from my environment. Additionally, I would not be able to understand the ground reality and problems of my small area. In those periods, I was in Jhunjhunu, where I learned the basic aptitude skills, which further helped me to open a small coaching institute, especially for women. These provided a good platform, where women can get a safe and peaceful environment to study. Vedanta coaching institute: A platform guide & mentor for Commerce/Business students. Apart from running my own institute, I also taught students of Business. Administration at the prestigious Goenka Degree College.” Took a deep breath and added,“Again something happened. ‘Vedanta’ failed as a startup. The competition was tough. There were several other coaching institutions in the locality, all catering to the same market. What was really my competitive advantage and how would I market that? Failure of my startup and introspection into the cause of failure, made me realize that I did not have enough knowledge in marketing strategy and promotion skills where I can deliver my service to the target segment. In my desperation to find the answers, I joined the Global Institute of Management, Udaipur as a Research Associate to delve deeper into the Marketing Area and found out the unique ways to solve the marketing problems. GIM, Udaipur was a whole new world, where I have developed an aptitude for problem-solving through research and analysis. I worked on data construction using both primary and secondary data. Meanwhile, the theoretical and empirical challenges, I faced while working, gave me an opportunity to learn new concepts and research methodologies. In the process of working on various research papers, I underwent an extensive reading of marketing journals like ‘Journal of Marketing’, ‘Journal of Consumer Research’, ‘Journal of consumer psychology’, ‘Journal of Marketing research’, for gaining knowledge in statistical software such as SPSS, MEXL, and R and working on marketing databases such as Sales data. Here, I fixed my mind to go for higher studies and enroll in the doctoral program from any IIMs/IITs. Preparing for doctoral programs was a new journey for me…To enroll in any full-time Ph.D. program; I had to polish my marketing concepts. So, I landed in the class of MBA and learn more about the research tools… Though it was not the end, I have to give the GRE exam and in addition, I must gather a Letter of recommendation from professors. Till today, I don’t find any correlation GRE with doctoral programs. In my entire doctoral entrance journey, I published a paper, attended conferences, reviewed papers in some good journals and also cleared my GRE exam. Though I did not get enrolled in any Ph.D. programs, in the name of Ph.D., I learned many things.” Dharmik (Surprised): “OMG!!!” Me: “(replied with the smile) you know Dharmik I am blessed … My almighty brought me on the right track for my life... I got to know the most relevant answers to life in the entire admission journey for my doctoral programs; the existence of my life is to serve good works for nature. I started a dog shelter; though I would not earn good money or I will lead a fanciful life neither people will know me regarding my research work. But I am contented with my work. When I see the wagging tails of my dogs, it gives me an inner satisfaction.” Me: “So, I embraced my failure …My failure has given me a U-turn in my life. I’m cherishing every moment of life by keeping the good works ahead. If something good happens, it’s good. If it gets failed, keep working hard. It will never fade and will definitely shine at some specific time.” Dharmik: “True… from today onwards, I’ll embrace and celebrate every failure.” Me: “Listen Dharmik, it is dinner time, please join for dinner.” Dharmik: “Cool, but please prepare simple food i.e dal and rice.” I went to the kitchen and started preparing Dharmik’s favourite dish Dal and rice, and suddenly my phone rang, it was ‘Sanya’… Me: “Hey Sanya, How are you and where are you?” Sanya: “On my way to Mohali, feeling hungry” Me: “Great, Dharmik is here in my room and would you like to join us for dinner.” Sanya: “Sounds cool.” While disconnecting the call, I moved to Dharmik and said, “Sanya is on her way to Mohali and will join us soon for dinner.” Suddenly the doorbell rang... Sanya was there… Wow, it was a beautiful evening with three of us. Though we had simple food “rice and dal”, we celebrated the togetherness. I am blessed to have such wonderful friends in my life. Sanya and Dharmik. Love you!
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