Absolute Toil

In Thiruvanmiyur, I lived with 5 of my college mates every one of who worked for a different company. I was the only one with Wipro. When one of my best friends in Kochi - Vin moved to Chennai, I decided to move with him to Velachery to live with 5 of his friends from college. Velachery was farther than Thiruvanmiyur which proved to be too much of a commute with all 3 places (Home, Work, and the Cricket Club) being one corner of a triangle and so I wanted to move somwhere closer to work and the club. Eventually we moved to Narayanapuram to live with one of his friends - Kan where I got a room for myself. I paid ₹1500/month as rent which was cheap.

During those days, I was working hard, playing cricket, suffering injuries, smoking heavily, having ₹50 set dosas in the street shops for breakfast and ₹200 McDonald's dinners after cricket practice many a times skipping meals and sleep or both. Amidst all that, I got addicted to work, often spending late nights at the office which many a times was after the Cricket coaching sessions. On one such occasion, I fainted in the office cafeteria at 1am in the morning while having the first meal of the previous day. I remember telling the lady sitting next to me that I’m going to fall, and to get help. I got treated by the doctor in the campus on duty. It was not a great lifestyle. My body during those years was at peak performance. And so I used the Bangalore trips to rejuvenate myself. By 2015, I was paying rent and toiling in Chennai but living in luxury in Bangalore nursing my injuries.

My career kept gaining momentum. From a PHP developer, I got great trainings and work experience from Wipro and Apple to become a Frontend Engineer. This was when Nodejs started becoming popular. I was awarded the Apple Prodigy Award. They wanted me to go to California but I didn't get through the H1B lottery for 2 years back to back. But for all I knew, my skills were very much in demand and finally after many years, my career was on the right track.

It was also in these years I lost someone close to cancer. I remember the nights I spent in the hospital because someone had to be there.