“We lived in a small village near Mawana, Uttar Pradesh. I lost my mother when I was 2½ years old. My father was a tubewell operator and we’re 6 siblings – 4 brothers and 2 sisters. My eldest sister discontinued her studies after 5th grade and took all the responsibilities of the household on her shoulders.
After the demise of my mother, my father shifted toa house near to my maternal grandmother’s home along with us. Dad always wished to provide us with quality education. I can never forget his sacrifices to give us the best life possible. My nanaji owned a book store back then. I’ve been an avid story book reader since the beginning. I used to go to his shop and read books for continuous long hours. My uncle inspired me a lot. I studied in a government school. He taught me different books and I even studied my school textbooks with him. I have always been one of the top students in my class.
Earlier, we used to have board exams in 5th grade. There was an Aryasamaj school in our town and every year a student from the same school bagged first position. But this time, I topped the district. The principal of Aryasamaj school was surprised. He said that my school has helped me in cheating and that’s why I have come first. He called me and took tests from different subjects and was convinced. He asked me to join his school for three to four months and that they would train me for the national merit scholarship exam.
The exam had different stages- district level, state level and All India level. It was a long process. I cleared the district level exam and bagged third position. I was selected in the state level too. I also cleared the All-India level and bagged 9th position which helped me in taking admission in a reputed boarding school under which all the expenses were taken up by the government.
The school in Banaras, known as Krishnamurthy’s foundation for India now, was English medium so I had to redo 5th standard. Life was very disciplined there. We had to wake up at 5:00 a.m. sharp and sleep at 9:00 p.m. I completed my 10th grade from there and came back to Mawana and took admission in Government Inter College, Meerut. I used to travel daily between Mawana and Meerut. It was very exhausting and I thought my time is being wasted. I talked to my father and took admission in a college in Mawana itself. In 12th grade, I got 10th position in the State Board.
I applied for engineering in IIT and in University of Roorkee and got selected in both. I opted for Engineering in electrical systems and also got scholarship because of good marks in 12th grade. After my graduation, I got selected in different companies like Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board and even in Engineering Services Examinations for railways. But I ended up joining BHEL, Bhopal because I wanted to do something technical. I worked there for ten long years. From an engineer, I was promoted to Deputy Manager within a span of ten years. I created logic designs for the control of India’s first microprocessor based Hydropower plant.
In 1982, I got married and after marriage, did MBA from Bhopal University. My life started taking a different shape after marriage. My wife motivated me to take risks in life and I resigned from BHEL after ten years. One of my friends wanted me to join a factory in Meerut as a Chief Engineer. The factory used to manufacture transformers. I spent seven years in that job and was not satisfied with myself. Also I knew I had more potential and caliber and I could do much more in this field. I applied in a company through ABC consultants. They called me to Bombay and I joined as a General Manager in EMCO. Ltd. I was posted in Jalgaon. I also established another plant for them and the company’s revenue increased from 3cr. to 270cr. After 7 years, I was transferred to Thane as the President and was in charge for total transformer business (3 plants).
I left EMCO. Ltd. because I got the opportunity to join Raychem RPG (P) Ltd.. The company had just started manufacturing transformers and they wanted a person who had experience in this field. Mr. Harsh Goenka, Chairman of MD RPG Group, called me to his office. He was so gentle that he came to receive me and also dropped me till the exit gate. His genuineness made me join his company. I worked as Senior Vice President. I retired from the same company after few years.
After retirement, I got an opportunity to work on the same package in another company. I had worked there for three months, but I thought to do something on my own. Some significant achievements of my life like are : we developed India’s first remote-controlled and black start power plant; we also developed solar transformers, multi-winding transformers, perfect harmony transformers for control of high power motors. We supplied them to Hitachi and other big companies.
In 2011, I established a paint industry in Bhopal. We shifted to Bhopal in 2017 for looking after the industry and managing the same. This industry is for a social cause. We wanted to increase employment opportunities for the people there. We want to grow this industry not to earn great amount of profits, but to give employment to the people.
I would like to tell the youngsters that there is no age of learning. Keep learning and live with your dreams. Never bound yourself to something. instead open up and spread your wings of knowledge. Another most important thing is pursuing your passion. If you’ve a dream, keep the passion lit up to achieve it. Never give up, just keep trying, exploring and learning from failures. Hard times may may come and go but hard work never goes in vain, and sumps up to big results.”
*The views expressed in the above article are of the writer and not Winged Club.