Story Of A Professional

Disclaimer

Here, I am going to share you my story, being considered myself as an IT professional. I had been thinking about sharing my story with you for a long time. Please share me your thoughts and feedback. That really matters a lot to me, you have no idea how much I love to hear from you. You can alway read this story here in my blog.

The professional cycle

Childhood

There is a place called Trichur, a district of the state Kerala in India (which is also known as “Gods own country”). That is where I born. My childhood was not that good, as we didn’t have enough money for living. My mom struggled a lot to make each day liveable. But we were happy together. In our childhood we played so many things, games which is unknown to the new generation. Thank god that I was born in 90’s. If I born now, my path would have been different, I may be looking at the so called mobiles, tabs, computer games.

In the year of 2007, I passed my HSC from GHSS. My favourite subjects were Computer Science and Chemistry, yeah there is a reason behind it. The teachers of those two subjects were amazing, we were good friends in fact. Those two years (2005 to 2007) were beautiful, the credit goes to all of my girlfriends, lots of love. You all deserve a big appreciation.

Coming back to the life. I have two elder sisters, as we were belonging to a poor class family, my parents were not able to make of us graduated. Eventually that chance came to me as I was born as a boy. Yeah, that’s true, in India we had this comparison of boy and girl at that decade. So it was me chosen as a warrior, warrior to solve all of our financial crisis and other problem, a wall, which act as a barrier to the problems.

I usually go to work in my vacation time. Here in India, we get 2 months of leave every year. So, I utilize this two months for going to work and earn a bit amount of money so that I can help my family. Most of the time the daily payment was about 100 -150 INR (That’s 2 or 3 $). The timing of the work was 8.00 am – 6.00 pm. The feeling of getting hard earned money each day, was amazing.

I bought my first favourite branded Jean with the amount I earned in my 10th class vacation. And I bought my first mobile (Nokia 111oi) with my 12th class vacation salary.

Finally I joined Engineering with my friend Ajay, he is the one who boosted me to select engineering. Trust me, I would have chosen some coolie work, where we get paid around 200 – 300 INR (Now it is 8$) daily. Thank you Ajay, you have put the first light in my career.

Engineering College

It was an average college, and there were no much facilities. I was a back bencher (second last, most of the times). I still don’t know I was not studying enough there, in every exams somehow managed only to get pass mark, not less, not more. Please be noted that this is my story, there were students who were scoring 100 out 100.

I must say that, apart from teaching, the college was fantastic, we had full freedom. The ragging rate at my college was very high, the college management was supporting that. What are all the things you will do when you get full freedom at that age? As a result, studying were postponed to just a day before the exam. I have got many friends there, we enjoyed a lot even if no one had money in hands. How many of you wish to go back to your college life, where you don’t have as money as you have now? I am sure, you still wish to go back. Again I must say thanks to all my friends to make those days wonderful. I wasn’t a dreamer on those days, I was not even having an aim, the only goal I set in mind was to get a job as soon as possible.

Finally I got my engineering degree in the year of 2011 (luckily with no arrears).

Internship at HCL CDC, step towards a job

In a wink, four years passed. Finally I was an Engineer (with no job). There were not even one campus recruitment in my college. How it sounds? After all, it doesn’t matter where your life taking you to, what matters is how you are facing it.

How you see yourself

What matters most is, how you see yourself.

Few days after I managed to get a job in a hotel as a receptionist, where the employees were forced to spend almost 15 hours a day. Even though it was not related to my degree, I continued to do that job, I hardly needed a job. The only thing I wanted was money, no matter how less it is.

Usually the wok timing was 8.00 AM to 11 PM, in between we were allowed for a tea break and lunch break. Every night I was saying to my mind that this is not something that you need, but again in the morning I wake up and go to the hotel. Few days later I decided to quit that job, I could do that job only for two months. That was the moment I got such huge amount of money in my hand (6200 RS). My two months’ salary, felt really good.

I was almost running to catch my bus to go home, as it was hectic two months without seeing my parents. I bought an umbrella for me before going home (a 3 fold one, that was the trend at that time), and I gave all the remaining money to my mom. Can you guess how would that moment be?

After few days, back to coding, in my 12th class I took Computer science, I must thanks my computer science teacher Jisha here. She is the one who taught me coding. In my Engineering classes, coding was a rare thing. I joined a Dot Net course at HCL CDC Trichur, Kerala. We were a group of 5 people from college (Me, Ajay, Ansary, Murali, Aghil), decided to join this course. And yeah, we were doing very well there, it was not same as in college life, we become matured, we were paying attention to each classes, we were doing demos. The best part is, we joined mentorship program there and could teach few students there while we were studying, my first mentoring program.

Yeah, I was continuing the internship program there in HCL CDC till my course ends (6 months). Thanks to all HCL CDC members for giving me that opportunity. I started my professional career there.

I got my first reward Certificate of excellence, my first professional award.

Moving to Chennai

Later in my career, I got a job in a small company as a software trainee. I still remember the day, how I went for the interview there, if I am right, I was ill with high fever. But I had to make a move and attend the interview, so me and my friend boarded a local train to Chennai, yeah we usually travels in local train at that time.

We passed the interview, and we joined that company, the salary was 5000 INR per month, living in Chennai with 5000 rupees was indeed a tough task. But luckily, we were able to sustain with that. After an year, I got a salary increment to 12,000 rupees per month, that was a great relief. Finally, I was starting to have some relaxed life.

Joining in C# corner

In the year of 2012, I came to know about the communities and how people are helping each other in our professional world. I joined C# corner, which was my first step towards community contribution. As you all know starting things are pretty much easy, continuing is not. There was no participation’s from my end for another two years, I got buried in my office works.

In the year of 2014, I logged in to C# corner again and started contributing to the community. There I received a warm welcome from all the C# corner family members. I really appreciate that. Many thanks to C# corner. And from 2014, I was in the monthly winners list of C# corner several times, and my articles were selected in Asp.Net as article of the day page. These things really motivated me to contribute more.

In Jan 2015, I was awarded as C# corner MVP, my first C# Corner MVP award. I was really happy that I was given a chance to be a part of C# Corner annual conference as a result. That was the place where I got to know about the Microsoft MVP program. I had set my goal towards becoming a Microsoft MVP there.

In the year 2015, I started my own blog and joined DZone, where I have been awarded as MVB (Most Valuable Blogger).

In Jan 2016, I was awarded C# Corner MVP second time. I was super excited to see my contributions were recognised. Thanks much to all of my readers. I kept contributing to communities like C# corner, Code Project, DZone, MSDN, Asp.Net, Stack Overflow, Tech Net etc.

2016, April 1st was the day which I can never forget in my life. There is a saying “Patience pays off”. It is true, I got rewarded for my patience and hard work. I would treat this as one of the great achievement in my life. Feeling proud to be a part of such a great community. I was super charged to read a mail received in my mail box, saying that I had been selected as Microsoft MVP. I was screaming like anything, for a few minutes I forgot that I was in office.

In the year of 2017, I have received my 2nd Microsoft MVP award and 3rd C# Corner MVP award.