I am from Madurai. I belong to the family that’s responsible for lifting the preceding deity during Chittirai Thiruvizha. We are called the “Seerpathanthangi” Seerpatham means God’s feet, thangi meaning the holder.
My father’s government job brought us to Chennai. My school was famous for state ranks, and in short, my childhood was spent chasing grades. We weren’t allowed to talk to girls. If we talk, the school board would take disciplinary actions and suspend us. It was during my engineering that I came over my inhibition of talking to girls. It helped me widen my understanding of the world. But the rank-chaser in me was still there, and I secured a top rank in Anna University.
Post engineering, I became a trainer, which was my additional responsibility as an Application Engineer. I trained college students and faculty to be industry ready! A few years later, I quit that job to pursue my MBA, and I got into IIM Trichy. Most students find surviving in IIMs tough, but my school had trained me for this ordeal! I made great friends, and I found an excellent job. My work involves a lot of travel outside India. As someone raised with the Seerpathanthangi clan traditions, I always walk around with Vibhuthi and Senthuram on my forehead. And every time I met a new person outside India, I was asked about my “wife” because they thought Senthuram was a sign of marriage.Travel and backpacking gave me an excellent opportunity to meet new people and widened my horizons. One such person I met was on a train while traveling from Salzburg to Innsbruck. I was on a 5-day backpacking trip where I had walked over 90 km before hopping onto this train on the fifth day.
I got chatty with a German girl to whom I narrated my journey before falling asleep. She stayed up all night while I slept, prepared the perfect travel plan and, woke me up a few minutes before the train pulled into my station. She ran me through the itinerary and wished me luck. Funny thing, I don’t even know her name!
Such scenarios prove how people are stil kind and generous and that humanity still exists!
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