This Saturday, after getting out of the party mood that we carried from Thursday night party and the after effects of the party, made my way to temple. Doctor S wanted to come to temple and my friend SY also wanted to join us, but his after effects of the party did not allow him to do so. In his best interest we suggested him to take rest for one more day. Dr.S and me left to temple which is roughly 20 miles from our place of residence. We live on the SE of 215 and the temple is diagonally opposite towards NW of 215. Anyways, traffic is not at all a problem, as the city goes to sleep after sunrise. A drive of about 30 mins left us at the temple.
On my last 3 or 4 visits to the temple this is the first time that I saw a crowd of approximately 50 people at the temple. First tried to recollect if there is anything special, but Dr.S informs me that on every first Saturday of the month, the Abhishekam Pooja of Lord Venkateshwara is performed. Owing to our good luck, we just landed in the temple at the beginning of the Abhishekam Pooja. This is the first time, that I witnessed the Abhishekam of Lord Venkateshwara, and am really happy about it. The pooja took about 1.30 Hours and unlike the temples in India, the good thing that I like about the temples in US is, the devotees get a chance to offer harathi to Bhagvan. This is the second temple where I got to do so, the former being the Hindu temple of Denver which I used to visit every Thursday on my second visit. At the time of Harathi today the temple bell was rung by an elderly person. Realising that it was tiring for him, Dr.S offered support to him by ringing the bell for sometime. We all completed the harathi and took the prasadam.
When I thought it was time to get back home as it was already 1.30 Hrs in the temple, then the same elderly person who rang the bell walks up to us and introduces himself as Mr.S, who is a regular visitor to the temple and is also one of the members of the temple committee. Here comes the advantage of being in the company of Doctors. When Dr.S introduced himself as a doctor who is a practising Orthopeditian in India and is on a research program here, Mr.S was impressed and started talking about his son who is also pursuing his medicine in US. His daughter is pursuing her under graduation in Entrepreneurship at some institute in Boston. I got to introduce myself as an IT Consultant currently on the project for one of the popular shoe stores online which recently got sold to the largest online store for books etc. Mr.S immediately identified the company because of the recent developments of the company and tried to identify some official of HR at my current client location. I politely answered that I was new to the client and don't know the HR official.
Mr.S then took us to the prasadam (this time mid day lunch), he decided to have lunch with us. In the process I was personally happy to have a proper Indian lunch with puri and sambar in addition to other Indian delicacies. Mr.S joined us at the lunch table and introduced us to another Doctor who happens to be a regular visitor to the temple. Then we started discussing all the things about how lucky we were to be here in America compared to the many who are willing to be in this nation. As we were all God fearing gentleman in the temple, we all attributed our journeys to the blessings of 'The Lord'.
As most elderly start telling about themselves and the path they travelled, Mr.S was no exception. Mr.S who is originally from Mangalore in Karnataka, told us that he first got the exposure of America by watching the picture of Sunrise in the state of Arizona on one of the magazines of his day back in the 60's called "The Span" (I don't know if I correctly remember the name). It seems his uncle used to get that English magazine in 60's and he was impressed by the picture of the sunrise in the magazine and he remembered the name of the state as "Horizon" instead of "Arizona". He then decided to visit America. It seems he started asking everyone about the ways of getting to America but everyone who visited US used to give him lectures about why he wanted to be there etc..(as it is common in our society). But he was determined to be in the States.
He told that he was not great at his academics, and could not clear his SSLC ( current day SSC, i.e. 10th board exams in India). He moved to Bombay (current day Mumbai) in search of job, he got some job worked for sometime in a company based in US. Then he moved to Saudi Arabia for the same company and worked for a good number of years. Once when he was working in Saudi Arabia, his company offered him a training in the states, which gave him the opportunity to visit US for the first time. Seems after his training program of 15 days, he was given the option to travel around US for a month. On this travel he visited Disney Land in LA and was very impressed by the country and its achievements. The his desire to move to US has increased.
Until his children were of the age to start going to school, he was in Saudi Arabia. After that the company that he was working for offered him the opportunity to move to US which he accepted. As you know that the work i.e. jobs in US are volatile (i.e. you can be hired and fired anytime), he lost his job within 3 months of his arrival here. He found another job and for a period of 3 years it seems he never had a permanent job. He mentioned that the economic crisis in late 80's was far more worse than the economic crisis we are facing today. Landing in different jobs he finally, ended up in Las Vegas, the Sin City. It seems till date he has worked on 27 different jobs, and all different. I just thought I am not even 27 as of today..,hmm.
In LV, he was working in one of the departments in the volcanic casino and his boss moved to another rich casino. X and Y happen to be one of the rich casinos in LV. The party that we had on Thursday night was in Encore under the same management of X. Coming back to the topic, his boss who was a lady called up Mr.Sand asked him if he would work for her in X. His answer was and I quote "For a proper price, I will work for anyone". She offered him a 30% hike and he moved to X. When he was working at X, she asked him to attend a conference on IT developments and implementation at X, which she wasn't much interested. Mr.S attended the conference and there he met some senior officer at X. The Senior Officer offered him another position and his answer was the same "For a proper price, I will work for anyone". This senior officer talks to the lady who brought him to X and gets him to a new position with another 30% hike. When at work one day, in the corridor he met with one of the senior most officers at the X and wishes him. On seeing him and knowing his background this senior officer offers him the position of the senior official (something like that) and as you know by now, "For a proper price..". Thus Mr.S landed up being the senior officer of one of the departments at X. Mr.S attributed everything he has and his development to the blessings he has from "The Lord Venkateshwara", as all these chain of events started after his visit to the Lord of Seven Hills at Tirumala, Tirupathi. Interestingly enough, he is the third person I got to know of this situation, the second person being Mr.RS (the tamilian who is a Canadian citizen) currently working at my previous client the cheese producers. Do you want to know who the first is? Take a guess.
As part of the discussion Mr.S told that qualifications was little to do with whatever you want to be. As I want to discuss and don't like accepting as it is (other than subject matters), I questioned him saying, back in those days there was no competition and no qualified people. Hence he could make it. His answer or rather the statistic was interesting, it seems the sociologists say that out of the 22 years of formal education that we receive it is only 7% of that education that we put to use in our daily life. Out of that 7%, 93% of what we use the education that we have received in our primary or lower school. The rest of the 15 years of education that we receive attributes to only 7%. Then he counter questioned me by asking "How much of the education that you received in your under graduate course are you using in the current job?". Obviously I was stumped, I did my engineering in Electronics and Communications but I am working on SAP Consulting which has got nothing to do with what I studied. Even in my interview I was asked the question of the difference between series and parallel connections, which even a 6Th grade student can answer. His statistic made sense. I hope most of you (us) would agree with his statistic.
But how much of luck can take you to where he is today? Then as part of further argument he agreed that he had worked harder to be successful in his different jobs. As all the jobs that he did were different, he didn't even had the advantage of claiming the experience. He said he had to work extra hard to learn and perform, unlike his colleagues or team members who were more qualified or trained or experienced. There were days which he didn't even go home because of our work. There lies the answer. I believe and read the quote many places by many personalities that "There is no substitute to hard work and dedication." Fortune favours the brave!
Once we were done with our lunch and discussions, we were invited to Mr.S's place for a proper Udupi style breakfast on some weekend. He was actually, interested in taking us to his place this afternoon, but we had to go home to know the status of our friend SY. We thanked him for the invitation and came home with the blessings of The Lord, prasdam for my friend and the experience of meeting an interesting personality.
My Dad, always tells me to visit temples and mingle with the Indian community here. I am sure, he will be very happy to know this experience. But you know the type of communication that I have with my father, I don't know if I would be able to express everything to him. At least I am happy that I did something, he wants me to do.
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