The Persistence

Once my manager decided to hold a motivational training for the team. The fact that many of the people working in various industries are actually not motivated enough towards for the work they do, made him to take the training. He is a reader and probably the best person in our team to take these trainings. He's not really a preacher as good yet, but has the desire that other people should also understand what he reads, and that's really good. So he decided to take the trainings. We are a large team so went to the first floor conference room where all of us could sit together after pulling in few extra chairs. He had arranged an audio presentation where some English guy talked about achieving success.
All he kept on telling was how to succeed. What to do and what not to do to succeed. He gave lot of fascinating real examples of successful people. He told what they were and what they became. The speech was impressive, true and practical.
But something was missing. There was something missing dangerously from his preach.

At the end of the session, my manager told all of us that those who want to hear to this again might ask him to get the files copied to his PC. He also advised everyone to think about what the audio guy preached and try to relate it our own lives. He was right, that is how it should be taken. But something was missing, which I was trying to figure out.

The audio guy gave examples of mostly small people who went on become big guys... As big as president of a powerful country, United States, Abraham Lincoln.
But I was not finding these examples right enough to be able to relate to my own life. I wanted an example of a common man. A man who was a common man before he was successful and who remained a common man when he achieved success. Because I felt that the most common breed of people in this world is the common man itself. So does that mean only un-common man are successful and everyone else is a looser? No, it can't be!

So I started the search for this answer. I started looking at the people around me and came across this story: (Expand\Collapse...)

This is a long and true story which spanned over too many years. But I will try to keep it short as much as possible.
This is the story of a man who has faced enough hardships in his life. But he kept on going... he never gave up... he never stopped. He was from a family which was not rich really. Not rich enough to even have their daily meals properly. He and his family used a have fast once every week to save the grains. They didn't have enough money that they could be served food every day of week. For other five days, having only rice\chappati and dal was the normal meal. Vegetables were not cooked everyday.
He had just passed his intermediate when his dad once called him and said that he doesn't have the capacity to afford his higher studies. That basically meant that this man had to remain under graduate and engage in whatever job he finds for the rest of his life and earn his living. The man was matured enough to understand the situation and did not protest. He was determined to pursue his higher studies so decided to take tuitions of children to earn some bucks. He was a good student and with solely the tuition fees he earned, he completed his graduation. Now it had become difficult for him too to manage his life with the tuition fees so was forced to take up a job which gets him some more money. He started his professional life as an assistant in the chemical laboratory of a private firm. He was sincere at job. In the meantime he got married. He knew well that he is hardly able to meet his own needs so how would he be able to meet his family needs... but it's an old story and during those times marriage was given priority over most of the other things. He hadn't seen the lady of his life before marriage. He saw her for the first time only after it. He was definitely not sure how this would turn out to be. His life was already very hard, and he needed a perfect partner to support him.
He was lucky, he got exactly that. The lady he married to was from a very prosperous family. They were rich and spent most of her life in a big city compared to small town of this man. The lady had no idea what kind of family she is going into. She was initially depressed to realize where she has landed to. But she too was matured and supported the man fully. She also sacrificed things the way man had been doing till now. She happily gave away whatever things she had got from her parents' home for his husband's sisters' marriage. So much, that today she doesn't have a single thing which she could keep as a memory of her marriage gift. Not even a single one, except for some really minor things. But at the same time she never gave away the things she had brought for her husband. They are very much in place even today.
Man had started his job now, but only had two pairs of shirts and pants which he wore at every occasion. But he always wanted her wife to have as much sarees that she would need not to wear a saree more than once in a week.
Life went on and on. There were no signs of improvement. And there was a day when this man's elder brother suddenly died of a heart attack. There were three earning members in the family but all of them earned only a small amount and families during those days used to be big enough. One of the earnings members had just passed away. Apart from the sorrow and grief, it brought a whole new lot of problems to this guy. The sorrow had engulfed his father badly who could not bear the shock and always remained in deep trauma. He always regretted seeing his son dieing before his eyes. He was old aged and couldn't bear this for long. A year passed, and he too passed away.
This was like sky had fallen to this man's head. He did not know what to do and where to go. Now he was the only earning member in the family and had to take care of all the things with the petty amount of money he used to earn. On top of that, he was definitely in a state of shock by the two deaths occurring within a year. He used to roam the streets all alone without realizing where he was heading for. He sometimes became mentally too absent but was lucky to have avoided many mishaps... let me not discuss that here....
He knew well that life could not continue this way and definitely needed more from his life.
One fine day, he saw an ad in his company wherein company had published a scheme. The company planned to organize some tests and interviews for its own employees who were serving the company in junior positions and did not have the core technical competency. People who passed the tests would be given sponsorship for the technical course along with some monthly stipend. Once finished successfully, they would be inducted into the company as full time permanent employees. Obviously, it was not a government company so it had its own criteria at every stage. But, this man saw this opportunity as the turning point of his life and went ahead to take the challenge.
He succeeded. He succeeded for the first time in his life. He was sent to another town for his post graduate studies while his wife had to move to village for that period. His wife being a city girl went on stay in a village for good two years without any complaints. She was definitely not very happy and comfortable there, but she knew it was for good.
The guy after finishing his studies came back to the town and was now earning much more than he did earlier. His wife too now stayed with him. Times had started to change; now he could afford more than two pairs of clothes for going to office. Now he could afford to send some more money to his mother. His younger brother too had grown up and this man had managed to get him admitted to a college for graduation.
Few years passed and things had started to change.
But life's not that easy. One day this man came to know that the company he worked for was closing down. It was an old British age company which was now running into huge losses and decided to shut down. However, before things could get anymore worse, this man managed to find another job. This time, he had two job offers in hand. He decided to go with the one where he felt that his job would be more secure and moved to a new town along with his family. In his new company he was on a much better pay scale and a much better positions. He still used to run a bit short of money every time, though. There was no scope for any savings in his life. But things were changing and he was quite sure of what he wanted to do. He was sent for some training to European countries for a period of two months. It was one whole batch who had qualified to get this training. It was early 80's when people in India did not even imagine of having a television at home, let alone foreign travel.
Some more time passed, and he was more prosperous than ever. He started to live a much happy family and social life.

The story doesn't end there.

The man always wanted that his own children should never ever go through such phases of life. He had faced enough hardships in his life and like a sincere father never wanted his children to see such days. He ensured that in whatever way possible his children get the best he could give them. And he was quite successful in that.
He always dedicated the best of himself to his family, friends and relatives. He got his sisters married, got his brother married and settle down in life. He had too may responsibilities on his shoulders at a very young age and he performed all his duties well.
And while he was doing all this, he continued to grow through his own career path. The man had to face lots of troubles there as well, but they seem to be pretty small compared to his past.

Decades passed and this man had now risen to a senior position. He was known among his seniors for the job he had done all through these years. He had to face some hardships towards the end of his career, but that was purely a corporate politics. There was little hew could do about it. He once thought of retiring early as he was now somewhat aged and wasn't able to bear all this. But he didn't do as his younger son had just entered into his first job, and he did not want to lay any family responsibility onto his shoulders, as he had his own bitter experiences during his time so decided to stay back till retirement which was two years away. His wife during this period fully supported him in all possible manners. The man had faced a lot in his past so he managed to pass through this phase too. But there were few things which had hurt him badly, after serving a company for over two decades, no one wants to see such results. But there were some good results of it too, if seen from a different perspective. Well, am not gonna talk about that here... let's leave that out.
Few months before his retirement, his company got a new director. The director was not new to the company and knew very well what all had happened with this man. He once told him personally, that he understands that whatever happened was not right. But this is life, and it happens. The man didn't say much. It was enough for him to know that there's someone out there who knows that he was right and that was enough. After the new director arrived, his life had been peaceful. And he was only a few months away from retirement.

When we talk of successful people, we would find much better examples if we look at the people around us. People who are closely related to you are more likely to influence you. Sometimes, you know the people, you know the story but just that you've never tried to get the bits and pieces together. When you do it, you'll find an amazing real life example that will force you to think about yourselves. Take this story, I hardly feel that I ever had any of such difficulties in my life. Whatever i wanted was right there with the least trouble. There were no shortage of resources or support from family. Everything was quite ideal for me. And in such a case, I am supposed to meet up to my family's expectations. Because if I don't, then I am a junk.

Well...,
This man in the end of his professional career gracefully retired as a Deputy General Manager of a profit making Public Sector Company. This man is my father. This is the story of my dad and my mom. And it makes me cry today...