Category: Life & Living

Everything happens for a reason…

I have always wondered if everything in life happens for a reason. I am not sure of it but increasingly tend to believe it. Let me share a few incidents in my life, which makes me believe so. One may call it providence, destiny or even coincidence. For me, it does not matter. What matters is that everything in life happens for a reason. I think it is nature’s way of balancing our life.

I could start from my childhood. I opted for science subjects in school because my parents wanted me to do so. Then I was advised to appear for engineering since that was the “in” thing to do in my childhood. I did not get admission in any engineering college. So, I was persuaded to do my graduation in science. After my graduation, I had the courage to convince my parents that I wanted to pursue my post graduation in human resources. So, in my view, my not getting admission in engineering was a blessing in disguise as otherwise, I may not have got the opportunity to study what I wanted in life.

Then I got a job in a leading automobile ancillary in Chennai, which is my hometown based on my summer internship in that company. However, within a week of joining I got an offer from a leading public sector undertaking and my father advised me to take up that offer as it was prestigious to join the public sector those days as compared to the private sector and my father had served the government service for more than three decades. This photo along with my colleagues was taken at Durg station within a few months of joining this company.

Today, if I look back it was possibly one of the best decisions in my life. It not only laid the foundation for my career but also shook me out of my comfort zone and made me brave enough to face the world. There has been no looking back since then in my career. I have lived and worked in the north, south, east, west and centre of India and this has made me an adaptive human being and so are my kids. They have moved around the country and can easily adapt to different cities, environment and other conditions of living.

My first posting was in an iron ore mine in the steel plant. It was a God forsaken place although naturally beautiful and surrounded by hills. I cursed my luck when I was posted there since I did not have a choice. It was the policy in the steel plant that all management trainees had to have the first posting in one of the three captive mines of the steel plant. I was lucky that I got posted to the largest of the three mines.

If I look back again, it was possibly the best way to start my career in human resources. We had multiple unions and were threatened by gheraos and strikes every other month. This helped me ground myself and learn the true value of fairness in work. It hardened me as a professional and today I can confidently say that I am game to face any tough situation because of my learning in those first three years of my career.

When I started my career with the steel plant I thought I would retire from there and settle down in my home town after my retirement. However, life took me to multiple cities and different states as I have changed jobs four times since then. Each change has been a new beginning and an opportunity to work in different environments and learn. I have had my own quota of ups and downs in my life and career but life has taught me with each incident.

Today when I look back at my career, I am grateful for all that happened in my life. I am thankful to all the managers, colleagues and team members, who had moulded me to what I am today. After all these experiences, I have started believing that everything in life does happen for a reason. It is up to us to make the best of the experience life offers to you. It is up to us to view the glass as half full or half empty.

As a born optimist, I have always seen life’s glass as half full. Hence, every incident has been a great learning experience. What is your experience ?

S Ramesh Shankar

A day in my life at Mumbai


My weekend begins like any other day at around 6 am with a cup of fresh brewed coffee. We pray to God and listen to devotional songs and infuse our home with the fragrance of incense sticks.

We then proceed for our daily walk in the park.  We are lucky to just cross our road and there is this beautiful green park along the Arabian Sea.  We go around the garden for about four rounds and use this opportunity to chat about all our family members and their well being.  We are greeted by the melodies of the birds and the soothing music of the sea waves. We also have interesting exchanges of men and women we meet in the park and have given them nick names to identify them.

On alternate weeks, we go for an Ayurvedic massage to tone up our body muscles and detoxify ourselves after a long working week behind us.  We go together for this too and have been doing so for more than a decade now.

We then return home and do our routine yoga for about half an hour.  This is followed by a simple vegetarian breakfast like idli or poha and reading the morning newspaper at leisure.  We exchange news items we have read and share common interests we have in the city or around the world.  Then it is time to attend to household chores.  It is interesting that the division of work between me and my spouse has been quite clear and consistent since the time we got married 33 years ago.  I take care of all the household chores outside the house like shopping for provisions, vegetables or repair of household goods etc.  My wife takes care of all issues at home.  Of course we are happy to help each other in case the need arises like the sudden leave of the house hold maid etc.  We have always respected each others’ likes and dislikes and hence supported accordingly.  For eg, my spouse does not enjoy driving and hence I drive always.  On the other hand, I do not enjoy cooking and hence she does it.  Of course, if there is a need we are willing to support each other in these chores as well.

On some days, we go for a day trip organised by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) or indulge in writing poetry or blogs as both of us have our own individual hobbies. A visit to a nature park is of common interest.  We love to admire birds, trees and animals and follow the experts of the BNHS quite regularly whenever time permits.  Alternatively, we indulge in writing as our passion dictates us.  We also help each other as editors and critiques of whatever we write.

It is also true that I love to go for a weekend trip whenever I can, to be with nature as in the photo above near Tarkarli, a beach resort near Goa.

We always prefer to have home made lunch consisting of rice, lentils, vegetables and yoghurt.  We watch the news or some car show on TV and then it is time for an afternoon nap.  It is followed by evening tea and snacks.  This is followed by some cleaning and clearing work at home and browsing through some magazines or books, which we may collected during the week before.

Then the evening begins by another stroll in the park to admire the sunset and get refreshed by nature.  We return home for our early supper.  This is followed generally by a music programme on TV or a sports match like cricket.

We watch the evening news at 9 pm and this is followed by some documentaries or business shows of relevance and then it is time to go to bed.  We love to listen to soothing ghazals or instrumental music at night as we go to sleep.

Our day ends at about 1030 pm and we end the day by thanking God and everyone else for a wonderful day.

S Ramesh Shankar

My second innings – “Era of gratitude”

I have been a big fan of cricket right from my childhood. I find a lot of similarities between the game of cricket and life. If my first innings was about my career, my second innings is about my giving back to society.

All of us aspire to achieve our career dreams and goals. We strive our best to get there. We may partly or wholly be successful but we try our best. We desire for all the material things in the world and fantasise to get them. We may again get all we dream of or at least most of them in our life.

If I call my first innings as the “Era of gratification”, I would say my second innings should be an ” Era of gratitude”. God has been kind to me. I have achieved almost all I dreamt of in my career. My family and friends have supported me to be happy in life most of the time. Now it is time for me to give back to society.

I have bought all the material things in life I have wished for. Today I hardly crave for something and regret that I do not have it in my life. So, it is time to give back. It is time to express my gratitude in actions and not only in words. I assume I can do it in many ways.

The first thing I plan to do is to write more and share my experiences of life and living. This may help the next generations to think and reflect. It may help the youngsters not to make the mistakes I did. It may help them take the right decisions.

All my net earnings from the sale of my books (Sights & Insights and Life and Living )will be donated to a charity, which works zealously in “eradicating preventable blindness amongst children”. This way I will share more, learn more and at the same time give a little back to society.

I am also starting an organisation by the name “Hrishti” ( Means joy in Sanskrit). I will use this organisation as a platform to coach and mentor. I will try to mentor and coach business and HR leaders and again use all my net earnings to promote the same cause.

I also plan to work with start ups and NGOs to share my experience and learnings so that they can learn from my insights at work and life. This may help new start ups and NGOs to scale up and succeed in their chosen fields. At least, they will not repeat the same mistakes I did in my career.

I also want to teach in business schools, engineering colleges and universities. This way I can share my learnings and also enable young students to be industry ready. The gap between industry and academics needs to be bridged and I think people like me have a role to play in it.

I can also be a consultant to organisations and share my experiences in areas of their need. I may be able to give back to society in more ways than one. It is upto me to explore all possible ways to do it. After all when I needed help or support, there were thousands of people amongst family, friends and organisations, who did that for me. Now it is my turn.

Lastly, I am blessed to have enough of what I need to live happily for the rest of myself and my family. Hence, I commit that everything I do will contribute to society’s larger good.

Time to start my second innings in life post my retirement is after 31st March 2019. You can follow me on http:\\srameshshankar.com or connect with me at srameshshankar@yahoo.com or srameshshankar@gmail.com post this date. My mobile number will also remain the same as of today. I will continue to post every Friday even in the future.

S. Ramesh Shankar