Ye hai Bombay

I feel myself very lucky to get an opportunity to be groomed in Bombay at the beginning of my professional life. I stayed there for about six years, but it has a life-long impression on me, it has a significant contribution to what I am today.

The aspect I liked, from my very first impression of Bombay, is its positive attitude. I have come from West Bengal in mid 90's, when there were all around frustration and negativity, for a single positive initiative for anything there will be thousands to discourage it. Youths were wasting time on rock or so called club by playing cards or useless world changing discussion. There were not much company to share some positive thoughts, but I must admit at one occasion where I always found tremendous dynamism and excellent team work in Bengal is organizing Durga Puja. How Rasu da, Barun da used to organize the pujo involving everybody was a great lesson for me.

In the contrary in Bombay you will find everybody is trying to do something productive, everywhere there are ample examples of people succeeded in different opportunity, not necessarily following so called career path, may be starting a small business, opening a simple shop, doing brokery or any odd profession but they are doing extraordinarily well. You will find amazing positive attitude in their personality. Bombay is a place where if you initiate something and do it with dedication and intelligence, success will follow very naturally. I have got in touch with many examples like this. Here money circulates very fast and people don’t hesitate to pay for the right service or product. In the contrary back in Bengal at that time, if someone even starts a vegetable vendor also with his own initiative, people make him to shut down with their credit habits, they simply won’t pay. Those who do business anywhere in the world must know the worst situation for any businessman is, when you have to waste your time to collect money from customers. This situation will not only forces him to shut down but shut 1000 others to think of starting something of their own. So the only hope left for somebody from bengal was managing a secured government job. Youngsters waste their most productive valuable years of their life in the preparation and hope for a secured government job. Coming from this environment, those successes stories of small businesses in Bombay, inspired me a lot.

To me it is an amazing place of Karma Yoga. I’ll tell a story, I heard from a very senior executive of SBI, under whom I did my summer project of NITIE. You might be knowing, in 1993 there were a terrifying event of serial Bomb blast in Bombay. One of the bombs was planted in a high rise office building at Nariman Point named Air India Building. SBI head office is another high rise building in that vicinity. The manager was telling the very next day of the incident when he came in his office and look from his window towards Air India building, he found in the other side of the same floor of the building which is not burned, people came to office at regular time and started their work. I don’t think any other part of the world it can possible to happen so naturally without even being noticed. I respect this sprit of Bombay, it helped me to develop my attitude towards my work.   

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