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Nasra is a great friend of mine , and this post is dedicated to her . We were having a small chat somedays back and I promised her that I'll write the excerpt of my talk when Poornam crossed 200 members here. Poornam is over 250 now , but as always said , "better late than lever". So here I go ....
"2006 Aug was a great month for me,
I celebrated my 27th birthday,
I was able to do the much dreamt of trip to Ladakh in Aug, and
I completed 4 years working for the team Dons. 4 years back , I was at home for my holidays when Amar called me to return immediately to office . He said there is this new project , that I should start working for. Exactly on the date which completes 4 years of my association with the particular team , Amar called me while I was at home , and asked me to join as Core team member. I am not sure whether he planned it like that , but I know that its all written somewhere to be followed. Well, the highlight of the August was definitely the Ladakh Trip . Those who knew me for past 3 years would have heard me talking about the dream trip. It only materialised this year and I'm so happy about it. Me and 2 of my friends went on this trip on our bikes . We started from Delhi, rode through a lot of places like kurukshetra, panipat , ludhiana , jalandhar , srinagar , gulmarg , kargil , drass , ladakh and finally back to Delhi through Manali and chandigarh. 3 of us had only one dream and that was to "Cross the highest motorable road on Bike". Thanks to Border Road's Organization (BRO) we were able to cruise through the road. BRO builds and maintains the road in the really rough terrains of Himalayas . Apart from the amazing smooth roads through steep and sharp rocky peaks, they also fix slabs with motivating quotes. One such slab read , "When you go back , tell them of us , for we give our todays , for their tomorrows" . Yes Friends , every year dozens of BRO people give their lives while clearing the snow to keep these roads in perfect conditions. Another slab that really motivated me was , " If you can dream it , you can do it ". We 3 had a dream when we started off and we were able to do it ....thanks to BRO. Ladakh trip was akin to my life in Poornam. When I joined Poornam 4 and a half years back , there were just a group of 15 friends who shared a common dream. The dream was to build a "big organization". When do you call an organization "big" ? No , its not when it crosses a couple of billion dollar revenue or when it employees "X" number of people. An organization is called "BIG" , when its respected by a major population and thats what our dream is. Remember , at that time we were just a bunch of 15 kids fresh out of college . We used to wonder whether our dreams would ever come true. And there was this Amar , who was 27 year old then , who used to motivate us by saying " When I've such a talented group of guys with me , no dream is impossible to achieve" . On hindthought , I feel it was not leadership from Amar but sheer guts to say such a thing.Today I'm at the same age at which Amar told us those lines and I've 200 people standing infront of me. Still I've the same line of Amar for you all "When I've such a talented group of guys with me , no dream is impossible to achieve" I dont know , how many of you have read the book , "The Alchemist" by the Brazillian writer Paulo Coelho. There is this beautiful quote in it , "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" . He would have never wrote such a line , if he was with us on the first day of our trip to Ladakh. The morning we started, my friend slipped and sprained his knee . Few kilometers later one bike's gas got over . We also got stuck after the engine got ruined . By 12 in the midnight , we were in a nowhere land near Ludhiana with a punctured tyre and nobody to help us . So much for the "universe consipiring to help us". But we had this dream "To reach the highest motorable road" and there was this beautiful Shaayari in our mind "Ki tikk gayi ho jab nazar kisiki manzil pe
Use hai wasta kya raston ke deron se." Translated , it means
" What are all those small stops enroute,
What are all those hurdles enroute,
for someone whose eyes are fixed on the destinations " During the time when I joined Poornam , it was not easy days for us . We never had AC in our work area. At 2 am in the night, we would be thwarting the bees , which used to swamp our workspace. There was no drinking water, forget food , after 10 pm in the night. I remember Kishore , chasing the dogs away from our eating area in our previous office. Yes, those were difficult times. Those times of uncertainities were not just related to the resources. We even had people who used to be pessimistic.I remember , one of my friends who said "Poornam can never afford to pay more than 16,000/- Rs per month for its employees". That was long back when I was earning a fresher's salary. Today as I look at my Confidential Salary Certificate that Srijith sends , a smile comes to my face. I wonder how my friend would have reacted if he ever saw it. Point is , we had a lot of entities trying to stop us. Still we held on . We were determined that we were not going to be demoralised by these hurdles as our dreams were bigger. Thats why I say Ki tikk gayi ho jab nazar kisiki manzil pe,
Use hai wasta kya raston ke deron se. Returning to the Ladakh trip , yes the best part of it was crossing the highest motorable road. The point is called , "Khardung-La" or K-Top and is at an altitude of 18500 ft. As we neared the point , the ride became really difficult. At first the terrain failed us ,
the road and climb was taking its toll on us.
Then the road failed us,
there were lot of places when we were riding over streams , rocks and slushy mud
Then our vehicles failed us,
my karizma started acting like a moped and showed hesitation in climbing .
Then the weather failed us,
it became really cold that rain drops started freezing on my helmet's windscreen
Then our body failed,
as we started feeling tired and dizzy due to lack of oxygen
Finally our mind started failing,
as it told me "Sojish, no you cant do it . You might die" Of all the things that failed us , there was only one thing which was in our control....Our mind . I had to shake it and give it a jolt because I had this dream to make true. None amongst us stopped because we were so passionate about our dream. The moment I reached the top , plethora of emotions filled my heart. The emotions that I felt cannot be explained , as thats something that should be experienced. I still have that moment etched in my mind, the moment when my dream came true. When I look back, I realise that it was not the material comforts of a sports bike or four layers of clothing , that took me to my dreams . What took me to K-Top was just my mind. I realise now that, Its your mind and only your mind that can take you to your dreams. Poornam crossed a milestone , and that is crossing 250 members in its family . Its not a destination . It is just an announcement to the world that, "Poornam has arrived" . We'll continue to grow , crossing 500 mark and on and on. All that we've to invest for that, is our mind and our determination that we'll reach our dreams someday. So friends , let us dream first and lets share that dream. Because , "If you can dream it ... You can do it"
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