Never Give Up

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing good – If not, I hope my story might help lift your spirits.

During the final exams of my last year of school (I had just turned 18 few weeks ago), my father died of multi-organ failure. He had been ill for quite some time, due to his obesity and alcoholism but we never could dream this would happen. He was a man of high spirits, a fighter – My mother and I always believed that he would come back from this, like he always did.

My mother was broken while I was in utter shock – This was the first time we faced death of someone so close. The first thing that came to my mind after gaining sense during funeral was how we are going to handle ourselves in future financially. We are from middle class family with my father being the chief earner. My mother was a teacher but her salary was very less while my sister was still in school. My grandparents (who lived with us – Joint families are common in my country India) were old and could only support us with whatever little they could. Thankfully, my father had some savings planned for us which could help us for coming years but I realised that day that I have to take the financial responsibility of my family as soon as possible. That was not the burden my family would have wanted me to have but this was the responsibility I took upon myself.

I studied hard thereafter, cleared entrance exam and got myself into engineering college. In India, just getting into engineering college doesn’t guarantee good job – You have to pass multiple interview and tests conducted by multiple companies offering limited posts – and too, only if you get good grades every semester. College life is full of fun – parties, outings, romantic relationships, etc – However, I never let myself live that life out fully, otherwise my grades would have gone down. For me, the responsibility of my family was priority so I kept my focus on doing whatever to get a good paying job, even if it meant missing out on some things (I never had a girlfriend).

During the job interviews of last year, I was one of the first students to get a job in a nice company. However, there was a issue – The company informed me that I would need to relocate far away from home. This was a problem – My family depended on me to do a lot of things other than just money. My mother and old grandparents didn’t understand technology well and couldn’t handle much physical work while my teenage sister wasn’t keen on taking up responsibility. For the last 4 years, I was responsible for payment of bills and instalments online, money transactions at bank, all outside chores, etc – All the things I taught myself. How could I leave them – How would they cope?

I decided to keep this job offer on side and try out other interviews. However, my luck wasn’t at my side – I was rejected in the subsequent interviews, especially when I mentioned my issue with relocation. After multiple rejections, my friends and relatives started calling me a fool, saying there is no point of trying so hard and that I should just accept my first job offer and relocate. Some of my batch mates even became against me, saying that by going to multiple interviews, I was sabotaging their chances. Nobody understood my situation. After further rejections, even I started questioning my futile efforts.

I thought about this for long and I don’t know what gave me strength but I decided to not give up. I decided that I would keep on trying till the last date my first offer was valid. I went to multiple interviews every day – not only those m in my college but also those in other colleges where pool placement was occurring. I spent morning to night going through multiple rounds of tests and interviews, going from one place to other with multiple copies of my CV – I even emailed copies to various companies in my vicinity just in case. No doubt I got rejections multiple times further down the line as well – sometimes by failing the test, sometimes due to bad interviews and sometimes due to relocation issue – but my mind was made up – I would not give up.

Finally after being rejected from about 30-35 interviews, I went to this company my friend told me about. After passing the test, I went for the interview. They asked me things, I gave them good answers. Finally, they asked me if I had any reservations. I told that about the relocation issue and they said they understood that. That was a generic reply and I wasn’t expecting a call for offer from them but after 5 days, I got the call and they offered me a good position without relocation. The moment I heard this, my eyes swelled with tears of joy. I went to my mother, hugged her and cried for like 5 minutes. I accepted the offer the next day and the rest is history.

It has been 3 years – I am now at a good position with good pay, my sister is now in college, my mother and grandparents are proud of me for being a good son/grandson. I just hope that my father is also proud of me that I never gave up and filled in his shoes properly…

– Bunny