On this day (Jun 30th), 5 years ago… I walked free for the first time in 13 years.

Misconception:

I had grown up believing that the only goal in life is to study, score well in academics, get hold of a professional degree and subsequently score a corporate job. Life is then set. Off-course, then there’s marriage, children, gaadi (car), bungla (house) and you are settled!?

Taste of Supposed Success:

I went through all of these steps and rather fast. At 24, I was already a father so you can figure the rest. I had this weird feeling that if I stopped running I will be sidelined so I worked 12-13 hours a day and I did this for most part of my 13 years career with large corporations - Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Royal Dutch Shell.?

Awakening:

In my 11th year, I took a long break (for 2 months) for the first time in my career and we did a road trip across India in our family sedan. That journey took us through 14 states and over 10,000 kms, most of which was rural India. This experience opened my eyes and I started to become more aware and started to look within. Me being me, I had to do this transition fast too ;). I quit my job in 2017 and my last day with the corporate world was Jun 30th.?

Breaking Free:

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do or what my calling was but I certainly knew that I didn’t want that life. That was a good enough start for me. Sunita (my wife) turned out to be equally nuts so that made it easier. So with Sunita and our 10 year old boy in tow, I wrapped up our lives in the cities and moved to the mountains with all our belongings stuffed into 5 bags.?

Simply Living:

We had this urge to experience life just the way it is, in it’s purest form so we picked up a piece of land deep in a remote part of The Nilgiris. We lived among the indigenous people, elephants, bears, etc. We cultivated the land and built ourselves an earth home with our own hands. We harvested electricity from the Sun and water from the forest mountains. Our nights were the most interesting - we had elephants rub themselves against our house wall, we had the mighty Indian gaur at our door steps, we had bears raid our jackfruit in our front yard and wild cats carry away our poultry. We lived this off-the-grid life for about a year and half and were thoroughly enjoying it.?

Sustenance:

We didn’t really have much expenses because we did most of the work ourselves by picking up skills, we grew our food and poultry. Whatever we couldn’t grow, we removed them from our diet. The only monthly expense we had during that time was our grains… nothing else. Now, we were not making any money during our time there but, we had set-up an alternate source of income from elsewhere before we had started on this journey so our limited expenses meant that this alternate source was enough to sustain us for years. We were happy with that. Oh yes, if you were wondering how our boy was doing?! He was loving it more than us because we had started him with an un-schooling journey while we were still in the cities so from a very young age, he was the explorer kinds.?

The Problem:

But, while we were living this dream like life, we also came face-to-face with a deep rooted problem that existed in these beautiful mountains - livelihood. While people living around us too lived as minimalists, they didn’t have an alternate source of income so the gap between how much they earned and how much they spent compounded over generations and pushed them into this unjust equilibrium that they can’t escape. So for generations, their socio-economic state is getting worse. They owned land but, they worked as daily wagers in bigger farms, estates or construction sites. Some migrated to the cities to work as daily wagers. In-between all of this, the men found solace in alcohol which meant even the little money they were earning didn’t make it’s way into the household. We saw this unfold in front us for about a year. We couldn’t simply ignore this and continue to live in our bubble.?

The Calling:

We didn’t have an expertise or the wherewithal to fight alcoholism or better their farming situation. But, Sunita had craft skills and we could see that the women were the most affected. We chose craft and commerce to solve this problem through the women of the community and in the process, found our calling. We both now work much harder than what we did when we were in the cities with the corporate. We work 14-16 hours a day and 7 days a week but, yet, don’t get tired or burnt out. We haven’t taken a break in the last 4 years. Not because we couldn’t but simply because we didn’t need one.

It’s been 5 years now and I continue to walk free…

As Steve Maraboli said –

“Cemeteries are full of unfulfilled dreams… countless echoes of ‘could have‘ and ‘should have‘… countless books unwritten… countless songs unsung… I want to live my life in such a way that when my body is laid to rest, it will be a well needed rest from a life well lived, a song well sung, a book well written, opportunities well explored, and a love well expressed.”