Gratitude!

My journey here, starts with an immense amount of thankfulness to everyone who has made it possible for me to pursue the life of my dreams.

I have been preparing to study abroad for the past couple of years before I actually landed up in Ireland. I can never forget the moment I stepped down at the Dublin Airport.

But as I started living here, I have felt the compassionate atmosphere here. The people here are very friendly. Whenever I am walking down a street, some or the other person greets me with a warm smile. The people here make you feel at home. They off-set the single digit temperature here with the warmth in their hearts. While crossing a road, people behind the wheels stop more than ten feet away and wave at me to pass first. Such a beautiful thing! The hospitality, kindness and love for humans is contagious over here. I have seldom experienced this before.

I came to thinking, that I can never repay this to the people who actually made me feel this way, but I can surely make someone else happier by my own acts of kindness, humility and compassion. This is how it works here, in turn making a positive community of people and thus, making this world a better place.

Speaking of making this world a better place, I see one man in my heart, a wonderful man who has shaped me and is the one of the most important reasons I am doing what I am doing.

I had a passion for Cybersecurity since 2013, when I deliberately hacked The Global Facebook Security and reported that flaw to the Facebook Security Team. I worked with them for a week and patched the security flaw. I was 19 at that time. I knew this was my path. However, I had just started pursuing Chartered Accountancy and was preparing for the entrance exam. I still continued to pursue cracking software, playing with the codes and hacking into things for fun. But, the Chartered Accountancy exams were not a joke, I had to give a lot of time and dedication for this thing. There was always an inbuilt desire to do something larger than life in my mind, so I had chosen to “become the CA” path in my life. After failing a of couple times, I was half-way there, when I cleared my inter exams and then came the best three years of my life, the working-experience internship – which is called to be “an articleship” in the CA field.

I started with a local firm, but as I was going through the days, I felt my soul’s need to start looking for an opportunity which will give me a way to continue my education and passion, which, sadly for me were two different things, until now of-course.?

Somehow, I stumbled upon a name of an expert in this field, CA Anil Bhandari. He did all this work in Cybersecurity and was CA as well. I didn’t know what to do next. I desperately tried to find a way to contact him. I still remember that smile and relief on my face when I first got hold of his number.

When I called him, he asked me to visit his office in Mumbai to discuss further. I don’t know what was there, whether in my voice or my tone, but I think he understood my burning desire for this thing.

I went there, in flip-flops, looking all over the place in this larger-than-life office. And as usual, the very humble Anil Sir, made me feel comfortable and discussed this opportunity with me. At the end of the meeting, he said, “See we don’t usually allow students to work on the cybersecurity projects but since you are so enthusiastic about the field, I will give you some exposure to work on the Cybersecurity projects alongside your CA articleship training”

This man did more than he promised, he went on to deliver what he said and even better when he arranged a Cybersecurity training for me in the first month itself. This was the start of everything I am doing today. He not only hired me, but has helped me convert my passion into devotion.

Days before leaving for Ireland, I reached near his house, I was extremely overwhelmed with the fact that I am going to study abroad. The first person to call was Anil Sir. We met at a café near his house.

We discussed about what’s happening in the field of Cybersecurity, projects he’s working on, projects I am working on and he happily guided me on how I should pursue my masters in Cybersecurity in Ireland, where to focus and what to focus on, etc etc. This went on for couple of hours.

My purpose of telling this experience here is, this man who is a Member of a Central Council of ICAI, Partner at a CA firm and is a mentor to a global advisory firm and Asia’s one of the biggest cybersecurity companies and directly manages more than 700 people is there to listen to you no matter if you are a CA, CEO of company or just a student.

I know I cannot repay the favour that he has done for me. Had he not allowed that twenty-year-old me to explore the field of my bliss then I wouldn’t have gone ahead to work on with the India’s most advanced cybersecurity department and even won prestigious Government of Ireland International Education Scholarship award 2021 for studying Masters in Cybersecurity.

I wish I had enough words to express my gratitude for help and kindness towards the amazing people, be it a stranger on the streets of Ireland or person who shaped my career.

Cheers!!!