The Journey of an Entrepreneur Lokal

A few weeks ago, I was invited to Middlesex University Mauritius by Mr Sanjay Matadeen - senior lecturer. I was invited to share my journey and the series of unfortunate events that led me to become an entrepreneur.

Here is an excerpt of what I spoke in hopes to challenge what young minds think when they aspire to be entrepreneurs:

"Students, future leaders, esteemed members of the faculty and friends. The first thing I would like to say is “thank you”. Not only has Middlesex given me an extraordinary honour but the days of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this lecture have made me lose weight - A win-win situation.

Now, all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint my eyes at the screen and pretend that everyone in front of me is sitting naked.

Delivering a lecture is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind to my own university days. One of the guest lecturers we had was Mukesh Ambani - founder of India’s most valuable company by market value. Reflecting on his talk has helped me enormously in writing this one because it turns out, I can’t remember a single word he said. This, liberating discovery enabled me to proceed without any fear that I inadvertently might influence you to abandon promising careers in finance, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming an overworked workaholic.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known back in my days and what important lessons I have learned in the 4 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with 2 answers:

• On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate entrepreneurship, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.
• And as you stand at the threshold of what is called real-life, I want to extoll the crucial importance of what is financial foresight.

Looking back at the 22-year old that I was during my university days is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 27-year old that I have become.

I was utterly convinced that I would become the best mechanical engineer. A few years before that, I was persuaded that I would be a professional counter-tenor in the Opera of Mauritius. A few years before that, I was a Bollywood actor walking on the streets of Quatre Bornes with Shah Ruk Khan swagger.

You see, I was always trying to strike an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself and what those closest to me, expected of me.

"In the last 4 years, I have been an engineer, a dancer, a choreographer and now I own my marketing company."

A lot have commented that my journey so far has been sporadic because I did not seem to fit a mould and rightfully so. I often think the same in the early hours before daylight but the subsequent questions I ask myself are:  Am I happy? Do I still have the drive to carry on in this path, am I passionate? And am I satisfied?

I graduated from Symbiosis Institute of Technology in 2017 and trust me, it was no easy task. I thought I was sharp when I got my HSC grades but then I found myself in a room full of more than 60 human calculators who even processed complex calculus and differential equations within a matter of minutes.

We had lectures 46 weeks a year, 6 days a week and 9 hours a day for 4 years. It built tremendous resilience. Every year, our classrooms grew smaller and smaller - not because we were specialising in a field but because students kept dropping out. There came a point in my final semester where we started sharing lectures with Postgraduate students because our batch could not fill a classroom anymore. During those lectures, I would wonder, is this the beginning of the race-race?

In our final semester, big MNCs (multi-national companies) from all across India would come for recruitment. Those were special days for we could skip lectures without it affecting our 75% threshold in attendance.

The recruitment process went as such: All 120 applicants were put in massive halls, sometimes basketball courts; there would be 3 giant projectors in the front with aptitude based questions on a timer, and invigilators circling the aisles needlessly because nobody wanted their neighbour to get 1 of the 6 vacancies. You see, we were churning out engineers aimlessly in a country saturated with exceptional engineers already.

Do you know how many engineers graduate from India every year? 1,3 Million! That is more than what my country’s population is. I found out about this in my 3rd year. I thought I was special until that moment.

So I graduated from Symbiosis Institute of Technology with a job offer that paid 14k INR as salary and I was told to be happy. Do you know how much 14k INR is in Mauritian currency? 7k.

Do you know what the minimum wage is in Mauritius? 9.3k.

"I studied engineering with post-graduate students to earn less than minimum wage."

I started applying for jobs here immediately - myjob.mu, Linkedin, newspapers, Tinder! My desperation knew no bounds. I applied for jobs as a french copywriter, as a caller in call centres, when engineering firms did not get back to me, I tried everything in my power to find something to do.

In my pursuit of finding a job, I applied to a dance studio as a choreographer - I was always good at dancing, I had choreographed flash mobs in universities, so I thought, let me give it a try. At least I will get some semblance of an income.

I taught dance 2 days a week for 4 hours straight for Rs 2,800 a month. But, I found something that clicked in my head. I was obviously not happy with the income but I discovered something I had never felt before - A sense of contentment. And so, I continued for 8 months.

In those 8 months, I had found a job as a Junior Engineer. My family was exhilarated and therefore I was ecstatic too. But that enthusiasm quickly faded over the course of 9 months that I was working there. I found myself happy only on the 25th of every month and then questioning my life’s purpose for the remaining 29 days.

I worked simultaneously as a junior engineer and as a dance instructor for almost a year. I worked 7 days a week thinking to myself if I can study 6 days a week I can work 7 days a week without a problem. I found solace in the weekends - coming up with new choreographies, teaching them to my students and seeing them replicating with their body what I imagined in my mind.

There came a point when I had to make a tough decision. Either to continue as an engineer, working tirelessly for someone I don’t even know and never feeling valued because all my ideas were too fancy for the firm’s traditional way of working or to quit my job and focus entirely on what made me happy and find a way to make it financially viable.

And so, by November 2018, I said goodbye to my position as a junior engineer, which was soon filled by another starry-eyed young graduate and followed my dream of being a full-time choreographer. I remember while handing out my resignation letter, my manager told me he had won his bet amongst other co-workers because he had bet I wouldn’t last a year. He also graciously gave me advice to not apply for another engineering position, he said I did not fit.

Coincidently, I stumbled upon him last week - still in his washed-out yellow shirt, still complaining, still in his same position. 

"You see, in big firms, time stands still from the moment something works for a client, nothing changes after that. The procedures become the same, the routines become the same even the outfits remain the same - year in, year out."

In 2019, I started giving my own dance classes. It was the only way for me to earn a decent income and not have to give 50% of my fees to a studio. I knew I had to work my arse off to get my name out there and so I took on the challenge willingly. I started with 3 students, 3 turned into 10 and then 10 turned into 40. I realised I was providing people with something they never had before.

Today, I consider myself a successful dance choreographer because I successfully taught more than 200 students in one year. I earned more on a monthly basis from my dance classes than as a junior engineer and when I walk in Bagatelle, at least 7 people say hi..."

Here it is folks, if you've reached so far, I would like to say thank you once again. Thank you to Middlesex, thank you to the students and thank you to you for reading the transcript.

If you want to read the rest of it, let me know, I will send the full version via email.