The Freedom To "Come Alive"

First 26 years of my life, I spent collecting academic degrees. With top of class grades – B.Com. from Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi, infamous for its 100% cut-off for getting an admission. Was an All-India-rankholder in Chartered Accountancy. And finally graduating summa-cum-laude from IIM Bangalore (referred to as “Director’s Merit List”). 

I started my career in the investment banking space with Avendus Capital, in their tech investments team. In a brief span of 2.5 years, I closed multiple 100Mn$+ deals with marquee internet companies in India (eg. BookMyShow, Myntra, Saavn) for private equity investments and acquisitions and was consistently rated the highest performer in my cohort at the firm. 

However, some offbeat experiments ended up deeply informing my life and led me a very counter-culture journey. One of them was a 10-day silent meditation retreat near Mumbai. I could write a book about what impact it had on me, but to give you glimpse a month after returning from the retreat, my dear friend and my then-boss asked me while we were catching up at Yoga House, Bandra over breakfast “So how was your experience?” 

And I surprised myself by saying “I am someone who has always valued education and sincerely invested myself in learning the best I can, whatever I have had the opportunity to learn. But you know, these 10 days of ‘education’ were more valuable than my 25 years of education.”  

Since then, my pre-held assumptions of “who am I”, what is my work in the world, what is the meaning of richness, what does intelligence mean, have constantly been under test and experimentation. After quitting my banking role in 2017, I joined a non-profit GiveIndia as their Head of Strategy. After a year of scaling that up, and with some new questions in my heart about inner and outer change, I transitioned out and moved back to my hometown Ranchi, settling back with my parents. 

Since then, I have volunteered almost all my time at a community called Servicespace, which operates at the intersection of technology, volunteerism and gift-ecology. Servicespace means a space where people come together to serve. Now the word “Service” has been co-opted today by commercial world but at the root it means doing good to others. The Hindi equivalent word is “Seva” i.e. a place where people come together to do Seva. Today, 99.9% of our world is designed with the economics thinking i.e. humans beings aim to maximize self-interest. But what if that wasn’t entirely true? 

What if there is deeper force within each human which aims to maximize the collective interest? Where would you go to test out that side of you? What if understanding and nurturing that side of you was absolutely essential for your wellbeing? Like Gandhi said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others.”

Awakin Calls and Pods are couple online projects where I’ve been deeply involved in building and if you’re looking for an in-preson experience, MovedByLove weekend retreat in Ahmedabad, India are the place to be (many of my friends count these retreats as one of the most transformative and enriching experience in their lives.)    

For a long time now, I’ve thought of bringing up these conversations with my friends in the business world. I’ve noticed that getting a good job, building a great career has been an easy part of the equation for people like us. But we have very few spaces where we can come together and reflect together on deeper questions that ultimately will matter much more in our lives. 

Questions like “Beyond money and wealth, how to find wellbeing? Beyond career, how to move towards one’s calling? Beyond shallow relationships, how do we build deep connections and community? Beyond bosses, can we become genuine leaders and seed a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?”  

So I’m holding an intention to start a newsletter here to share some stories, insights and questions. If you resonate with the spirit, I welcome you to join the dialogue. :)