THE PASSION PROJECT : PART XI | Roshan Desai
As far as I can retreat to retrieve into depths of my mature mind, there has always been this one obsessive idea that has propelled me through my professional life – “Why work doesn’t feel like work for some people?”. Some people seem to breeze through the weekdays, hardly waiting for the weekend to come and when it does, they simply carry on working, oblivious of the calendar constraints. Monday morning blues is not a relevant thing for them. They get up every day rejuvenated with a sense of excitement for the day ahead and what they are about to achieve. These are of course people who have found their passion in life that is now leading them purposefully in whatever they do. And yet, as we have these real-life examples strutting around, it seems like an almost-alien concept that doing something you love, professionally, is even a remote possibility. It’s just a myth they say, something out of a fantasy film they feel. “Nobody is that happy with their job”. But that is exactly the point. For these people, what they do isn’t a mere job, it is the joy of their existence. I have stumbled through life, trying to find that joy for myself. And while I still may be an amateur, I thought to seek out the experts who may help shed some light to find what we all are looking for. This series encapsulates those people who have not only found their passion but are living it. And I hope their stories will inspire you to live your purpose too.
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“We will be lost and found a thousand times along this cobbled road of us.”
– Atticus
Sometimes I get busy worrying,
about yesterdays and tomorrows.
And quite often, it hurts,
the misgivings and the sorrows.
But today is like catching a stream,
it gushes hurriedly and flows.
While I try cupping and holding it,
it pointlessly comes and goes.
I was reading one of the writings of Roshan Desai on his Instagram handle. I was particularly pulled by this post. It seemed to evoke the same kind of calm chaos that I had picked within him during our short conversation about his life and his journey.
Connecting with Roshan was a pure network effect, in a manner of saying. I was interviewing one of the other persons for the series and they had suddenly introduced me to his name for the first time, “Actually, you should talk to Roshan! Roshan Desai. A real thorough type if I ever knew one. He has made choices with both his head and his heart throughout his career, never compromising on either.” In a world where we generally make choices by the heft of the salary, this really struck me, and I was immediately drawn in. Numbers and pleasantries were exchanged which highlighted our shared love of ink and paper. But as we dwindled our way to the actual discussion, he laughed and said, “I don’t know how much of use will my story be to you. You see, I haven’t found my passion…yet.”
To be completely honest, that statement did make me stumble. I gave it a fair share of thought. Should I still pick up a conversation with him? Would this help build under what I am trying to create? Would this fit into the whole theme? And then I realized – things never really fit in, not so easily anyway. I have talked to people who knew right away since childhood what they wanted to do, people who had discovered it well into their adulthood and people who had stumbled into it unknowingly. But every story is unique, and every struggle has its story. The whole point of the series is how do you find what you are passionate about, even if it’s not a straight voyage. In that sense, this story with its share of ebbs and flows, was that much more valuable to tell. So, after assurances from my side that this is a conversation worth having and promises from his side to share his journey, we began.
“I think I have always had the yearning to understand everything possible”, started Roshan. “In school too, I was not fixated on one thing but tried my hand at everything I could. My only ground rule was that I should enjoy what I do. Even as I grew up, I had a decent grasp over all subjects, but I was convinced that math and science were the one for me. So, it was off to writing competitive exams and joining an engineering college like any typical Indian kid. The only difference being I wasn’t disconnected from my discipline as others usually are. I had got in for computer science but then understood that my heart was in electronics. So, I didn’t settle but switched streams, from computers to circuits. I loved every single thing about my undergraduate education – the friendships, the out-of-class activities and even the courses. My college was in a secluded place, aloof from the pressures of the everyday life, which gave me a breather. A pause that I was able to fill by taking part in almost everything that I could. From placement committee member to college magazine coordinator to model UN orator, it was a choice to don a different hat every day.”
“But how did you know which hat fit you the best?”, I chimed in for clarity. “Well, it was actually through planning for these Rotaract club events”, he explained. “Through my time at the college, I understood that I thoroughly enjoyed putting these events together. It was something that not only I liked doing, but I got great deal of appreciation too. I knew then that I had the capability to do something in this domain. That’s what helps me, even till date, to narrow down my search – exploring as many enjoyable options as possible and then carefully listening to feedback. While in my undergrad itself, I started reading actively about various professions that fell in the same line of work as event management. I got especially intrigued by marketing. And that’s where it all started.”
Over the next year, Roshan spent his time looking into jobs related to marketing, talking his college seniors, interacting with people who were already working in the field. He even took sample tests before the actual one for MBA admissions to understand his aptitude for the degree. “I always hedge my risks”, he said, “and that is why I ensured I knew enough about the test before I gave it. I was even cleared for one of the good institutes in the country, but yet again, I wanted to know what I would be dealing with. So, I dug deeper and understood the kind of hectic life that comes with these top tier b-schools. I wasn’t sure if that was for me. I have always valued balance in my life. There has to be a certain harmony between your career and casual life. Otherwise, one starts affecting the other. It was true when I chose my undergraduate course and it had to be true now.”
Haunted with hesitant notions, Roshan’s attention was then pulled to social science, another course that he had liked during his college. The more he read about it, the more he felt that civil services as a career path might also be a viable option. But choice just makes choosing more cumbersome than convenient. “At the end of the four years of engineering, I had a decent campus offer in hand, a seat from IIM Indore and an inkling towards civil services. Finally, I thought to give civils a shot and let go of both the ‘safe’ options. I knew that I could always circle back to them down the lane but if I didn’t try civils, it would always remain as a ‘what if’ wedge in my brain. It was the bravest decision that I had to take in my life. But it was what I wanted.”
This story from hereon could have just easily been that of an IAS officer finding his passion for public service but life had other plans for Roshan and Roshan had another tangent for me. “Once I decided to try civils, I started my usual research on the field again. I spent 5-6 months understanding what the job was, what does it take, the pros and cons, everything. But something came along that changed my mind again. I had the opportunity to speak to some of the people who were officers in the civil services. There was definitely a sense of purpose to the role and yet there was something else. It was the way they spoke about their job, the unhappy tone, and the slight hint of forlorn incapability to go beyond the chains of the bureaucracy. I wanted to do something that I would be happy waking up to everyday. So, I took a decision, dropped aiming for civils and went back to preparing for the Common Aptitude Test (CAT), this time seriously. But I think I learnt something really important from that experience. I learnt that no matter where you look, the grass will always be greener on the other side. People will always look through the wrong end of the telescope and think that they are getting the short end of the deal. But only if you turn things around and see through the telescope correctly, will you be able to the perceive the larger picture. You will always have something that will irk you in every field, in every domain, in every job. But the goal is that you need to find what you are passionate about and understand what’s the level of pain you can endure for it.”
Roshan’s story seemed to underline the practicality of the journey of finding your passion. Not everything might be rosy when you find what you are looking. It’s also a matter of whether you are ready for the thorns as well. Roshan seemed to have found that resolve as he went on to do his master’s in business administration from XLRI. But his epiphany reminded me of something else that I had seen in his credentials. “So, is that why you have stayed away from making writing as your career? You were in the school magazine editorial team, became the chief coordinator of the annual college magazine, and were even the secretary of the PR club of XLRI. Why not try a hand at writing then?” I asked him, coming out of my reverie. “Well, I had another reason for that,” he chuckled at my confusion.
“You see, I was brought up in an economic mindset of independence by my parents. They always wanted me to have a basic safety net so that I didn’t have to struggle. So, my outlook for opting a path has been shaped from there. I always look at three things before I am deciding any course of career change – whether I am good at it, whether I enjoy it and whether it pays. There is no use chasing after dreams that only half fit into this spectrum. I am good at writing and thoroughly enjoy it, but I don’t have the necessary mindset to make a commercial career out of it. I was interested in planning, production, media, writing. But instead of blindly following a route, I wanted to take a rational approach. Marketing seemed to cover all the bases where I could bring my creativity and also keep a check on the economic sense. So, I joined XLRI.”
Roshan used the two years at XLRI, to keep that balance of business, marketing, and creativity. So, joining ITC Limited after his post-graduation was like the next natural step. “It was a great experience, understanding the different sectors and domains in those first few stints. I even took up a head office job around strategy, tapping into my interest of planning and management to the fullest. I was good at it, and yes it was a stable income. But I soon started to feel…something was missing.”
“I know that my trendline has been all over the place. I have valued different things during different points in life, leading me to various ventures. But throughout I knew that I wanted to stick to something I intuitively liked. It started out with marketing, sales, MBA, planning but it was time to relook at the roadmap with the passing times. So, what did I do? I redrew my roadmap, started my research again. What was booming now in the industry that I was good at? How could I combine it with what I enjoyed doing? I found my answers in consumer tech.”
Last week, Roshan moved from his stint at ITC to a seat at Google in their digital marketing department. “So, you think you have finally found what you are passionate about?”, I asked excitedly to which came his enigmatic reply, “Well, we will have to wait and see won’t we! I think there is no evident logic or mathematical equation that can define how to find your passion. It’s just a function of you – your personality, your upbringing, your experiences – too many variables to make the equation balanced at all times. But one thing is constant, which is that every single person has a quality that they are good at. At every turn in my career, I have tried to find that – through risks and research and reason. For me, it’s not about the pursuit of happiness, but the happiness of the pursuit. And that makes me feel okay about not having a singular passion. I get to then enjoy the journey of trying to find one. But for many, they go through their life without ever even undertaking that journey, because even more important than having a genius is being brave enough to be willing to identify it. Brave enough to swim through the tides and look for it. Brave enough to sense that connect and do something about it. Brave enough to put yourself out there and back yourself. Because passion without persistence is just a hobby.”
This is second in the series of The Passion Project. To know more about the author and the origination of this series, read here.
