As I embark on my second entrepreneurial venture, I cannot help but write about my silent partner who has quietly egged me on in the last 25 odd years.
Being a wife to a modestly successful entrepreneur is hard, to say the least.
Self motivation.
Being motivated to succeed day in and day out, with no phenomenal success on the financial front is as I said earlier hard. But, still loving and respecting the person requires grit.
I sometimes wonder where did she get such maturity.
A few days after my father passed away, one of my relative, casually made a statement to the wall, that I control my wife.
This is a dangerous statement to make without knowing reality.
There can be nothing more farther than truth.
Two years into marriage, I realized my wife is a silent person, more silent than most of us.
I did not have any problems with that.
But, I was worried that this can lead to being an introvert and advised her to join an club or some such thing. Finally, when I mentioned this to a friend, he said get her join BJP (he was a corporator). She joined, and her membership entry should still be there in the Bengaluru Malleswaram Office.
As we are Telugu speaking, and she being average in Kannada, we realized it will be hard to progress.
So, I said, do whatever you like, I will support. But, I also realized some things better happen on their own.
Over a period of time we realized, what a hollow statement and a life approach it is, to think that a husband who loves his wife, is controlling her.
Every time a challenge comes our way, my dear wife has risen up and we have faced it together.
One of the first instance was when I had to face a long neglected real estate problem in our native town Gudivada. Seeing that I was loosing my career, travelling in not so comfortable situations, facing termagant tenants, and almost helpless, she thought hard for a week or so and got her uncle, a retired DSP to promise that he will stay with us till the issue is resolved.
We are indebted to the DSP who got us out of the problem, in which Communists and Local congressmen were involved – very few people know about this. This was in 1997. I lost nearly two years of my career.
Cut to 2015, a business which was fetching decent money, was shrinking due to digital content boom and I started looking for alternatives.
My wife being a diploma holder in computer science was not the obvious one to look for a job. Moreover, our father had to be looked after.
Simultaneously, my health started going downhill with no sleep and weight loss. And, seeing this my remaining few relatives stayed away!!
BTW, I still received a few calls from relatives, curious to know what is the STATUS!! 😉
Luckily, I got a job with CYIENT in a responsible position. I was doing well, almost cleared all debt, but again bad luck hit, one Mr. Menon tricked me into resigning and join an Engineering College as the Head of Incubator which is a story about which, less said the better.
We were back to square one.
And, Covid stuck.
With no income in sight, and no job in sight, no revival in she insisted I buy a new laptop, and keep trying new ideas.
All through this My Wife stayed put, even though we were accumulating debt, helped me back to health, and I started putting on weight.
Simultaneously, she tapped into her contacts, and finally after an year of search, got a neighbor who was her friend till 6th standard, in 1980’s in Repalle, to find her a job in the same area he was working on, ERP. Incidentally, ERP domain has proved lucky for us, and she has gamely stuck on to this domain.
He got her a job, and in the last six months, she brought all her experience of developing software and writing books into play, get herself two certificates in IFS – SCM and EAM.
As I write this piece, she has an offer at TechM in hand with a decent paycheck and seems we have overcome another challenge together, I think.
