2018 : Annus Horrible

In December of 2017, at an IIM Alumni gathering at Pune, we were all playing a game, where we were asked ‘what is your superpower’. Mine, I proudly declared, was Grit. At a short age of 40, I truly felt I had seen it all : I had seen more ups and downs, I naively believed, than most people in their lifetime would. I had battled depression, recovered from child sexual abuse, seen and coped with mental health issues within the family, and I had not just survived, I had thrived. I had a job I had dreamed of having since I was a teenager, , a loving supportive spouse, a thriving pre-teen, hobbies I cared for deeply  about and a host of friendships and relationships all of which I had nourished over the years. Most most importantly, I had, over the years, constructed a worldview and built my value systems around that worldview in a way that defined who I was and what I stood for. I knew myself, I knew how the world operated, and I knew therefore how to operate in this world. So much certainty! As if 42 , my age in 2018, was truly the answer to life, to the universe, to everything. 

And then 2018 happened. Grit, my Superpower ? The Universe decided it was time to test me ! 

The year started on a sombre note. I spent Jan 3rd, sitting in a co-working space, firing our entire Delhi team. Shutting down an office we had only recently opened. There aren't too many worse things one can do, than making a bunch of people unemployed overnight. 

That was the beginning of the end, in many ways, of my tenure at my start-up. I was forced to confront issues I had swept under the carpet for far too long, wishing they would disappear eventually. And, barely one month after I had let go of a bunch of people, I found myself walking away from a dream I had held on to for over 2 decades. 

If you open my scrap book from 11th grade, you will see it scribbled somewhere that I wanted to to start my own company someday. It was a wish I had nurtured for decades. While I was at my start-up the company I co-founded, it seemed as if my entire life had been a preparation for this phase of my life. I was - to the job - born, and I excelled at it. I built it from a rough scratchy idea, to a thriving team of 40 people, who were as committed as I was to being the best in the business. We were already the best in Pune, and it would only be a matter of time, before the country, and then the world would be at our feet. 

There was one tiny detail though : this company that I treated as mine and built as mine, was not really mine, on paper. It was going to be,  though, just a matter of some cumbersome paperwork, I was constantly told. It is just that it never came to pass. And here I was, suddenly, 32 months of blood, sweat and tears later, left holding on to nothing. Nothing tangible. All taken away overnight, literally. 

What do you do when your carefully constructed worldview is smashed to smithereens ? When you realise that doing good does not guarantee good in return ? That what you see in people, is often coloured by what you want to see, and not by what truly is ? What do you do, when your dream of 20 years lies broken ? Who are you now ? Without the dreams and the values that defined you ? 

And then there was the impotent rage. The rage at having been had. Wanting to hit back, to maim, to destroy. But then having your hands tied down by cold reason. Do you know who you are taking on ? Did you want to spend 20 years going in and out of court ? Rage, impotent Rage. All encompassing, yet absolutely useless. 

And then there is the broken trust and the shards of over a dozen broken relationships. Did the world work in ways you didn't really understand? Why were you suddenly so alone, when it was you that had been wronged…sleepless nights and lonely angry days that seemed to go on and on..I heard stories of people destroyed by betrayals..would I be one amongst the skeletons? That people would whisper about ? ‘Oh you know…poor thing..’  

Days, weeks and months passed. As I tried to hobble back on my feet, the vultures swooped in: smelling wounded game. People came in with offers of engagements or business partnerships, with the hope that if she was so stupid once, she would be stupid again. Work with just a dangled carrot again. 

Still reconstructing my universe, still recovering from the shock of being edged out of the company I created, came a much much bigger blow. Suddenly, one ugly day in May, my ma decided she wanted to keep on sleeping. Never to wake up again. Here she was, breathing, laughing, talking, walking, eating, picnicing, gallivanting, and then just as suddenly, she was gone. Oh the vacuum a loved one leaves behind, that large gaping hole that stares at you where your parent used to be, that ache you have to hug somebody no longer there, the goosebumps you feel when you invade their personal spaces : touch their belongings, open their cupboards, rearrange their home ; that grief that grips you suddenly when you are not looking ; their voice that rings in your ears like they are speaking to you from the next room…

How arrogant of me to have thought ‘I had seen it all’? This grammar of loss, so different from the loss of my company, and yet both brand new to me. 

And yet, the the year was not done with me. The next six months challenged every single long held fear : There was a cancer scare,  then a debilitating pain that left me in trauma for days, then a fear of physical harm, then a domestic help crisis, a health crisis for my husband’s father…By the end of the year, it felt like the year had been one long hurdle race, with each month throwing up a new fun challenge, almost laughing at me saying ‘Gritty, are you ? TAKE THAT!’. 

But through this long dark challenging year, I learnt, more than ever, to find the silver linings , and to cherish them. The friends who listened patiently as I vented, the friends whose homes I escaped to , when I wanted to run away from Pune, the friends who called me, checked on me, and just took care of things for me when I needed it. The friends who took it upon themselves to coach me, counsel me and mentor me. The friends who were just acquaintances before this year, but decided that this down and out person was somebody they wanted to befriend this year. The friends who opened doors for me that I didn't think were possible to open. And finally, that rock solid cocoon that my family became, encompassing me with their love, their faith, and their positivity. 

I am reconstructing my worldview still. And luckily, it isn't very different from the world I knew to be true before 2018. Yes, people cheat, so trust, but verify. Give openly and fully, but learn to take as well. Dream, but cross the t’s and dot the i’s too. But, most importantly, people are mostly good. Thankfully, gratefully, the bad eggs are rare. And time, dear time, is your closest friend. When the tide seems to want to drown you, just breathe. And chant ‘This too shall pass’. Because, it will. 

2019 finds a wiser, humbler me. But also a stronger confident me. Will I say I am Gritty ? I am wise enough to admit : Maybe, but can I please not have to be ?