The coolest things in life are things that you
have not done before. - Afrojack
Good Morning
toastmasters. I am Kavitha. I was born and bought up in Chennai – Saidapet to
be specific. Both my parents were government employees. My father was working
in MMDA and mother in PF. It was a nice beginning. But something tragic
happened all of a sudden. When I was 3 years old, my father passed away. I
still remember what happened on that day. There were several people around
calling to me and trying to hide the truth from me. I simply told them, “You
know what...? My father is dead” putting them into surprise. But at that time I
did not know that I will not be able to see him anymore. And that was the end
of my tragedy.
From then on my beautiful
childhood days started in Saidapet in my grandfather’s house. I studied in
Alpha school which is the next building. I have a brother who is 3 years elder
to me. We used to play and watch a lot of cricket during our childhood days. I
was always on the batting end and he was always on the bowling end. He was a
cricket champion in school but he was not able to get me out because I was the
umpire of my own game. My brother would not mind because he knew that I would
not play at all if he insisted me to bowl. Now he is in France. Whenever he
came here for a vacation it would be funny to see my daughter on the batting
end and his daughter on the bowling end all the time. History indeed repeats!!
I completed my schooling
and then my college and I got placed in the very first company. I still
remember my first interview. I was so tensed to an extent that, the interviewer
offered me a glass of water and asked me to relax before answering his
questions. Finally, I was one among the three people who got selected. When I
saw the offer letter it said the retirement age is 58. I really thought that I
was going to work in Wipro and get retired. I have worked for 3 different
companies in 7 years so far J. Isn’t it funny how we think and how it actually turns out
to be?
When I was 25 my mom
started looking for an alliance. Whenever the boy was from Ambatore or Tambaram
she would say, it is far away from Saidapet, let us see someone from Ashoknagar
or West mambalam. You know what? I ended up marrying a person all the way from
Salem who is our fellow toast master here. The first time when I visited his
place I expected a lot of greenery and paddy fields and motor pumps. I grew up
watching lots of Bharathiraja’s movies J. It was disappointing to see the same traffic,
houses and buildings there. There was not a single paddy field. But something
interesting waiting for me there was his good collection of books. When he
first asked me what books do you read, I proudly said, “I read Sydney Sheldon,
Jeffrey Archer, R.K. Narayan, Chetan Bhagat!! He asked me one question that
transformed my reading habits. He asked me, “Do you still read story books?”
I became a fan of Robin
Sharma later on. He suggests lot of things, including waking up early, eating
healthy, spending time with children, learning new things etc. I am religiously
following the “learning new things” part of it. Working very hard to bring
about “Waking up early” part. I see to that I learn a new skill every 6 months.
Whenever I learn a new skill I would feel like a new window opening from
within. That is how I learnt knitting, crocheting, composting, gardening,
baking, playing the veena, learning French etc. For most of the skills,
“Youtube” was my teacher. I am still in the process of learning and love to be
a learner always.
Thank you!
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