You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.
- Michael Dell
The Journey of a Small Town Girl from an absolute ZERO in technical knowledge to a Full time Blogger & Podcaster..
A Complaint Redressal Officer at an Insurance Company to a Blogger and Podcaster, my journey has been an interesting one with a lot of learnings.
Today I run a minimalist home based business and am also able to take care of my little daughter.
Stay with me and let me know if you can relate to anything in my story..
My Corporate Story
First of all let me thank you all for visiting my blog @ The Tastes of India.
My name is Puja Darshan. I am a full time housewife now, spending some nice time with my daughter and my family.
For people who paused at “housewife now”, I think I should elaborate.
I was working with a leading Insurance Company for about 4-5 years. That was when I got pregnant and delivered my little baby girl.
Like all good organizations, my organization also gave me a 90 days maternity leave (The number of leaves for maternity has now been increased to about 6 months - a mandatory provision enforced by the government. In hindsight, I feel it was good that this provision wasn't available then. Else I wouldn't have been a blogger and would have been slogging it out for the company). My baby was only a month and a half when my leaves got over.
It wouldn't have been possible to leave my 45 days old baby and join my office. I had to spend some more time with my baby.
So I called up my employer and requested an extension for a month so that I am able to spend at least some time with my baby (The fact is that I had thought a thousand times before calling them up).
The answer was very prompt. “Why don’t you resign and join back later, because we might not be able give you anymore leaves”?
Not that I was expecting a different response. After all as an organization they too would have limitations, which is understandable.
But as an employee, I felt let down.
My loyalty and all of those hours I used to slog in my office didn't count.
In fact this is the moral of the story for anybody who is working on a 9-5 treadmill.
You live your life from paycheck to paycheck and then all of a sudden you find that the paycheck has stopped coming.
With all of those loans and bills that have to pay every month staring on your face, you are looking at a tunnel with no light in sight.
How secure is your life?
As you were busy building somebody else's dream, that's the question that you forgot to ask yourselves.
A Conversation that Changed my life
My husband is a computer freak.
In fact many a times I feel that mine was the 2nd marriage for him.
He was already married to his computer when I got engaged to him.
He was working a full time job with a leading technology company.
In his spare time, he used to do a lot of things. I had no clue what he was doing but I had often heard him say, that he is preparing for an early retirement.
I saw that he was working with websites and videos and blogs etc.
After I decided that I will resign from my job, I sat beside him with a long face discussing on how our finances would shape after I resign. He looked at me and said, “All that is taken care off. You don't worry."
"But tell me something. Do you want to work for yourself”?
I said, "Yes. But I am not technically sound".
He smiled and asked, "If I ask you what's the one thing your like doing, what will it be?"
"Cooking", I responded.
That is the day, this blog was actually born.
Though my husband had registered the domain long before I actually started to focus on writing for this blog, I felt the need to write, only after that slap from my organization.
The Tastes of India
I love cooking and am quite a bit innovative in cooking.
I like trying out different things, but am a firm believer that “Nothing Compares to the original”.
My husband is a foodie and he is the laboratory for my experiments.
“The Tastes of India” – is basically a tribute to the variety of food in India.
Across the length and breadth of India, you will find quite a bit of diversity in food. When the extreme North India love less spicy food, the extreme South love spicy food. That is the kind of diversity that you will find.
My objective with “The Tastes of India” is to present all of this diverse food to the world.
In addition to cooking, I love music – singing and listening to light music and spending most of my time with my baby.
I hope you enjoy your stay here.
There are some informative and interesting guides and books here on this blog. Do download them if any of those interests you.
You can reach me using that contact button on top. I read all of your emails and will respond to them as well.
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