My mentor

I am watching Lord of the Rings trilogy again and again these days. Somehow my sense of quest for new adventure has escalated in last few days. I have understood that I cannot live a routine. I need every day as a new day, new experience. Last time when I watched this trilogy these many number of times was when I was preparing for GRE. GRE is an exam is an entrance exam that everybody who would like to pursue MS or PhD in USA, need to appear for. That was new exciting, unnerving experience. I never had English as primary language in my academic career and suddenly I was supposed to be quizzed on difference between abate and abet. Those four months of preparation were quite a trying. Sometimes I did not even know the meaning of meaning, so journey would prolongate to even learn one word. I enjoyed that journey, every bit of it. It opened so many new avenues for me, not just education, job but also understanding the world a bit more - history, culture of all these countries which contributed to English language. In my mind LOTR and meaning of valor, strength, courage, and faith in yourself is intertwined.

But the question now is why I am watching LOTR again. I have been working at my current company for two and half years now. These two and half years were some of the best years of my life till this point. Why? These years taught me the importance of discipline, modesty, team work, tenacity, respect, care. One phenomenal thing that I learned is seeing somebody who has all of this still working day in day out. That was my mentor - Vishal. I still remember the first time I talked with him on the phone - his manly voice clearly expressed the authority that he hold but there was something else too, he was actually eager to know me better. I was just one of the member of Java Developers team a recent graduate from graduate school. He was gifted with ability to inspire, to accommodate, to train individuals.

Next two and half years went in knowing what a great team lead can do. He showed me how to convert impossible to possible, how to challenge the problem and find many alternative solutions. I always saw him thinking of another edge case when code may not work, and spend hours in the evening to find solutions. He created the team that thought of future. He always came up with exceptional ideas. The funny thing is that he always had an excellent plan set up in his mind before even he started five month long project. The plan would include not just the people or components needed but the strategy to solve the most challenging problems. He would attack the most challenging problems first, get them out of door in five/six days. We would see him working 20 hours continuously. All of us would be stunned to see the miracles happening one after other. Our words would fall short of his praise.

I never had to go out of my work place to find new challenges, so was not needed to watch LOTR to inspire me once again. Vishal created new puzzles for us to solve, provided us the path to reach to the goal and he was so selfless that somehow gave us all the credit for finding the solutions. He understood meaning of sacrifice. One usually does not easily understand other people's sacrifice, unless that person himself had sacrificed himself/herself to a cause. When you work together till 3 AM together to complete a part of puzzle, you have already missed on all the movies/ TV serials, family life, food, laughter. The only thing that matters at that point who is awake for you and help you feel better, understand your dedication. Outside office Vishal was always fun to hang out with. We used to discuss politics, history. He knew so much about all these things too.

A month ago, he left our team to pursue another opportunity after nine years of 110% dedication to our team and our company. I will miss him as my team lead but he will always be one of the people who provided foundation to my professional life. Thats the gratitude that I will always carry in my heart!!