I started thinkuldeep.com keeping in mind that we learn every day in all situations of life, good or bad. Our learning matures by sharing, we explore more of us by giving it away to others.

Recently my father turned 60, and has retired from government services. 60 years full of life is a quite big experience, where around 38 years he spent in serving the same Govt of Rajasthan. We can learn a lot from his life, especially the younger generations who are behind the money and super-fast growth, and change jobs every few years or months. There are a lot of differences in the fixed routine 9-to-5 jobs vs the corporate race we are running, both has it’s own side. Not sure, if I will ever be celebrating retirement for me like what we celebrated for my father’s retirement day. I shared some reflections on his life in the retirement day speech for him. I am sharing the brief here in this article.

Reflections from My father’s work life

My father, Shri Banwari Lal Dhundhara, has retired from services as a clerk at Public Health Engineering Department (PHED - Waterworks) in Rajsathan. As his colleagues explained on the retirement day that he worked hard, and served people with honesty, and great consistency, commitment, no matter what task came in his way. He has rich experience of different jobs to earn bread, from bus conductor to pump driver to a clerk and a farmer. There are so many things I learn from my father. It is very motivating, to see how he managed all the things like mine and my sister’s studies, family, home, work, farms and making us doctors and engineers while keeping his own profile quite low.

Watch the video below from the retirement day speech where I shared my 2 cents (It’s in Hindi/Local).

Out of so many things I learned, I explained here are 3 things from his life that I follow very closely, and that has shaped me what I am today.

Earn the wealth that brings prosperity

We have been taught from childhood that wealth earned with hardwork and honesty will always bring prosperity, and such wealth always takes us on the path of growth. That’s what my father did for his whole work life. He served people with honesty and hardwork.

This lesson started way back, when I was in 8th standard. I visited my father’s office and found that there were large book ledgers to record people’s water consumption data. However binding work for those books used to be given to an external vendor. I knew book binding very well, and asked my father if he could connect me with the right people there. I proposed a quite economical offer to the officer I met, and luckily I got the order to bind some books. I, with the help of my sisters, completed that and further orders for this binding work, and the day came when my father received Rs 1200/- for our work. Incidentally, on the same day, my father booked the land for our first house in town. He had this 1200/- in his pocket, and gave it as token money. I always remember that incident as life changing, and how wealth earned with honesty brings prosperity. We have never looked back after that, and are still growing. My father always inspires me to earn that prosperous wealth and not just the money.

Stay on the path of Truth

Choosing the right path is a challenging thing in life, unless one has the right environment, right people around. Staying on that path is even more challenging when the people and environment around you do not encourage you to follow the path, due to there not being enough successful instances, or people have not tried that path, but they keep sharing discouragement. My father has mostly spent his life in a village or small town.

He stayed on the right path that he chose, despite the discouragements from people around him. First thing that my father stayed strong on was letting me continue my studies. People shared multiple examples in front of him, such as how kids get spoiled when they study higher, especially when they stay under the influence of maternal grandparents, their love spoils them more. I was that kind of child, but my father ignored all those unwanted guidance allowed me to continue to follow my passion, and allowed me to go to Kota city to prepare for engineering entrance exams. I left with my grandfather to start a new journey at around 800km away from my place. I am sure it was difficult for my father, he might have a fear of me getting spoiled in Kota, but he never showed that fear to me. That fear was a motivation for me to stay focused on my path, and succeed.

Next thing for my father to let my sisters study, they were also good in their studies, and they proved it also. See story of them in earlier my article here. People’s discouragement didn’t stop here, they told my father that it would be very difficult to get the right life partner for these engineers and doctor’s he built. He stayed strong, and people’s opinion again proved wrong, we all got our life partners better than us in many ways.

These instances make me stronger to stay on the right path. There are always some obstacles, distractions and discouragements, but I try to stay strong like my father and stay aligned to the path of truth that I chose.

Down to earth

My father is down to earth person, he teaches with his life that no work is a small work, it’s just our thoughts that make us small. It does not matter much what others think about you but what you think about yourself matters. He has achieved so much that one can easily get his lifestyle changed, and such success sometimes comes on people’s heads that they forget their past and routes. He has made us doctors and engineers, and now he can easily afford a little luxury in life. I see my father exactly the same as what he was from the time I understood life. He still prefers bicycle or walk or some public transport for regular needs, and does farming, while we kids are running on cars, flying the world, and living in metro cities. I have never seen him talking or telling people about what he achieved in life, rather he shows from his work, his simple life that what he achieved.

I think we complicate our life. When I see my father’s lifestyle, it’s much simpler than that of mine (though I try to follow him, and keep it as simple as possible). He adapts to what is available, has no particular asks from other; eats what is cooked - hot or cold, sleeps wherever the place is available, wears what is available, travels on whatever is available, lives wherever life takes him. He prefers to go early in bed, and get up early, and prefers not to disturb others for his day to day. Keep lessor things in life, need lessor things to worry about.

I feel like, he follows the concept of “Why Worry?”. Try Why Worry Simulator - Click here to reduce your anxiety.

In my childhood, I heard a statement in a TV commercial “Simplicity has Strength”, that fits well to my father. I do follow it closely. Learning is a never ending process, life keeps teaching us no matter if we like it or not. Be flexible, and bring acceptance and flexibility can make it simple and happy. Enjoy!

Retirement day and more

I wanted to make my father’s retirement day 30 Jun, 2022 a very special event, and I was planning for it for a couple of years. During covid time, I got a chance to stay at my native place, and work from home there, and we also got our home renovated. See my story for renovation on what I learned and how I used the technology to convince parents to get it done. Retirement event was planned in that renovated native home. It was a great fun-filled get together.

The learnings continued from there. I applied the learnings in building a new home at my workplace Gurugram, and I am writing this article from that new home. I dedicate this new home to my father’s work life, and wish him a happy and healthy life ahead.

I will share some corporate lessons that I learned while building this new home and working with different people of different capability and skills. Stay tuned!