Shekhar Natarajan

And I don't basically think about my journey any different than most of the middle class family in India.

Probably I was a little bit more impoverished than others.

But poverty was my origin story.

It was not my destination.

And for me, one of the ingredient of what I became, who I became is my mother's will and her code.

So a lot has been talked about people's

like journey in life and other things they rarely talk about the the genesis of that like what like was the bedrock of that you know kind of beginning and my mother when I was like my both my brothers went to Jesuit school you know and she's not as educated my father used to deliver telegrams in those days you deliver telegrams for only two reasons money or bad news

Going to a house and saying like, you know, someone has passed away or about to pass away or here's your money, right?

And he used to cycle 15 kilometers and all that stuff.

So when my mother said, okay, like my third son, like he has to go to the same school as my two elder brothers.

I went and interviewed.

They asked me what colour it was.

I said it was blue.

It was grey at first.

And then they wanted for like some, you know, it's a Jesuit school.

So we were all expecting that we change religion to actually go to the school and other things.

And she said, hell no, I will never do that.

and she stood by her by her conviction and every day for 365 days she went and stood in front of the head minister's office not protesting just standing just standing like she used to drop my brothers she used to stand there till 10 30 and she'll like just stand there just stand

And the principal would like, you know, go around and like, you know, he'll find like the shortcut, like, you know, he couldn't ignore her after a while.

And after 365 days, the guy said like, enough is enough.