About Rathish Poovadan

This is a sort of an auto-biography. Each phase of my life is categorized here. So unless you are used to read biographies, don’t choose this path. Just kidding, I have tried my best to make it look like a story telling. Hope you enjoy reading about me and please leave your comment at the end of the page on what you feel. Thank you.

Me and my family

I was born on July 31st 1983. My family consists of eight members. We have been staying at Evergreen Cottage, DLRL Colony, Meerpet, Hyderabad for more than 20 years. My dad, Poovadan Rajan, is a retired defence personnel He is a very jovial and a hard working person. Till date, I ask his advice. Currently he is working at LNT Electronics. My mom, Rajyalakshmi Poovadan, is a home maker. One of her specialities is her cooking; from sweets to any and every Indian recipie, she has an expertise. My brother, Ranjish Poovadan, is a truly wonderful person. Tall, handsome and smart. Some or most of the times, people assume that he is my younger brother. A very hardworking person, he started off his career as a Sales executive. Later on moved in Hospitality services – F&B. Currently, he is a head bartender in Celebrity cruises. His wife Veena R Poovadan, was a teacher and was in the process of transitioning as a college lecturer. Currently she is a home maker and is raising two great kids. Their elder daughter Anushka Poovadan is a chubby girl. Naughty but sweet, she steals everyone’s heart. She calls me ‘Chachu’. Every child needs to be afraid of someone in the family to maintain discpline. I maintain that role of evil uncle who comes whenever she doesn’t eat or wets her dress! Their second daughter is Ranvitha Poovadan, born in 2010.  Apart from us, my cousin P Smitha, an intelligent and beautiful girl, stays with us. She is currently working at Dell Computers as a Tax Analyst.

My Schooling

I had started off my schooling at Defence Labs school. I was a very studious person but I had a problem. I was always interested in my brother’s subjects than mine. In my third standard, I got hooked to Geography. In my fourth standard, my dad bought a globe-game where in, on rotating the front piece, you can select a country from a list of 50 countries. In the cut-outs, various attributes of the country like population, capital city etc. were present. During the summer vacation, I learnt the capital cities of all the 50 nations in that game. By fifth standard, I got the Chemistry fever – started learning all the elements and their respective atomic weights from my brother’s text book! In the school, as kids, we were interested in TV shows with gangs and gang leaders. I was never a part of any so called gang but kept equi-distance from both the gangs. This helped me in minimizing fist-fights, if not eliminating, as Wrestling (then known as WWF) was a hot subject among boys.

Later on, I moved to St.Mary’s Public school, in my Eighth standard to complete my SSC as there were some union problems in the previous school. Although the name suggested that this was a convent school, it had a 50-50% Hindu-Muslim population. Although I was a Hindu, I was not fluent in Telugu. The Hindus (mostly Telugu speaking) didn’t involve me in their discussion. The Muslims were not comfortable with me as well due to the religious affiliation. Though my talks were revolutionary, I was not a good fighter. In my three years of stay there, I had carried home a punch mark on my face like Michael Corleone’s famous scar in Godfather (unlike in the movie, the scar was only for a week!); smashed the middle finger of my right hand; and dirty dress due to regular fights in the ground. Although I used to be a loser most of the times, there was one instance which thought me a lesson all through my life. I was always troubled with one particular guy. He was tall and a very bulky character. He always used to hurt my religious sentiments. One day I decided that enough was enough. I challanged him openly to fight with me. I was so pissed that I wanted to kill him in that fight (ignorance was a bliss, I guess – used to think jails were where you grow beard and look deadly). I started learning tactics on how to attack the weakest parts of human body like neck, groin etc. On the D-day, he came and said that he was not interested to fight with me and left off. This won appreciation from my friends and started respecting me then. The simple lesson – stand up, be bold, never be afraid of your opposition and always be ready to take up challenges remained with me always.

My Intermediate Education

I did my intermediate at Ideal Junior college. Two years that I spent over there were not so interesting for me. Day dreaming, failed love and a series of wrong choices had changed the course of my life for worse. I failed the intermediate exams big time. During these times, I was not myself. I remember an instance where in a girl in bus stop pointed out a guy and said that he was following her for a long time, I simply gave a company to her till her home. It was only the next day that I was thinking about the incident that I realised that the girl actually wanted me to thrash that guy! During class as well, I used to dream that the ‘real Rathish’, a handsome and intelligent person would break out of me. Life went in pipe-dreaming. When I finally realised what I was up to, it was too late. Due to this, I wasted one year of my life. But this one year taught another rule in life – it doesn’t matter who you are, how good you speak or how friendly you are; what matters is your performance. Neighbours, friends etc. who were always good to me started taking me for granted. There was a look and feel of superiority in their communication. Whether it is performance in your exams or in your work – as long as you are performing, you’ll be in the elite circle. Stop performing, you’ll be considered as a junk. I joined a computer course at BDPS, Dilsukhnagar. Although I was fascinated by the power of computers, I never had actually used it effectively till I joined that course. I got a hang of dealing with computers. It was a wonderful feeling of making a computer, a machine that is at least 1000 times faster than you, do what you want it to do! While the people of my age were dreaming of getting through EAMCET exam to get an Engineering seat, I was pursuing hard for BCA entrance, which was later a sinking ship. The entrance was a mix of Analytical and Mathematical questions. I really worked hard for that. Stopped contact with the outside world and was concentrating only on the entrance. I cleared the entrance by achieving 98th rank among 12000 candidates!

My Degree life

I had opted for Aurora College to pursue my BCA. There was a two month gap between the exams and college induction. I took advice of some of the seniors in the course and other computer professionals. They advised me to purchase a book called ‘Let Us C’, a C programming language book. I studied that book religiously. In spite of not having a computer at home, I mastered every aspect of it. My brain started working as a computer. Whenever an assignment is given in the book, I used to write a program and then test it my self by thinking what a computer would do and process the output. Finally, for my satisfaction, I used to enter that program in a computer in college lab to see if it was correct. By the end of first year, I convinced my brother and dad to buy a computer for me. In my second year, we had Visual Basic (VB). Microsoft used to release the entire range of their tutorial content, program examples etc. in a set of 5 discs called the MSDN Library. During the vacation, I went through the entire collection and started learning it. By the end of it I was so proficient that I was better than the lecturer. Any assignment that he gave us was completed by me within a minute or two while other students took 10-15 minutes. Even after all of this, I was not a part of the so called Elite club because people started to look me as a ‘geek’ who helps in practical exams. When it comes to theory, I still was an average candidate. I convinced myself that I had to do two things. 1) Rather thang being a geek kinda person, I need to be flamboyant. 2) Get good marks in theory subjects while pursue my dream of programming to make some useful products (in one of the programming expeditions, I created a Piano using the C language)! I started sitting with people who mattered the most. Used my ‘rare collection’ of social non-veg jokes to get people attracted to me. By this time I also had mastered the internal working of computers and gave free consulting to friends and the friends of the friends to fix their system issues. This was my social networking at that time! There is one more incidence that I would like to share. My brother had once gone to the Music world store along with me. There was one pretty girl shopping over there and my brother started to flirt with her. Next day, he told me that he was embarassed to be with me – I was unshaven, rugged hair, shirt not tucked in etc. This triggered one more need in me. I need to groom myself with different hair-styles, be clean shaved and stay in shape (though the last attribute is not met yet!). Coming back to the college life, like I said, I was very good – but only in Practicals. In regards to the theoritical part, I knew only God could help me. So, I went to Chilukuri Balaji temple for that. The divine request had been fulfilled, I passed out with a distinction.

My career

After the completion of my degree, I wanted to do a course in Linux. I opted for Software Technology Group (STG) to pursue the course. After the completion, I tried my hand at various places. One of them was at Jiva Internet Solutions as a System Administrator. I quit it even before I joined it! Within a week, I realized that the only thing I had to do was watch and wait for a problem to appear. This was not my cup of tea. I went back to STG as there was an opportunity to teach Linux. As always, I had a rebel inside me. One of the reasons why I had joined the Linux course was to satisfy that rebel. Open Source software had just started it’s revolution and I wanted to be a part of it while it was spreading in India. It seemed a good idea to get paid for what I loved to do. I was at STG for an year and had to leave as it’s Hyderabad center was loss making branch and couldn’t pay salaries on time. Before leaving, I had a plan to start my own company by collecting some of my unemployed friends, train eachother in different skillsets and source projects from USA. This had been a failure as, out of three, two got a job and one got a Visa to the US. Meanwhile, I had learnt the PHP technology. I got an offer to teach PHP/MySQL in Welly Technologies. This was through one of my contacts in STG. Since I was in need of money, I accepted it immediately. Simultaneously, the Regional Manager of STG called me up stating that there was an offer to teach Operating Systems at Magnus School of Business (MSB) on a per hour basis. I struck a deal with both of them in such a way that I’d teach MSB daily and then move on to teach at Welly. MSB would pay me hourly and Welly would be paying 40% of the revenue generated by me. My contract with MSB was for six months. Times change, mindset changes and people change. I had noticed that many of my friends who joined call centers were earning much more than what I had been earning and had a lavish lifestyle. The worst part was, I was driving close to 40 kms a day and people working call centers were enjoying cab service. At the end of contract, I took a break and decided that my next destination needs to be in a Call Center.

One of my friends in MCA (which I started through IGNOU but couldn’t complete) mentioned that her sister got through a call center called 24/7 but couldn’t finish training and was attrited. That raised its standard in my mind. It stuck in my mind that the next thing I had to do was join 24/7 and survive at leaset for an year. The first impression of 24/7 was not a good one. I had to go through dusty, sandy under constuction site while attending the final round of interview. Later I came to know that they were moving in to this new location and had only one floor ready then. When I entered the office, it changed my perception on how an office should look. This place was looking like heaven to me while my previous organizations were nothing less than cramped office space when compared to this place! There were many flat screen computer monitors and a lot of Avaya phones along with head sets and this created an ambience of a professional environment. I decided – no matter what, I had to get in to this company.

Four years and four months since the induction in 24/7, I saw a lot. From a modest Billing agent, I got in to Tech support. Then, when an opportunity for a pilot Chat process arrived, I tried my luck and got in to that. As imagined, a pilot process gave growth easily. I excelled in the process. The main criteria there was Customer Satisfaction score. As if it was in my blood, I made my customers happy! They in turn made me happy by filling great surveys. My command over English helped me a lot. Soon, I was promoted as a Floor Supervisor (Subject Matter Expert). Later, I got through the CALS and got promoted as a Team Lead. Due to some immediate requirements, I had to handle a team of 50 agents and two SMEs in the very beginning! It was a really tough job but I held my horses. I guess I was one of the very few Team Leads in the organization who had the opportunity to work with company Director and the Vice President. But that stint really helped me. Not only to become a better leader, but also a better human being. I learned the power of having a Positive attitude. I immediately started reading books on Personality development, positive attitude and leadership skills.

The turning point

One  of the positive attitude books that I read was ‘Think and grow rich’ by Napoleon Hill. There was an incident in my life which let me re-think about my views on making money. With the ideas from the book, I decided that I need to earn ten crore rupees by December 10th, 2010. I laugh at it when I think about it now. But I was a different person at that time – with the rage to make it big. To put the complete efforts, I resigned from my job as a Team Lead in June 2010. I started my career as an Intra-day stock trader. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it. For big rewards I put in big risks and they back-fired. Also, the income from the trading was negligible while my Mortgage payment, retirement fund payment and other expenses were running as usual. I was going through a depression state still I was not ready to give up. I received a call from IBM (my friend Idris had referred me a couple of months ago) but didn’t respond to it. It was my brother’s advise (or actually bashing) that brought sense to me of my situation. Life usually doesn’t give a second chance. But Lord Sri Krishna’s grace was always upon me. I got a call from IBM again. This time I didn’t give up. Excelled in the interviews and got the job as a System Service Specialist. From a Team Lead, back to an agent level is not much comforting. However, from a jobless situation, getting a job is much better. Also, the added perks like working at your comfort level, coming home on time and leaving the job at office desk are like toppings on the cake.

Marriage

After settling down in job, I felt that I needed a partner in life to share my feelings. Even parents were putting forward the idea to get married and I acknowledged them. My uncle in Kerala, PK Madhavan, helped us a lot in arranging us in meeting the girl’s family. We set out to Kerala in the month of February. I set a record of sort. Started morning at 9 and returned home evening at 8:30 PM. All in all we met 11 girls that day! To keep a count of the girls, we started tagging the girls with a number and an identifier – like the one who has dogs or the one where we forgot footwear! Finally I zeroed in girl # 8. Response from their end was positive as well. Her name is Reshma. We got engaged on March 24th and  got married on May 5th, 2011.

The road ahead…

Now that I have a dependent with me, I have planned to tread my life carefully. I have taken some decisions which I think look good enough now (July 2011). Career wise, I have decided to stay with IBM and am looking to get in to Project Management and get certified in it. Reshma is currently pursuing some computer course. Once she is done with it, I want her to stay in IT sector. We have decided that we won’t have children at least for two years (unless I get naughty…lol). This is my projection for the next two years but will update this page by July 2012.