The Odd One Who Made It Anyway

I left home at 18, alone, from a small town in Rajasthan to study in Gujarat. I wasn’t the kind of student anyone expected much from. School had been a battle—supplementary exams, barely scraping through. But something clicked in college. I went from being just another student to the best computer programmer in my batch. Not because I was a natural, but because I refused to be the person my past suggested I was.

Then came Chennai. Another city, another fresh start. But this time, I was different. I wasn’t the underdog anymore. I was the rebel. I didn’t just stand up to ragging—I flipped it on its head, ragging my seniors right back. My classmates were busy chasing grades. I was busy chasing skills. I switched from programming to design, joined every club I could—web design, entrepreneurship, marketing. I anchored a musical event even though, just months before, I couldn’t even introduce myself properly in class. I sold things, organized tech conferences, did impromptu pitches. I put myself in rooms where people were doing things I wanted to be good at. I made myself uncomfortable until I wasn’t anymore.

At 26, I did something no one in my Marwari family had done before—I married a Tamilian. No common language, no traditional approval, just the two of us figuring things out. And we did.

Then came another choice no one saw coming. I walked away from a high-paying design job. The culture sucked, and I wasn’t going to waste my life feeling stuck. So I chose the harder path. Earn peanuts, burn the midnight oil, work with early-stage startups, and build something real. And somewhere along the way, I stumbled into design recruitment—a field that barely even existed. I made it my own. Became an expert in it. Made a career out of something no one had a blueprint for.

In 2020, I started proving myself wrong in other ways. I had never been able to finish a book without dozing off. In 2023, I read 112. Writing? I couldn’t even finish a blog post. So in June 2020, I forced myself to write one. And then another. Over 100 blogs later, I no longer think of myself as someone who ‘can’t write.’

Solo travel? Never thought I’d do it. Did my first trip at 30. Five solo trips followed. Plants? I used to kill cacti. Now, my husband and I grow thousands.

And then, trekking. I couldn’t do a 15-minute hike without feeling like my lungs were going to give up. But in the last 13 months? Six Himalayan treks, each lasting four days. Was I the fittest? No. Was I the fastest? Definitely not. But I showed up, kept going, and made it through.

The past few years have taught me one thing: There are no shortcuts. But if you stay in the game long enough, keep stacking small wins, and refuse to let the world put you in a box, you can rewrite the whole damn script.

You just have to be willing to be the odd one out.