Nothing Was Wasted : Lessons from an Uncertain Journey

There were two periods in my working life that I found particularly difficult: my years in call centres and my time assisting Members of Parliament. Both opportunities attracted me at first. Yet, once I began working, I often felt that I was spending my time and energy on work that was taking me away from the life I wanted. I was restless, impatient and sometimes deeply disappointed. Looking back today, however, I feel grateful for both experiences. The work that once seemed to delay my progress helped me support my family, continue my education and understand people whose struggles were very different from my own.

As I approached the end of my graduation at Fergusson College in Pune, I wanted to join an international call centre. There was some excitement attached to the idea of speaking with customers in the United Kingdom and the United States. But there were also pressing responsibilities behind that ambition. I am the eldest of my siblings, and I wanted to help arrange the marriage of the eldest among my sisters. In the circumstances in which we had grown up, girls were generally married young. She was around twenty, and further studies did not appear to be the path she wished to pursue. I had assured my father that I would work and save enough for her marriage. I also wanted to put aside money for my education. Since Class XII, I had hoped to prepare for the civil services examination.

Getting a job in an international call centre proved much harder than I had expected. My English was reasonably good, but I had studied in Marathi-medium government schools, and my speech carried a strong influence of my mother tongue. Employers expected a level of spoken English that I had not yet developed. My typing was slow, and I had very little knowledge of computers. I was also appearing for my final-year examinations and did not yet have a graduation certificate. Some back-office positions required graduates, while certain voice processes accepted undergraduates who met their communication standards. I particularly wanted a voice process because speaking directly with customers abroad, I believed, would help me become more fluent and confident.

I must have appeared for close to a hundred interviews during that search. Each rejection reminded me of something I still needed to improve. After a while, the repeated disappointments became exhausting. I eventually accepted a position with Tata SerWizSol in Kalyani Nagar, Pune, working in customer care for Tata Sky. I stayed for about three and a half months before leaving without serving the required notice period. Looking back, I recognise that I should have fulfilled that obligation. My impatience does not excuse it. At the time, however, I was determined to enter an international process, attracted by better pay, transport facilities and the opportunity to speak regularly with customers overseas.

The interviews began again. After further disappointments, I secured a position with Zensar Technologies in Pune. Before beginning the work, I underwent two months of extensive voice and accent training. I had to listen carefully, practise unfamiliar sounds and learn to make myself understood more clearly. The assignment itself, however, left me dissatisfied. It was a blended process for an American dental-equipment company, combining different kinds of customer support rather than offering continuous telephone conversations. My responsibilities included following up on overdue accounts and asking customers to clear their pending payments. The salary was also lower than what some other call centres offered.

I had never intended to make a long career in that industry. My purpose was to earn, fulfil my family responsibilities and save enough to begin serious preparation for the civil services examination. That made me impatient with anything that seemed to slow me down. After completing six months at Zensar, I served my notice period, collected my experience certificate and moved on. At Mphasis, then an EDS company, I finally entered a full voice process. I worked with customers of Abbey, the British bank that was part of Spain’s Santander group. By then, training and practice had made me much more comfortable speaking with people abroad. I remained there for about a year and a half before moving to other, better-paying opportunities.

My work with the British bank included the difficult year of 2008, when the financial crisis was unsettling lives across the world. Sitting in Pune with a headset, I encountered some of its consequences through the people who called us. Their worries entered our working day through conversations about account balances, overdrafts, unpaid dues and bank charges. A financial crisis could appear distant when described through markets and large institutions. On the telephone, it had the voice of someone who had lost a job or did not know how to meet the next household expense.

There was also resentment about jobs being handled from India while people in Britain were themselves struggling to find employment. Many customers directed their anger at us. Some used abusive language, and as customer-support employees, we were expected to remain composed and continue the conversation. Being insulted while trying to do one’s job was painful. Yet I gradually understood that some callers were speaking from fear, frustration and a sense of helplessness. Their circumstances did not make the abuse acceptable, but they helped me understand why an ordinary conversation about a bank account could become so bitter.

Some of the hardest calls concerned overdrafts and the charges that followed when customers could not make payments on time. In certain accounts, incoming money would be absorbed by outstanding dues and accumulated charges. From the bank’s side, these were amounts to be recovered. From the customer’s side, that money might have been needed immediately for food, household expenses or the care of a child. As an employee, I had to explain the account and work within the rules given to me. I had little authority to change the situation, even when I could hear how much distress it was causing.

I particularly remember young single mothers who cried while speaking with us. They described trying to care for their children with the limited support or benefits they received. When money entered their accounts and was taken towards outstanding charges, they feared being left with too little for their children’s needs. Listening to them was difficult. I could explain a transaction, but an explanation could not relieve their worry. There were moments when the person on the other end needed patience and understanding as much as information, while the working system required us to move quickly towards completing the call.

Those conversations stayed with me. I was a young man from a forest village in India, working to meet my own family’s needs, listening to people in Britain who were struggling to meet theirs. Our circumstances were different, but I could recognise the anxiety of having responsibilities greater than the money available. Until then, life in a wealthy country had seemed far removed from the insecurities I knew. The calls showed me how unemployment, debt and the fear of being unable to care for one’s family could unsettle people there too. I was learning about human vulnerability through voices I would never be able to put faces to.

Meanwhile, my own life was passing through a painful period. I lost my father, and the responsibilities I had hoped to share with him became heavier in his absence. My sister’s marriage took place in a simple ceremony in Pune, but even that required me to borrow money from friends. Once the marriage was over, I had to repay those debts while continuing to save for my studies. I remain deeply grateful to the people who stood beside me. Deepak Sir and Lata Tai became like family. My friends Mangesh Dhawan and Sandip Pol helped me financially when I needed support. Their kindness gave me room to manage responsibilities that would otherwise have been much harder to carry.

The work itself was demanding. In one assignment, we were expected to maintain an average handling time of about 247 seconds per call. Within those few minutes, we had to understand the customer’s concern, respond appropriately and complete the necessary work. Taking longer could affect our performance figures. Repeated difficulties could bring sharp criticism from team leaders and floor managers, and continued failure to meet expectations could put the job at risk. The pressure was especially hard to bear when a distressed customer needed more time. I struggled with these demands and somehow continued, but I often felt that while I was meeting targets at work, my educational ambitions were standing still.

To earn more, I also taught in coaching classes during my weekly days off and sometimes on working days. Teaching brought me closer to something I enjoyed, but fitting it around my employment required considerable effort. The call-centre shifts were irregular. At times I worked during the day; at other times, through the night. Changes in working hours disturbed my sleep and affected both my physical and mental well-being. There were days when life seemed to consist almost entirely of work, travel, tiredness and calculations about money. I worried that the years in which I should have been studying were slipping away.

Eventually, I earned enough to repay my debts and save something for my education. I left the call-centre industry, joined coaching for the civil services examination and returned to my preparation. My journey later brought me to Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. The four years I spent there, two pursuing my M.A. and two my M. Phil., gave me something I had missed for a long time: space to read, think and spend time on my intellectual development. There were still concerns about the future, but my days were no longer measured by the length of a customer call. I could give sustained attention to a book, a classroom discussion or a question that interested me.

It was at JNU that I began to recognise more fully what the call-centre years had given me. I could speak with classmates from far more privileged educational and social backgrounds without feeling overwhelmed. Years of listening to unfamiliar accents, explaining matters clearly and responding to people I had never met had strengthened my spoken English and confidence. The work had enabled me to help my family and finance the next stage of my education. What I had experienced mainly as a delay had prepared me to make better use of the opportunities that followed.

My studies in international relations also gave me a language for understanding the human stories I had heard. When I encountered the idea of human security, I could connect it with those telephone conversations. Security included the ability to earn a livelihood, provide food, care for children and face the future without constant fear. I remembered callers whose lives had become uncertain because they had lost employment or become trapped in debt. Concepts discussed in the classroom became easier to understand because I had listened to people experiencing those insecurities. Without realising it at the time, I had carried part of my education into the university with me.

After completing my M.Phil., I began assisting Members of Parliament. Once again, the opportunity excited me. Entering Parliament and helping an elected representative with correspondence, parliamentary work and constituency matters seemed meaningful. I hoped that my education in international relations and political science would find a useful place in that environment. I had completed two higher degrees at JNU and cleared the National Eligibility Test for being an Assistant Professor. I wanted to contribute and become financially secure. Instead, I found myself earning roughly what I had earned in call centres about five years earlier, and sometimes even less.

That difference troubled me deeply. After further years of study and two additional degrees, I was struggling to earn as much as I had earned as a graduate. Delhi was expensive, and my responsibilities had not become lighter. Two of my younger sisters were pursuing their Master of Social Work degrees in Nagpur, and I needed to support their education. I repeatedly asked myself what my qualifications had changed. I valued my education, but that did not make the financial strain easier. The distance between what I had hoped for and what I was experiencing became a source of considerable distress.

There was also the question of dignity at work. Some of the parliamentarians I encountered did not treat their private secretaries with the respect that any working person deserves. The proximity to public office could appear impressive from outside, while the daily experience could be discouraging. I had entered the work hoping to use my abilities, but there were times when I felt undervalued and uncertain about my future. Those roughly three years tested my patience. I continued because there were bills to pay, family members to support and no clear alternative immediately before me.

The opportunity to teach at Shyam Lal College changed the direction of my life. I remain grateful to Principal Prof. Rabi Narayan Kar Sir, whose trust gave me the chance to serve as an ad hoc Assistant Professor. Teaching offered me a sense of purpose that I had struggled to find in my earlier employment. My education became part of my everyday work, and the classroom gave me opportunities to learn while helping students learn. Principal Sir, our IQAC Director, Prof. Kusha Tiwari Ma’am and my senior colleagues treated me with care and affection. Their encouragement helped me grow within the institution. In 2023, I secured a permanent appointment, bringing a measure of stability for which I had worked and waited for many years.

With greater stability came the ability to look back more calmly. I began to see that my parliamentary work, too, had given me something valuable. I had entered Parliament regularly and observed its functioning from close quarters. I had assisted with concerns that constituents brought to their elected representatives. I visited ministries and government offices, including the Prime Minister’s Office, to follow up on matters connected with the constituencies of the Members of Parliament I served. These experiences helped me understand the practical work around institutions I had previously studied mainly through books.

I also saw how much effort can lie between raising a concern and securing a response. A letter had to be drafted carefully, a matter explained clearly and a request followed up. I became more familiar with policy discussions and administrative processes. Somewhere during those years, I made a promise to myself that I would one day contribute meaningfully to public policy in Bharat. At the time, I was too troubled by my immediate circumstances to appreciate everything I was learning. Today, as a teacher of political science, I recognise the value of having observed those institutions at work.

The call-centre and parliamentary experiences now seem connected in ways I could not see then. In one, I listened to people struggling with the consequences of economic insecurity. In the other, I saw citizens’ concerns enter the offices of elected representatives and government departments. Both brought me closer to the difficulties people face when they need an institution to respond. They also showed me how much depends on whether the person handling a concern listens carefully, explains honestly and treats another human being with respect.

I do not wish to make those years appear easier than they were. The exhaustion was real. So were the financial worries, the disappointment and the fear that I was falling behind. I sometimes felt that I had lost too much of my youth while trying to meet responsibilities that could not be postponed. Looking back with gratitude does not erase those feelings. It allows me to understand that a period can be painful and still leave us with something useful. I can acknowledge the pressures of those jobs while remaining thankful that they helped me move forward.

Both experiences also remind me that my journey was never mine alone. My father’s hopes stayed with me after his passing. My family’s needs gave urgency to my efforts. Friends lent money and offered reassurance when my own resources were insufficient. Later, mentors and colleagues gave me opportunities and treated me with dignity. Whatever I have been able to do rests partly on that support. Remembering the difficult years brings their kindness into clearer view.

As I bring these reflections together, I see a connection between the young man searching for a call-centre job, the student finding his place at JNU, the private secretary walking through government offices and the teacher standing before a classroom. While living through those stages, I often saw only the distance between where I was and where I wanted to be. I now understand how one experience helped me enter the next. Telephone conversations strengthened my confidence and widened my understanding of human hardship. Parliamentary work brought me closer to public institutions. Teaching has allowed me to draw upon both.

I still have much to learn and much that I hope to contribute. But I am less willing now to dismiss a difficult chapter of life as worthless merely because its purpose was unclear to me at the time. Some experiences reveal their value slowly. We understand them better after we have moved beyond them and discover that something we learned there is helping us in the present.

The two kinds of work I once disliked most have become part of the foundation on which I stand. They helped me care for my family, return to education and find confidence in unfamiliar surroundings. They also left me with the memory of people whose voices carried worry, anger and hope. I would not choose every hardship again, but I can honour the effort it took to pass through those years, and the people who helped me along the way.

What I once thought was wasted time has become part of the life I am grateful to have lived.