My father worked as a peon when I was a kid. I barely had any friends and could not afford any toys. He used to work really long hours everyday. He was sleeping when I went to school and I was sleeping when he got back from work. So we never really talked. I was not good at studies during school, later I got to know that I had severe ADHD. My teachers used to say that I am good for nothing and very talkative all my life which gave me a lot of anxiety.
I got into a CSE at a Tier 2 college. This was with the help of my cousin sister who used to tutor me after school and taught me how to think from fundamentals.
In college my seniors used to do a lot of ragging and make us not have food in the hostel mess. I lost a lot of weight and ended up with jaundice. This was the reason why I had a very bad CGPA in first year, <6. Slowly over the years I was able to bring it over 7.
I got into a service based company after college with a CTC of 3.75 LPA. I did not have any offers and I did not have anyone for guidance in my life. That is when I started to pick up some freelancing gigs and talked to people from other countries and cultures which educated me about top tech companies. So I started preparing for that.
I was rejected a total of 4 times by Amazon which completely broke me from the inside. Meanwhile my father got stomach cancer and he passed away. To this day my deepest regret is that my father did not see me finally achieving success in my life and till his last moments I am sure he thought of me as a failure son.
As I moved through my career I made a goal of reaching Google. I prepared very hard for an entire year with a lot of studying and preparation. Finally I got into Google. My family became very happy for me as I was the first person in my entire extended family to get such a package. After a lifetime of struggle I was finally content with where I am.
My only wish is that my father was here and his struggle for providing me with the best was not wasted.
