It's a story that is extremely Chicken Soup for the Soul -esque: young boy from a lower middle-class family, father loses job and poverty strikes, boy falls into bad company, suddenly sees the light and pulls himself out. But reality is a lot more than the cliché of an inspirational story tag. It's a story of struggle, hardship and realisation.
The title of Sunil Robert's debut book, I Will Survive: Comeback Stories of a Corporate Warrior , efficiently summarises the story of his life. Sunil's father lost his job when he was in the fifth grade and “it all went awfully wrong,” as he says. “There were two major issues. One was the adversity of poverty in a big city. Even something as simple as depending on people's hand-me-down clothing can fill you with humiliation. I also started blaming my father for not having a Plan B when he lost his job. I was a teenage boy filled with angst.”
Bad company in college only precipitated the problems, and he eventually didn't complete his course.
“I reached a point where I could see only two options,” Sunil says. “I could commit suicide or fall headlong into a life of crime.” But life doesn't have to be so black and white. Sunil went for a youth camp where he had his epiphany, and resolved to take a step of faith and try and get himself out of the mess he had created.
I Will Survive details Sunil's journey, including that of finding a job, despite the hindrance of lacking a graduate degree.
He got into sales with Eureka Forbes, which had a policy of hiring non-graduates as well. The job served him well but Sunil realised that education was a passport that he lacked. Correspondence courses for his B.A. came to his rescue, followed by an M.B.A.
Twenty years later, Sunil is working in New Jersey for T.C.S. and the turnaround seems complete. Writing the book seemed natural under the circumstances.
“I didn't expect it to do so well,” he confesses. “The media is cynical and usually snubs most inspirational stories as being hackneyed, but so many people get in touch with me, telling me they connect to it.”
He adds that his mother was extremely proud when she attended the Hyderabad launch last year. “It's my mother's story as much as mine. She's an extraordinary woman.” Sunil built bridges with his father as well, writing him a letter detailing the reasons for his rebellion and his ultimate love.
“Life is about who you are and who you relate to,” he says. “I know that, because I blew it up and then I managed to restore it.”
He's a shadow of his former self but Sunil claims that he is still a Hyderabad boy at heart. “There might be pollution and traffic, but there are also better roads,” he says.
“I love driving down the stretch from Sangeet to Begumpet. I still adore Paradise, and going to Golconda and Madina Hotel in the old city. The city might have changed, but it's still home.”
