Life always gives you a second chance

it is said that life

gives you a second chance i have my

disagreement

i believe that life keeps on giving you

chances it’s up to you

if you want to take that chance or not

and i don’t say this

as a quote that i have read somewhere i

say this with experience

this is what i have lived and

experienced throughout my life

at 19 i was severely depressed at

20 i had taken to alcohol because of the

depression

by 21 i was an alcoholic an out and out

hopeless alcoholic

would start and end his day with alcohol

and at 26 that alcoholism had led me

into an ailment

where doctor gave me only a 15 1 5 15

chance of survival my white organs were

not functioning

and i was put on life support namaskar

my name is

vijay vikram singh i am an mba by

qualification and

a voice over artist and an actor by

profession

you would have definitely heard my voice

in one of the reality shows or the other

meet indian idol we dance india dance

meet super dancer with masterchef india

i have also given my voice to a lot of

art films commercials

and i have dubbed for english movies in

hindi as well

but my claim to fame is that i am the

narrator’s voice

on the biggest reality show in india

which is

big boss so the voice which tells you

who for this course of

conversation of around 18 to 20 minutes

i’ll be talking about

my journey and my learnings from that

journey

i’ll start with my early life i was born

and brought up in kanpur

a small town in uttar pradesh into a

family that

was middle class but eventually my

father lost a lot of money in business

and we had to experience extreme poverty

while we were growing up but

our parents ensured that all three of us

my older brother me and my sister

received the best of education

i always wanted to be an army officer

but

and you know i prepared myself for that

and

when i graduated i started appearing for

combined different services examination

i cleared

them and eventually i appeared for eight

ssb ssb services selection board which

is the interview process for

entry into army army navy or air force

as an officer

and i failed eight times all the eight

times

in a span of three years i failed and i

was not prepared for that failure

that failure that realization that i

cannot be an army officer

led me into severe depression which

you know uh pushed me towards alcohol

and i started drinking and i

started drinking like a maniac in

between all of this i also

appeared for cat and scored 92

percentile i took admission in

faculty of management studies when i was

in the university and my specialization

in the mba that i was doing was

international business so life was

actually not that bad but in my head

my life was bad and i was a worthless

creature because i could not be an army

officer

i had no plan b unfortunately and all

this culminated

into me drinking so much that

one fine day on january 31st 2005

i collapsed and i was i was working

in jp summit at that time and uh i was

in posted in

a place called satna which is a small

town in madipatis

i was diagnosed with severe acute

pancreatitis was the renal failure and

satna was not equipped

to deal with with such such an ailment

so i was referred to

sanjay gandhi pgi which is in lucknow

which is one of the best

medical institutes and i owe my life to

them but

when i was being admitted over there the

doctor bluntly told my mother that

all his vital organs are not functioning

his kidney liver are not functioning his

lung has 70 water high infection and his

chances of survival are

merely 10 to 15 percent it’s

most probably a wastage of money

investing in his treatment

what should we do and my mother the

residue lady that she is

stood up to the doctor and said you do

your job i will do mine

and that was very brave of her to say

that for someone who has

led himself into this

situation and for a family which was

struggling for money at that time

but my struggles have just started

uh in the next 30 days when i was in the

critical care unit of

scpgi and i underwent four or five uh

dialysis i was on life support and one

day

i think on the 15th day i had my immune

system was very weak and i suffered from

pneumonia and i experienced death from

close quarters

to this date uh that thought that that

memory

gives me goosebumps makes me very very

emotional but

yes and that day uh i i really saw

death from close quarters and that day i

realized that uh

that is not as beautiful as

it has been made out to be i’m sure you

would have uh read a lot about death

poets talking about that

there’s a beautiful poetry in anand

which says

foreign

in reality death is not even one percent

as beautiful as it is made out to be

it’s scary fortunately

that night i survived

i survived to tell my story

another 15-20 days miraculously i i

my vital organs started showing signs of

recovery and i recovered really well

to be discharged from the hospital just

before the starts there

they told my parents to walk me a little

i tried standing up i could not because

i was very very weak i had lost some 25

30 kgs

i was absolutely a skeleton and i

remember uh

trying to get up but i could not but i

wanted to and

my parents my brother and my mother you

know they supported me

and with their support i walked a little

and reached a window of corridor that

was the first time in around 25 days

that i’d seen

sunlight but that sunlight changed my

perspective towards life

that sunlight was light of positive

positivity for me

and that was the day i decided

that i am going to fight it out and i am

going to make a meaningful life

out of it i never thought that i’d be

famous or what i’ll do i didn’t know but

i

said to myself that no more negativity

and i think that changed my life

i always believe that we are all victims

of our thought process

and i personally was victim of victim of

my thought process at that time

and the moment that thought process

changed everything around me changed so

it took me another three months to

recover completely

and and be on my feet but after that

things started happening i

got into a very very you know

very nice job after that in the public

sector undertaking under ministry of

steel

i was looking after import financing

and i was transferred to bombay so when

i was in bombay

uh i thought my you know career is set i

am into a government job and that is it

what else can someone ask for and within

i think uh

an year of being transferred into bombay

a

friend’s friend told me that you have a

good voice and i said yeah but i can’t

sing

so you know i didn’t know that

there was a career that existed that you

can make out of your voice

i told you angie that i can’t sing she

said no there’s a lot that you can do

with your voice other than singing and

she took me to a studio

for an audition which was pathetic

because i had never faced the mic

but and the engineer said that you know

he has does have a decent voice but he

really has to work hard on it

uh it was very discouraging but i was

at that time i realized that this

is my calling i love that experience and

at

28 i decided

that i found my calling and i will now

work towards it

but it was not as if i plunged

completely you know immediately in uh

into another career of voicing left

everything and

plunging into intervoice and i didn’t do

that i did

some research i quit my government job

took up a job in a radio station

so that in the sales team so that i

could understand how media functions and

what all i need to do to be a voice

artist

and trust me uh media sales is one of

the toughest jobs that you can do

especially radio because at that time in

2007

uh we not only had to sell airtime for

our station we first had to sell the

medium which was radio because radio was

not that

acceptable a medium for advertisers so

we first used to sell the medium that

you know this really works radio really

works and then i used to sell

my station which was big 92.7 fm which

was under reliance at that time reliance

ada group

so but you know i i slogged myself for

two and a half years just to

understand how media functions to train

myself and i was really lucky to have

supportive bosses who

got me trained into in in voicing

let me do a lot of voicing stuff in

their studios after my job

and in 2009 i got engaged to get anjali

and i told her that you know look this

job which i have right now which has a

wonderful package this i might not have

a few months or few years down the line

because i plan

to get into voicing eventually

and she said why at a later stage why

not now

right now we’re getting married i have a

job and uh

once we have kids in all the

responsibilities we might not able to

explore or

experiment so do it right now so that

push that last push that was needed

was given to me by her and i took that

plunge

and took up voice over as a career in

2009 when

dance india danced season one

was launched i was given the opportunity

by the stars yeshua walker who’s my

mentor

to be the voice of that show and that

changed my life so life gave me another

chance

and i grabbed it and then 2010

i received a mail from endemol india

which is the production house which

produces

big brother or big big brother worldwide

and big boss in india that they’re

looking for narrator’s voice on that

show

and i also went and gave my cd and then

i was called for an audition and i still

remember

within one day of giving the audition i

was called to discuss monies and i was

finalized for the show and i

don’t think i’ve ever been so happy as

happy as i was on that day

that uh show has changed my life and

continues to be one of the biggest show

in my

in my career in my cv we are in the 14th

season of that show as i speak today

so life changed after uh big boss

happened

a lot of things became really easy then

life continued for another five years

and in 2014 i realized that probably i

have

started being repetitive in my voicing

journey and i i need to do something

or train myself a little more to be

better in this craft and someone

suggested that you should uh try theater

try doing theater do theater workshops

because

that’ll improve your other your

expressions and eventually that will you

know help you

find new grounds in voiceovers as well

so with the thought of

improving my voicing uh abilities i

started doing a little theater i did a

workshop with barry john

and they here also italy you know pushed

me into it i was thinking of doing it

but she was the one who pushed it

while you know doing that workshop with

barry and

i was that doing some theater i realized

that i started loving the

the whole process of acting and i

started doing more and more theater

uh i did a lot of plays with my group uh

abhidhammankar who cast me in alexander

versus chanak in the role of chanakya at

that time

and then i thought that if i’m loving it

let me you know explore it more in terms

of learning the craft a little more so i

worked with jeff goldberg to understand

method acting

i i worked with sachdeva to understand

myself technique a little bit

and in 2018 as luck would have it

so i also coach a lot of actors in voice

uh mr mukesh chardo is one of the

biggest casting directors in the country

called me

to coach one of the leading actors of

his film

for voice and that’s when he asked me

that i heard you act as well i said yeah

i do

and then he asked me why haven’t you

come for an introduction or audition

ever i said

i never got the time but i’m happy doing

theater and he said would you want to

give an audition i was more than happy

to do that

and he auditioned me for the character

of ajith and family man

and that’s how i made my debut in front

of the camera with

a show called family man which is which

will be into his second season soon

so all in all you know so basically uh

2015 life gave me another chance and i

grabbed it so the point over here is

that

life keeps on giving you chances life

keeps on giving

presenting you with opportunities it’s

up to you to recognize those

opportunities

and grab them with both hands one more

thing that i’ve realized

is the importance of stress in life

stress is not always bad

please remember we associate stress with

negative emotion but stress is not

always bad there is something called

eustress eu stress and distress

this stress is of course the stress that

breaks you the stress that we associate

stress with

but eu stress or eustress is the

positive stress that

brings the best out of you that deadline

to submit a project that you know

uh deadline to meet that sales target i

find all that stress to be very very

positive stress because

that is pushing you towards your limit

we as human beings are designed

in a way that our mind you know

functions in a way where we tend to

get into our comfort zone really easily

and we tend to

think that you know this is it so

pushing the limit

is is very very important and stress

plays an important role in

pushing that limit so always look for

those positive stress

don’t always look for stress as

something which is really bad of course

there’s a very thin line

but experience teaches you how to

differentiate between positive

stress and the stress that can break you

so stress is not always bad

and stress negative stress can always

lead you into depression but

please understand that please try and

look at positives that is happening

around you

it’s easier said than done when you are

in that state of mind

but it is important to not lose your

rationality and sanity when you are

depressed or when you’re

undergoing a negative emotion so it’s

very very important to keep

try and keep negativity at bay it’s it’s

difficult

but it’s not impossible another thing

that i’ve realized in this

creative journey is the importance of

insecurity now these are all negative

words but the they can have a positive

connotation

so your insecurity

can lead you into trying different

things

your insecurity should not make you

cynical or your insecurity should not

make you negative your insecurity

should make you start exploring

yourself more so try and be a little

insecure always

that’s the way i have progressed in life

and that’s

the way i think it should be you know

your insecurities

should lead you into doing or exploring

yourself

a little more a little more a little

more pushing yourself a little more so

all these negative emotions that we

think and talk of uh they you can

actually

utilize them you can actually utilize

them in a very very positive way if you

just change

your outlook this is what i have learned

in my life and also

please remember these days you you hear

a lot of upskilling

it’s very very important to keep doing

that why because uh if you continue

upskilling yourself if you continue

learning new things

uh your mind and your mind will be used

to

changes as we grow older

the acceptability towards change

keeps going down we we become

prone to not accepting change so if you

keep up skilling yourself if you

keep learning new things continuously

that resistance will keep going down

that resistance will not be there

and it’ll help you progress a lot

so i will end my conversation with

one very beautiful line

foreign

this thought i thank you for your time

and i hope that i could

change a little bit about you

or i could bring about a little bit

change in your thought process

in your professional lives in your

journey

towards achieving your best

no scott

you