I chose what I wanted to become

hello everyone

i’m really excited and honored to be

given this opportunity

uh i’m gonna be talking about the three

main reasons that i’m standing in front

of you here today

now these are some special extraordinary

reasons

but really simple ones which stay into

my life

the first one is i found something that

i’m passionate about

my personal motto is try everything

and now about eighty percent of you are

gonna stop listening to me because i’m

about to call the movie tears in the

uh in this movie was

he talks about the process of buying a

chair he says that before buying a chair

you

sit in all of them you try them out you

see if you’re comfortable

uh if not you move on to the next one

and only after this

you actually end up buying one but he

was using this as a metaphor for

relationships

but isn’t that true for everything so

when i was a kid like growing up i took

a lot of hobby classes

swimming karate painting rangoli you

name it

i was like oh enthusiastic hypocrite you

would see

everywhere the annoying kind but had

everyone tried

everything out i don’t think i would

have discovered that i actually like

arts i like listening

graduated from the national institute of

design in the

it’s a design school and on an average

we spend about 12 to 14 hours a day

doing assignments working and that it is

a lot

but i really enjoy what i do

and because of this work did not feel

like work

um to be really honest with you

had i be doing anything else anything

else

i would not have been able to give the

same amount of time

dedication or patience to my work

and you know how time just flies by when

you’re doing something that you really

like

it could be playing basketball for you

or reading a novel that is

exactly the feeling that i’m talking

about

now i’m gonna move on to the next reason

supportive

indian parents so this right here is a

pretty rare phenomenon like i know

but i was really lucky to have parents

who

uh supported me in the decision of

picking an unconventional career option

it was a very big deal for me because

right from childhood i’m usually used to

seeing them like

this oh okay this

this i mean all of you probably relate

to this mode

because like all through childhood i

would just keep

testing them and like no no no and

even when okay before i speak about this

you must be wondering hey in the intro

he said she’s an award-winning graphic

designer

surely her drawing can be better than

this so

so that’s the thing about design it’s

different from arts it’s different from

drawing

design is considered successful when you

can

actively solve a problem or a need or

you can simply just communicate

something

design spans across not just products

but across spaces

across systems or even thought processes

so

there’s a particular quote from college

that has stayed from me

stayed with me till now it says design

is invisible until it fails it means

that a design is successful

it should be so effortless it should

blend right in

the user never even notices it until

there’s a problem of some sort so in our

day-to-day lives we come across a lot of

things

[Music]

yeah so we come across a lot of things

and we take a lot of things for granted

like sign words

until there’s a disruption of some sort

which forces us to think away

from my usual train of thought and that

that’s literally food for thought for

you

so this is what like design in simple

terms is what i can explain to you it’s

a lot of things

and i would probably just stand here and

talk for like

a full day about design but to break it

down in a separate terms

so coming back to the point about um

support from parents and from society

back in 11th grade when i told them uh i

want to opt for design

it’s like a big moment and so their

first reaction was um

okay it’s like a hobby thing you can

take it on the side you can prep for

engineering and this can

just go on so after a lot of haggling

a lot of discussions with them a lot of

arguments

we finally came to a decision okay you

can pursue it you can prep for it

there are some rules you have to take

signs in your 11th and 12th

and you have to score 80 percent on your

boats a minimum of 80 percent

so now they were setting these rules

because they thought

it should there should be like a

fail-proof option in case like something

was wrong with this plan

but slowly over time they saw me working

hard with sincerity and dedication that

i was actually interested in this

and they came around i mean my parents

started driving me more than like you

know they were more interested in it at

some point

uh than me they were driving me to and

flow from classes my mom was

hunting down alumni from colleges that i

was applying to so that i could talk to

them

and but the funniest one and the most

important one

um i was really happy that they took my

side

when you know a random relative would

come up and say design

fashion design

so despite all this times are definitely

changing it’s 2020.

uh you see a lot of unconventional

career options coming up like who would

have thought 10 years ago that

being a social media influencer can be a

full-time job

right um but the real gap is not

because of the lack of awareness or the

constraints laid down by the society

it’s the industry um an interviewer

recently asked me a question

uh she said um why do you think that

people will focus on better paying jobs

more than skill-based rules now the

answer was really spontaneous sounds

like everybody works for a living right

i mean everybody has to earn money and

if there are better opportunities for

people

to earn their livelihood through what

they do best through things that they

are passionate about that they’ll

actually love working to do there would

be a

major turnaround in the industry and

i’ll move on to the last point

i kept going on now six months ago i

represented india

at a global platform i competed amongst

40 of the best graphic designers from

the country who was

also selected to represent their country

and proudly came back home with the

bronze medal

but before this thank you so much but

before this glorious moment like this

special moment of my life there were

multiple failures

preparations sleepless nights a lot of

anxious moments where you know i was

even doubting my ability to make it to

the selection grounds within india

so what i’m trying to say is i’m just a

regular kid

just like you you or anyone else in this

room

i overthink i get nervous i’m lazy

i procrastinate a lot i was

considering saying no to doing this talk

because it seemed like a lot of effort

and but what really helps me personally

is taking things step by step

but my steps are usually like this

so but to on a serious note um

taking things one day at a time taking

things uh

things one step at a time really helps

you give a sense of

like gives you a sense of accomplishment

so if i take

one thing at a time i’ll get that

encouragement to take one step forward

and you like instead of focusing on the

bigger picture which is usually what

people tell you to do focus on the

bigger picture

what really helps me is calm down take

it one day at a time i’m gonna do this

one thing

next and then i’m gonna move on because

i completed it so here i am

i’ve taken you through my talk and i’ve

completed this

one more little step and if i can stand

here

do this today and like with all the

publishings whatever

so can each one of you thank you so much