My life as the Solar Guy can be frustrating to say the least and lonely too, I have been treading this path for over 4 years now, lost most of my friends along the way, found new people and retrieved a few old ones as well. I can't believe I have given up my life for this to achieve a way and a mean to live the renewables. There is this friend of mine, a 25 year old lad who is going through a real bad patch in life right now, a girlfriend left him, his dad had a heart attack and life left him with no friends, at least
all the so called friends left him once he had no money. The last one years has been torturous for this young one and I felt for him, he had worked with me in the first solar firm I had joined and then moved on to other fields like Advertising and Hospitality. Three months back he quit his job and sat at home and I lost touch with him. He stopped calling me and sometimes wouldn't take the calls, I got worried, he is nice person and it was, but natural to feel this way.
This Sunday, I decided I would take a drive down to his location, some 1 1/2 hours drive from where I stay in Delhi and visit him. Left my house at 9 am, I hadn't done that in a long while on a Sunday, had breakfast at McDonald's in Connaught Place, one of the premier districts in Delhi and then drove down to Rohini where he stays. I called him while I was half and hour away, he picked up instantly I thanked the lord for that, and told him I was on my way. He met me midway in Rohini and then took me on a tour of this location, including 3 houses they had had to sell to pay of debts and showed me all the local joints in the area, including a Cafe Coffee Day and a Nirula's in the area.
I have known Sumit for 4 years now, but got to know him really well last winter when he started to work near my place. The company where he worked for had a two floor basement and he was in the 2nd under ground level. One day I called him up, and the phone rang but the ring was very distorted. Sumit picked up the phone after 6 rings.
"Hello Sir !" he said breathless and sounding tired.
"What took you so long to pick up," I said though I was happy he had picked up. I was in my office and the cold morning was just beginning to pick up.
"Sir, by the looks of it, I will have to join the gym soon," he spoke still breathless.
"Why so ? " I must have sounded puzzled and was so as well.
"I just set a 25 meter sprint record time."
"Hmmmm ... ?" I was even more bewildered.
It came out later that he did a sprint from the 2nd level basement to the ground floor every time I called and he was already thinking of Sprinting as his alternate employment. I fully endorsed the idea and suggested he would make a very nice stand-up comedian as well.
The other day, I saw his status on Facebook, something that sounded very unlike him, a quiet and depressed message about losing friends, and I knew he had been hit by the same loneliness
that hounds me and unlike me, who welcomes it and embraces it, he knew not what to do. I understand that when somebody steps in to do something avant garde there is always the fear and the inescapable reality that one would have to tread the lonely path. The loneliness bites to begin with, when every meeting is a lonely battle, every lead generation a single handed muscle to win and every chapter in the book that I intend to write, is a pen breaker and then with each victory over it, loneliness becomes an ally. And an ally it is, during those crowded times when people walk into our lives with utter disdain towards our privacy. Its easy to have self defining roles within an established Organization where other people make decisions on relevant areas at the corporate level. Think of the Finance giving inputs to Marketing, Marketing to Sales, Logistics to both Finance and Marketing, in all three cases Sales takes inputs from Marketing only and that sets it free to generate leads and fulfil them. I, as a Sales Guy for my self run Company, have to generate my own financial, marketing and sales inputs and then work 2 times maybe 3 times harder to get orders. This is the dilemma that faces me today.
Solution providers need crisis, crisis need people, and people need each other
This Sunday, I decided I would take a drive down to his location, some 1 1/2 hours drive from where I stay in Delhi and visit him. Left my house at 9 am, I hadn't done that in a long while on a Sunday, had breakfast at McDonald's in Connaught Place, one of the premier districts in Delhi and then drove down to Rohini where he stays. I called him while I was half and hour away, he picked up instantly I thanked the lord for that, and told him I was on my way. He met me midway in Rohini and then took me on a tour of this location, including 3 houses they had had to sell to pay of debts and showed me all the local joints in the area, including a Cafe Coffee Day and a Nirula's in the area.
I have known Sumit for 4 years now, but got to know him really well last winter when he started to work near my place. The company where he worked for had a two floor basement and he was in the 2nd under ground level. One day I called him up, and the phone rang but the ring was very distorted. Sumit picked up the phone after 6 rings.
"Hello Sir !" he said breathless and sounding tired.
"What took you so long to pick up," I said though I was happy he had picked up. I was in my office and the cold morning was just beginning to pick up.
"Sir, by the looks of it, I will have to join the gym soon," he spoke still breathless.
"Why so ? " I must have sounded puzzled and was so as well.
"I just set a 25 meter sprint record time."
"Hmmmm ... ?" I was even more bewildered.
It came out later that he did a sprint from the 2nd level basement to the ground floor every time I called and he was already thinking of Sprinting as his alternate employment. I fully endorsed the idea and suggested he would make a very nice stand-up comedian as well.
The other day, I saw his status on Facebook, something that sounded very unlike him, a quiet and depressed message about losing friends, and I knew he had been hit by the same loneliness
Solution providers need crisis, crisis need people, and people need each other
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