Editor’s note:
This piece is personal. I grew up in a household where scarcity was in abundance. Which meant that every decision, every purchase, every investment was carefully thought through. And we indexed on caution every single time. I chose engineering because it meant steady pay. An MBA, or a degree abroad, was out of the question because it meant crippling debt. Starting up was (and is) out of the question today, as I have multiple dependents. While failure looks similar, the cost of failure is vastly different. And that is what Sarthak choses to explore in this piece. About how some of us have the liberty to craft our own paths, while others have to build careers within the constraints of their circumstances. So the next time you read an article or a twitter thread about someone choosing their own path and career, ask yourself how it was laid before wondering if it is something you’d want to do too.

I remember the day Karan sent that email. It had barely been a year since his move to Bangalore and a company he had been eyeballing since college. Every time I asked him how he was doing, he’d mention the city first. Bangalore was vibrant, gave him new friends, pubs with great music, and lots of weekend getaways.

That morning, he walked into the coffee shop while spinning his Skoda key on his index finger. Placing the keys on the table, he extended his right arm for a fist-bump and hopped over to the barista. Double espresso, hot, no sugar. He didn’t even like black coffee.

A couple of usual pleasantries later, he spilled the beans. While the people around were great, the nature of his work was closer to data entry than building complex natural language models. Meetings and complaints had only led to microscopic changes, if at all. A resignation email had been in his drafts for two weeks, he told me.

“Resign? Why?!”

“Arre bro, it’s boring. How long am I supposed to maintain excel sheets, man?”

An hour or so later, while we were discussing Lionel Messi’s prolonged stint in Miami, he went, “You know what?” Within seconds, that draft, written with crispness and a tone of finality, was en route to his manager.

“Yo! What th..”

“It’s okay man, we’ll figure.”

‍—

Morgan Housel opens The Psychology of Money with a simple observation: we’re all shaped by different circumstances. Our career choices stem from when and where we grew up, who raised us, where we are, and what economy we are part of.

I am sitting with Deepthi Tanikella, entrepreneur, writer, culinary storyteller, but most importantly, a dear friend. Over Ganpati lunch, I take this essay to her, and leave the questions jutting out.

“When I was growing up, we almost never spoke of money at home,” she tells me. “We were just told that it isn’t something to be scared of.”

I prod her for childhood stories, since lazy holiday afternoons are conducive for such requests. Her eyes light up, and she brings out one from when she was 18, in her first year of college.

“We used to live in Tarnaka (Hyderabad). There was a Hero showroom close to our place, and I saw a Hero Puch at the front of the showroom. I went home and told my folks that I wanted it. Not later in life, not next week, that day. I didn’t know how to ride a bike, mind you.

“My parents took me to the showroom in the evening. They asked me one more time if I wanted to wait. On seeing my sparkling eyes, my mother took out her chequebook and paid for the moped.”

The Hero Puch wasn’t her weekend show-off. It allowed Deepthi to travel to college without worrying about changing two buses, it allowed her to ride to workplaces that would’ve been infeasible by public transport. It was independence.

Today, Deepthi is a published author, an active podcaster, and runs Pinch of South, a culinary storytelling venture. She’s looking forward to collaborating with artists and museums. “I am putting my heart and soul into it. After three years, if it fails, you dust yourself off and move.”

There was a softness in Deepthi’s voice when she narrated her stories. I asked her if this stems from a comfortable equation with money growing up. “Of course.”

—

Sameer Bansal spent the last fifteen years leading marketing teams in three organisations, and then gave up his eight-figure salary to “work in a field that appeals to me.” These days, he runs two startups and mentors a handful of young founders.

His eyes darted around the room when I brought up the topic of money and career choices. I had expected him to lean back, pour himself a glass of whiskey, and narrate his life stories like a grey-haired lieutenant reminiscing about his gunpowder youth.

“Money gives me trauma. I am scared of it.”

Sameer tells me about a childhood where his mother was the sole earner in a house of four, and weeks where he and his elder brother would dine with a fistful of rice and some ghee.

“The first time I travelled abroad - business class flight, five-star hotel et al - I felt so out of place. I was anxious the whole time.”

It’s a sensation he carries till today. Money isn’t independence, but something to lose. I ask him about the two startups and the risk-appetite life has afforded him.

“I was very, very scared when I left my job, because I honestly don’t know how to reconcile with a safety net. I think of a salary as something that allows me to take care of my family,” he tells me. “Which is why, the startups aren’t risks in the conventional sense. They are in safe, easy domains. My monetary investment is minimal too. I don’t have much to lose if they go bust.”

—

Srishti, a reporter from Calcutta, wishes she had a safety net. “I’d leave this city and get out of my parents’ house if I had the slightest bit of cushion.” A writer by birth, choice, and love, Srishti can’t imagine a life away from print journalism, but she’s toyed with the idea. “Print doesn’t pay,” she says with a smirk that I can hear through the phone. “For a couple of weeks, I actually contemplated joining a TV channel. Those guys have sold their soul to TRPs, but they apparently pay well. So, why not?”

—

India is home to four hundred million millennials. When Fibe asked 8,000 of them about their dreams, financial independence came third, after entrepreneurship and homeownership. The ranking is deceptive: all three are the same dream, dressed differently. A business, a home, independence - each one is financial strength wearing another name.

Their younger siblings see it differently. The Boston Consulting Group finds Gen Z Indians surprisingly prudent for their age – over 60 percent save regularly, 35 percent start investing before 25. "Unlike other generations," BCG notes, "this generation is as interested in creating long-term wealth as in earning and spending."

Deepthi's son Vivaswath embodies this shift. At 21, he's been investing for two years already. She says, “He obviously has the leanings of a young adult. But he knows where to draw the line between today and tomorrow. I don’t know if we were as thoughtful at this age.”

At this point, I have a confession. All these stories are dots within a small universe. These conversations happened in coffee shops and living rooms, over lunches that ran long. The BCG researchers found their Gen Z respondents online, conducting surveys between their college classes and internships. There’s another world that doesn't appear in these studies - one where people count days until the next paycheck, where two packs of cigarettes cost less than the anxiety they're meant to numb.

What happens when choice itself is a privilege?

Srishti knows. The weekend she contracted COVID, she was chasing a story her editor demanded. The word “no” doesn’t exist in Srishti’s vocabulary – not because she lacks spine, but because 27-year-old print reporters who say no to remorseless editors become former print reporters. The journalism industry is small enough for word to spread about a kid who “doesn’t work hard”. The fever came on Saturday afternoon; the draft was sent around midnight on Sunday. Before you wonder, of course, she had to work on the Monday too.

In Bangalore, during the 2023 water crisis, a major publication’s founders sent their staff messages that walk a tightrope between inhumane and insulting. The reporters—young, unestablished, paying disproportionate rent in an expensive city—showed up to work. I spoke to a friend, who continues to work there, despite the treatment. “The other publications don’t pay this much,” he responded. 

Every year, between June and August—monsoon, basically—a specific genre of pictures floats into our social media timelines. These are pictures from Mumbai, showing its people - bankers, engineers, nurses, delivery riders - wading through flooded streets to make it to and back from work, invariably captioned with, “The Spirit of Mumbai”. Industrialists retweet them. Founders add prayer-hand emojis. As if spirit pays rent and resilience were a choice rather than the absence of one.

Last September, Rahat Ali Khan braved torrential downpour, severe waterlogging, and a kaput motorbike to deliver two orders on foot. Unsurprisingly, we left him as a memento for our Twitter timelines, famous for three hours and forgotten with the next wave of memes.

A couple of years earlier, Rest of World spoke to Rajeev, a food delivery rider in Delhi. “I have had either fever or body ache every other day,” he said. “I even injured my leg in an accident last month while delivering an order. But there is no time to take a break.”

Money doesn’t just shape our decisions. It shapes which decisions we get to call decisions at all.

Karan packed his bags and went back to Delhi. Last I heard, he’s joining another startup, this time one that has Artificial Intelligence on the first slide of its pitch deck. His LinkedIn posts talk about following your passion, about not settling, about how life’s too short. He’s not wrong. He’s also not lying - he genuinely believes this. This is his truth.

Vivaswath will likely never quit a job because it’s boring. He’s a wonderful chef and loves nerding out about food. He once made a sugar-alternative out of flower petals and coconut. His generation is learning the right lessons about balance, that Air Jordans can exist in the same sentence as mutual funds.

The monsoons will end in a month, and come again next June. The photographs will flood our feeds once more. The Spirit of Mumbai will trend. Someone will deliver food through flooded streets, and someone else will order it from their dry apartment, and both will tell themselves stories about necessity, resilience, choice.