STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN
The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World
CARE: This is Chapter 2 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book from Chapter 01 onwards.
Stress, Success and Everything In-Between is a collection of actual anecdotes, related to my work life which started in 1970.
I was a small-town girl with high ambitions who grew up in the middle of the twentieth century and decided to take up a career in the corporate world. Born in a family with high values and a traditional lifestyle and brought up with high expectations of the parents, I left the secure and comfortable life of a university lecturer, chose a path less travelled and entered the financial jungle trodden by few women. The new life took me through myriad experiences and threw up new challenges regularly. I accepted every challenge and strived hard to come out a winner, never allowing my gender to limit me in a male bastion called Banking.
The
outcome of my decision was struggle throughout my work life, whether for entry
into the lunch room or striving for a promotion, handling a rogue borrower or
coping with the rowdy labour unions or trying to strike a work-life balance
between a highly demanding professional life and multiple domestic
responsibilities as a wife, a mother, a daughter and a daughter-in-law.
The
long and challenging journey, lasting almost four decades, is a commentary full
of pains and pleasures, fears and fortitude, frustrations and satisfaction,
struggles and successes of a first-generation working woman who tried to climb
the corporate ladder without any godfather, and who also tried to be a good
wife, a caring mother and a dutiful daughter and daughter-in-law.
All along this
arduous journey, it was a question of survival for me, survival from everyone
and everything. I had to survive my competitive peers. I had to withstand a few
spineless bosses. I had to come up to the standards of the ever-demanding
customers. I had to handle the threats from rogue borrowers. I had to motivate
the non-co-operative juniors. And I also had to take the militant trade unions
head-on. On the personal front, I had to survive as a wife, as a mother and
above all, as a woman. And I had to cope with transfers, and yes, how can I
forget how I survived the loo blues. And I survived it all successfully and
came out a winner.
Despite these challenges, if given an
opportunity to relive my life, I will again undertake this arduous journey
rather than opting for innumerable cushy and comfortable options. And I will do
it for the self-enrichment I experienced in this journey, the immense
satisfaction I felt in accepting countless challenges, the enormous self-growth
I achieved, and the self-pride I developed. In the bank, I experienced a
lifetime of action, numerous gratifying experiences, some tense moments, a few
spine-chilling occasions, intermittent fights for gender equality, and
relationships culminating into life-long bonds. I also came face to face with
moments of truth. I experienced unprecedented personal and professional growth,
all in my forty years of association with the bank!
Whenever I heard the words of discouragement, I threw them out of the
window of my life and continued to struggle against the odds. I did not take
life as it came. I fought it every step of the way. Today when I look back, I
am a contented woman. I can stand tall and laugh at the people who challenged
me and told me that a woman cannot. I did it my way, the long hard way.
Balancing my personal life with the challenges of a demanding career, struggling to disprove the preconceived notions about working women, working doubly hard to be termed half as good as a male colleague, and fighting for my rights, an effort has been made in this book to take the reader through different
experiences of my professional life. Written as independent anecdotes of various stages of my professional life, struggling and surviving could be the story of any working woman in India.
12 comments:
Stressful to be read easily by this reader at 76 unless zoomed
Thanks for sharing your problem Sir. Yes, I understand your problem. It will take some time for publishing it in physical form. Meanwhile, you may try to read it on a PC rather than on your mobile.
Yes, in 1970, SBI was headed by high headed Principled person Raj Kumar Talwar. Talwar amendment was creation during that time of which we are proud of joining SBI
Ok
Keep it my up my dear small town friend.You we’re always a way ahead. Congratulations and lots of love.....Veena Sethi
Loved reading it and could actually visualise having worked with you,Ma'am.
Like ur spirit of "Never.give up"...(Vasantha Rajagopalan)
Rashmi Duggal said
This is so relatable to all of us. We are 4 sisters and all of us took different jobs in a family where very few ladies were working at that time. Other than the job challenges, it was a challenge to make others understand why we are leaving small children for long hours. And I having a transferable job had other concerns as well.
But looking back it has been so satisfying.
Vasudha Sundararaman said....
Enjoyed reading
Ramaswamy Purushothama Narasimhan said:
A sober beginning to a career full of surprising turns and twists. You have defied the common prognosis of the trainers perception of the women executives,but the you have allowed the the feeling of successfully beaten the system in your narrative. I still vividly remember those days when you people made a big splash wherever you were posted and proved as good as any gentleman officer. Your picturization of the challenging times in sober tones and matching language is diplomatese at its best.
Wish you a happy and healthy retired life.
Anuradha Shaw:
Loved it! Truly, I have always felt as an employer that women tend to work in such a way that if you were to pay them what they are truly worth you could never afford them!! You experience truly exemplifies that belief!!!
Sneh Dhingra:
My dear friend.. you were the first colleague at the LKO training centre who became my friend and room-mate. You were great, particularly when there were some intriguing situations in those days, and helped solve the issues that I happened to face. Chapter 2 brought memories of those days for me.. and the days ensuing which helped us form the early memories of our stay in the Bank.. I feel happy to connect with you in that early history, as we were soon separated.. first by your changing circles to Delhi.. and later when I moved away from the Bank to Canada. Reading your depictions in Chapter 2 is bringing wistfulness for me.. what would my memories have been, if I had continued.
You had a wonderful yet challenging career in the Bank.. I know of some of it. But looking forward eagerly to gobble all your experiences in your blogs.. Way to go, Ranjana!
Varsha Uke Nagpal
Ranjana, I needed time to read( was busy)this to give a true comment.
I have read and loved every bit of it.
Your trials and tribulations are the same for every woman who joined the banking sector. Each one of us will have a similar story.
Courage, turning a deaf ear to rude comments, snide remarks, cheap talk was each woman’s forte.
Looking forward to more. This book will indeed be a wonderful read.
All the best.
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