M.Suchindra turns pandemic into talk platform

HYDERABAD:  Being homebound without much socilaising has give me the time to reflect on my life. Guess what, I think I turned out well.  I was always a child with big aspirations to be instrumental in the positive change that the world needs, even if my contribution is tiny.

But I didn’t know how. An obvious stereotype I believed was that, to make it big you need to do good at academics which I was not. A decade back, I failed my 12th board Math paper. Like they say, every failure is a stepping stone to success, this failure had changed my perspective towards myself, my life and the world. I tend chronic worrier and this year gave me ample amount of time to map out my future.

It was the year I decided I should build a brand for myself and become a person that people will look up to. Later when I cleared my subjects and went to graduation, I started to participate in every other inter-collegiate and inter-university competitions to build my oratory skills because that was something which had nothing to do with my marks and by the end of graduation, I had won most of them.

This gave rise to a new confidence in me and I started to volunteer with multiple organizations which worked towards ‘youth empowerment and skill development’. In 2013, one fine morning, I received a call from my friend who knew all this asking if I could emcee a major students’ event as a substitute to their absent emcee. I was hesitant for a moment but accepted it just to help him. I hosted that show for 8 hours at a stretch and people loved it.

Emceeing was like love at first sight to me, as I fell in love with the stage, the microphone, the crowd and their applause for my work. Energy of a live event gave me a different enthusiasm and it continuous to do so even today. That was when I thought it would be better to turn this new found passion in to a reliable profession, and that’s how the journey began.

By the time I completed my graduation I was passionate about two things: one, was emceeing and the other was training people on life and leadership Skills. Although, I was not confident to confess it to my parents to take the road less travelled. So like any obedient child would, I joined a Big 4 Firm as a Tax Consultant and worked there for two  years, the job was frustrating as it involved a lot of numbers and I hated numbers. I was keen to resign and start my full time journey into training and emceeing but was still hesitant. 

But after watching an inspiring movie called MSDhoni I realised that today if I don’t give up this well paid corporate job and pursue my passion I might regret this later all through my life. I went to the office next day and put down my papers. If I look back, this was one of the best decisions I took as I had the chance to travel to rural areas of Telangana to train the under graduates and also continue with emceeing. 

Later, I discovered there’s a lot to learn in training and leadership development so I joined a learning & development team of another organisation where I could train the new hires and later went on to help the executives in upskilling their managerial and leadership skills. Recently during the lockdown, I finished the first season of my podcast/ Instagram Live Series ‘Stories over Coffee’ where I collaborated and interacted with people of diverse backgrounds who are creating impact with their work and currently while on break, I am building the script for another podcast and the second season of ‘Stories over Coffee’.

Today while I share this experience I have the feeling of what Will Smith of ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ had when he said ‘This! This phase of my life is called happiness’ as I love my life and everything that I do. The pandemic has made me find the right  platform.

 M.Suchindra, Trainer and emcee, Hyderabad