On a warm summer morning in early June, I was in New Delhi when I got a call from my supervisor at work. He sounded grim when he said, “I have some bad news for you, the company has announced the next set of lay-offs, and your job is getting affected. You’ll be with us only until the end of this year”.

I had come from Bangalore to New Delhi on a 2 week vacation, primarily to attend OJ’s wedding at Dehradun. OJ was one of my friends from the Breakdown Gang (BDG), as our Leh motorcycling group had come to be known. Besides me, Kini, VMK & Paddie (all members of the BDG as well) had also come to New Delhi.

The Breakdown Gang

To be told that you’re getting laid-off on the first day of your holiday wasn’t great, but not entirely unexpected. The mobile devices division of my company, a well-known organization employing thousands of people worldwide - had not been profitable for over a year now, and the series of mediocre products in the pipeline was uninspiring. To make things worse, a global financial crisis had set in and jobs being made redundant (a hitherto rare situation in India) was becoming all-too-common.

It was a consolation to be with my buddies when I got the news, and truth be told, they were more dejected over this development than I was. In the back of my mind, I felt that the lay-off may in reality be a blessing-in-disguise. I was deep in my comfort zone with a job that challenged me little while still affording me a comfortable lifestyle. I had gotten lazy living this relaxed life for over 5 years now, and would have continued for God-alone-knows-how-much-longer had it not been for this external push.

So now I had to rethink what I wanted to do next, but thankfully I had until the end of the year to decide.