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– Harsh Shodhan

I was 38 years old, when my IT company was forced to shut down due to the 2009 meltdown. With a B. Com background, all I could then do was to join my family business but it did not give me the required satisfaction. I then took a sabbatical, which made me realise that I didn’t have any skills or certifications for a job but I rekindled my passion and joy for food. I cautiously started to cook and sell from home, not knowing where it would take me. Thanks to the new age social media, work grew and I moved to a professional kitchen to follow my passion for food, to create a successful catering business. During the initial days, I was called a ‘maharaj’ or a ‘rasoiya’ but yes cooking was my passion and it really didn’t matter to me.

The kind of appreciation I started to receive for my work, kept me motivated. Slowly my market base increased through spread of word, and believe me, there is no better marketeer for you than a happy and satisfied customer. At times when I would get home with corns under my feet and every muscle aching, it was my passion that would wake me up the next day and bring me right back to work with full enthusiasm.

I have realized that people my generation i.e. those born before 1990s, were brought up with the mindset that we need to follow what our parents or what our forefathers did, mostly traditional line of work. It was put on our shoulders that we need to carry the light ahead, carry on the legacy whether we liked it or not. So, a huge generation was stuck in businesses that they didn’t care for much but took on the role only because it was expected out of them. Can’t much blame our parents for this as they had gone through similar conditioning.

Right from school days it was imbibed in us that we could only do – Commerce, Science or Arts. It was expected of most women to take up Arts – humanities, home science, commercial arts, fine arts etc. And the average majority took up commerce with very few options to then go on to manage traditional businesses or professions. A Chartered Accountants child was conditioned to become a CA or similar, someone who ran a cotton mill expected their children to do commerce or maybe an MBA perhaps and take over the family business. They were all successful but were they satisfied is the larger question that needs to be answered!

Passion was surely the missing factor.  Passion for hobbies was a part-time leisure activity but never a full-time career. Passion was rarely discovered in school to be honed, in college to be studied and in life to be made into a career.

But it is passion that leads to success. Passion is something you believe in, something that awakens you in the middle of the night to start jotting notes, passion is what you would unflinchingly persevere. This passion will then lead to success one day.  But passion alone does not pay the bills, profits do. Blending of the two i.e. passion and business acumen can be a lethally successful combination – firstly you are loving what you are doing and secondly you are profitable at doing it. People do get carried away by passion but if it is followed with caution, a good business plan and tracking your financials minutely, passion will then be the next success mantra!

About The Author
Credits: Harsh Shodhan, Executive Chef and Chief Food Visualizer, Bell Pepper Kitchens and The Gourmet Kitchen and Studio