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by Rajen Kumar
No Escaping Social Media
Running a magazine concentrating on issues of small and medium enterprises and managing with limited resources is a like living life on the edge. In this rush of meeting deadlines,...
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Apr 2012EMRC, Brussels Associates with SME WORLD as its New Media Partner
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The Last Word
Adding Blood to the Sweat
Rajen Kumar
Mar 2011
Mar 2011
His father, a small entrepreneur and the lone bread-earner of the family of three, met with a serious road accident when Khushpreet Singh was hardly ready to face the vagaries of life and living. Most of the family savings were spent on his father's physical ailment which made him bed-ridden for the next couple of years until he expired a few years ago.
With a certificate declaring him 10th-pass, he went about searching for a job to earn for his family – mother, a younger sister and a brother. With no money in hand, the task was huge and so was his passion to earn a living to get going in this big free world.
A good samaritan, a family friend, gave him packs of aluminium foils to sell door to door. “I was despised, accepted and even shunned by some but I didn't lose heart. I was bent upon making my small 'business' produce results.” The ever smiling lad aptly named Khuspreet may have won many hearts in the process. “If ten doors shut on me, twenty opened to patronize me,” he says with no remorse recalling the sweat-spilling days. “At times, I was short of funds to purchase my stocks. I had to borrow money from friends and private lenders at a whopping interest but then what else could I do.” But the defiant Khushpreet never allowed his tears to roll down his cheeks. “I never forgot my big responsibilities towards my family. Afterall I was meant to wipe the tears of my mother.”
He started making rounds of commercial complexes where he thought the potential was high. He would walk 10 to 15 kms a day to cover maximum offices. “Success came my way and I started making money. Rs.1000, Rs.1500, Rs.3000, Rs. 5000, Rs.7000 a month and he never looked back since.
Hold your breath! Today, after ten years of facing life head-on, he earns more than Rs.25,000/- a month and maintains a car. In the process of his struggle, he married off his sister. “It was a decent marriage. I gave everything to my sister what my father would have wished. She is happy and settled well in a good family,” says a proud Khushpreet. He even made his brother study and today he is well-employed as a computer professional.
Khushpreet still sells foils though he has expanded and diversified into more items. He has added DVDs, perfumes to his bag which he has been carrying for over a decade.
Khushpreet's struggle has not ended. My utmost priority is to buy a house for my family. “It was a dream of my father and I must fulfill it.” What about his own marriage? He confides in me that many feelers from good and respectable families come but “let me first have a shelter of my own.”
Recalling his days of struggle, Khushpreet says that it is only your hard work and honesty which pays ultimately. We call it entrepreneurship of the best order.
Khushpreet's case is one that we have come to know of. There are millions of Khushpreets in villages, towns and cities of India who may be not as lucky to survive with a strong will and a passion to make it.
Those who succeed win over life but many who don't may have taken to crimes and short-cut ways to earn a living for themselves and their families.
Social security is the dire need in a growing economy like India. We need to have more and more Khushpreets around to make India a vibrant country of 1.2 billion strong nation. Let us add some fresh blood to their sweat waiting to be shed in their effort to survive and lead a dignified life.
1 Comments >>
Blue
05 Aug 2011 (22:50:59)
Heck yeah bay-bee keep them conmig!
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The Last Word
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