High and the Low of 2018: I DID IT MY WAY

The year started with the preparation of a mega launch in my life, that of my memoir. What did it mean to me? It meant that for the first time in my life, BDG was defining himself. He was going to say, that this is who he actually is. All through my life, I was always an intrigue. Meant different things to different people. As a true Scorpion maybe, I could play the perfect role of not letting people know who I actually am. I appeared to be a happy go lucky bindas guy, full of energy and drive, and genuinely a fireball, as someone commented about me. But what intrigued people most were my achievements and my ability to convert large projects. Many wondered how was it possible? So, now people thought all that will come out in the Memoir. It was aptly named I DID IT MY WAY, as it could have had only that name it seemed.

True to my character and self-belief, I was open to share my fallibility, my middle-class insecurities and how I worked hard to overcome them, through my performances and achievements. That is why my being successful was so important to me. I worked very hard for it. I was completely a self-made man. I had taken huge risks in my life, but supported them through my performances and achievements, all the time.
So, on February 3rd 2018, in Oberoi Hotel Ball Room, my Memoir was launched by my IT Industry friends. Arjun Malhotra, Chairman-Headstrong, Raji Pawar, Chairman-NIIT, Pradeep Gupta, Chairman-Cyber Media, Pradeep Kar, Chairman-Microland, Praveen Gandhi, Director-Infinity Ventures, Hon’ble IT Minister of West Bengal, Bratya Basu, were all present. It was as expected, a full house with Bengal’s and India’s best brains together. They all enjoyed the six-course full Bengali lunch laid out by the Oberoi in my honour, for my 250+guests. In the evening, many of my friends, who came from all over India, shared their moments with me in their early years, over cocktail and dinner. All in all, it was a very satisfying day.
2018 did not end well for me though. In October, we had gone for a full family holiday, to USA, as we do every year, and it was on the day of return on the 31st.October, I fell in the Hotel foyer, and had a complex femur bone fracture, as we were preparing to leave for the Airport, and even our Emirates cars had come to pick us up. It was the Halloween Day. I was taken to a trauma centre in New Jersey and the very next day, I was operated upon. The next 60 days were very very tough for me. Though the Rehab Center did a fabulous job, the recovery was very painful, and my family had to bear the brunt. It was not our home-town, hence it was more difficult. My sons knew the place pretty well, as they lived there during college days, that helped a great deal. They hired a SUV and organised all the logistics. Great work.
So, at one end, I had signed off with my Memoir in February, but then in October end, I had this big accident. I was in the Rehab Centre, whole of November and December, with 6 hours of Physiotherapy every day. I learnt to walk almost all over again. These two incidents philosophically speaking were signaling to me deep within, that I should slowly now shift my focus to the next phase of my life, from the aggressive, all pervasive entrepreneur to the relaxed chilled, person, looking at my other love “Philanthropy” going forward. 2019 showed the way for that.
On January3rd, we travelled back to Kolkata, but I was still in severe pain. This is how I welcomed 2019. It took me several months, another 4 months to be precise, for me to start believing in myself, and thinking of going back to being normal, And guess what? In the month of May, I launched my next venture.
More about that, in my next.