Let’s share the story….Celebrating Silver Jubilee, 25 years of IT (Information Technology)
My hands are now begging for retirements…
I am sure this story relates to many immigrants and more.
Trends in information technology change rapidly and I couldn’t keep up with it while going through different stages in my life. Marriage, children, responsibilities, health and many other factors affect our daily lives and we make decisions based on current circumstances.
First time, I touched a computer was in April 1994. I was in 10th grade and after the board exam, I had 3 months of summer vacation so I decided to join computer classes as I was so much impressed with the technology. I remember, my father refused my offer at first, but I literally fought with him to let me join the classes. Just learned few basics and some languages but didn’t make much sense back then as the purpose was not clear for me. After 3 years, when I entered in the college, being a student of science & technology, I couldn’t stand in the chemistry & biology lab so when I had choice in my last year of bachelor degree, I decided to major in mathematics so that I can get rid of chemistry and biology! And one more advantage was to stay connected with the computer as computer was compulsory subject for B. Sc. Mathematics Major. By the way i did fail my 12 th grade board test in Maths. and then after 3 years i finished top in my class in Bachelors degree with Mathematics. Finished B.Sc., got married but continued with the higher education and finished Masters degree M.Sc at south Gujarat university . I was born & raised in a rich family and being the youngest got a little spoiled. After marriage, life took a completely unexpected turn and I migrated to Canada with hubby in 2001. A very special thanks to Kantilal Patel, my uncle-in-law. Sudden change was a culture shock.
The comfort zone was gone and was faced with real life struggles for the first time in my life. Me and my husband refused to accept the lifestyle that was provided in a new country and challenged ourselves to have a lifestyle we had dreamed of. In order to pursue the dream, we decided to pursue higher education and work at the same time without thinking of short term financial stability. Again, IT came on my mind and decided to get a Diploma in computer science based on the tread. In order to get admission, I had to pass the Canadian entrance test. As my English was poor, I passed the entrenched exam after 3 trials. It took 2 years of part time study just to fix my English as I hardly attended English lectures during my college years in India…Every time, I gave entrenched test, the result was always like this
Mathematics between 92 to 95 (too good, right?)
English between 20 to 30 and the requirement was to get at least 35! Anyways, after 2 years of English lessons, finally, in 2003, I got admission. No one would believe but I took 18 subjects in my very first semester since my goal was to finish the 4 years of program in 2 years. For the first time, this 4 year program was introduced at Sheridan Collage, Brampton Ontario, Canada as pilot project, and I decided to go with it.
Trust me, I went under depression! I was put on medicine. I will never forget those days when I walked almost a mile in extreme snow, temperature in -40F, could’t even wash hands after getting home or else they would get red swollen….Somehow, finished the program in 2 years and got the diploma and was ready to work at one of the corporate office of Stitches of Canada. But guess what…after 5 years of marriage, i was desperate to have kids…
Life was getting little better, ditched my depression medications against doctors advice and good news came When i got pregnant with my first child Dhruv. I was struggling as I had no one to guide me in pregnancy but so much thankful to my landlord lady (Bandana Chauhan) who treated me as her little sister and helped me with lot of things. Thanks to Bandana Chauhan. During pregnancy, I fell down couple of times in extreme snow conditions so I decided to work from home. Though I graduated with Software, I learned hardware and started building desktop computers with the help of my husband. Time was really tough and days were passing without any goal or purpose in life…I delivered elder son Dhruv in May 2005 and it was time for us to think different.
My husband always wanted to be in business and make his own decisions. I have always loved challenges and never hesitated to try out new things in life. We started thinking of America now..but how? We researched and found that I can work in the US if the US company is ready to hire me based on my education qualifications. And it worked out perfectly. The credit goes to our family friends Pravin Patel, Nick Patel and many others around us.
Between all these, food was always in my heart. I even created food blog while studying diploma, just for fun. After coming to the USA in 2006, I worked full time and in 2009, my husband introduced me to YouTube and a camcorder for video recording. By that time we had our second son Aakash born in 2007.
Today, as I am writing this post July 7, 2020 Dhruv is 15 and Aakash 13 years old….so much taller than me!
One more time, I was ready for some challenges in my life. I love and enjoy to work in challenging environment and today many of you know me as “Bhavna’s Kitchen”. In the beginning, I took help of my mother-in-law- Kusumben, but later from 2011, I was the only one behind Bhavna’s Kitchen. Of course, family support has always been there but all the workload came on me and I decided to quit the job and follow my passion.
All these years, IT (Information Technology) helped me a lot to keep up with my job, passion, and more!
One thing I learned is that life has always been settled for me but I did not realize that everything in life happens for purpose and that one has to take it as a part of routine.
Thank you so much for reading and would love to hear your life story.💕
