The Hard Years

What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?

It took me a while to look back and ask myself a simple question:

Which was the hardest chapter of my life?

My first instinct was to say 10th standard.

Suddenly, mathematics, physics and chemistry became intimidating. It was my first encounter with board examinations, and the expectations of family, teachers and society seemed enormous.

In those days, the 10th board examination also included the syllabus of the 9th standard. There was so much confusion that we often wondered whether a particular topic belonged to Class 9 or Class 10.

Looking back, I sometimes feel that luck carried me through.

Then I thought again.

No, perhaps 11th standard was harder.

I had moved to a boarding school. Everything changed overnight. The basic hostel accommodation, the mess food, washing my own clothes, managing life without my parents reminding me to study, and the endless distractions of hostel life threw me into complete turmoil.

Even today, I wonder how I managed to reach Class 12.

But hold on…

Maybe 12th standard was the toughest of them all.

It was a year that seemed to decide our entire future. Lakhs of students across the country were competing for a limited number of engineering and medical seats. Anxiety became a constant companion. My heart raced every day.

Then came the unimaginable.

Halfway through the board examinations, the papers were cancelled because they had been leaked. Fresh dates were announced, with the condition that we would have to write two examinations on the same day.

Those three days before the exams felt endless. We were like walking corpses.

Faith in an unseen higher power, hope, and perhaps a little miracle carried us through.
For years, I believed that this had been the hardest period of my life.

But hold on…

Life had another chapter waiting.

The two or three years later, when I started my manufacturing business, were perhaps even more demanding.

There were endless motorcycle rides in scorching summers and freezing winters, government offices buried in red tape, permissions and clearances that never seemed to end, production bottlenecks, financial pressures, and one problem after another.

Around the same time, I had also just got married. Balancing a young family with a struggling business often felt overwhelming.
Yet every morning began with the same hope:

Today will be a better day.

Then came another difficult chapter.

When our children left for boarding school, it was emotionally draining. As parents, we had to entrust their upbringing to teachers, occasional visits and letters. Watching them grow from a distance was far harder than I had imagined.

And then came perhaps the most emotional moment of all.

When my daughter decided to marry and settle permanently in another country, it left a void that only a parent can truly understand. Happiness for her future and the pain of separation existed together.

Today, I am at an age when many of my friends in government service have retired. They are enjoying a slower pace of life.

I still work nearly twelve hours a day.

I am still driven by ambition. I still see dreams reflected in the eyes of my children.

My friends often ask me why I continue to make life so hard for myself.

Sometimes I wonder…

Was life really hard?

Or was it simply my response to life’s situations?

Whenever we lose control, life feels hard.

Whenever uncertainty appears, life feels hard.

Whenever the future becomes unclear, life feels hard.

Yet something remarkable happens with time.

The chapters that once felt unbearable slowly become the chapters we remember most fondly.

They leave us wiser, stronger, calmer and more emotionally resilient.

Perhaps every difficult phase is not a punishment but an invitation—to grow into a better version of ourselves.

Hardship forces us out of our comfort zones. It demands courage we never knew we possessed. It reveals strengths that comfort never can.

Maybe that is why the hardest years eventually become the most beautiful memories.

I have come to believe that every challenge is preparing us for something that lies ahead.

Think of an Olympian. Years of relentless training, sacrifice and disappointment culminate in a single moment on the medal podium.

That brief moment of glory carries the weight of thousands of unseen struggles.

Perhaps life works the same way.

Perhaps somewhere beyond today’s struggles, there is a moment waiting for each of us—a moment that makes every hardship worthwhile.

That belief has carried me through every difficult chapter of my life.

And I hope it continues to carry me through the chapters yet to come.