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Dr. Robert Stevenson is the Dean of Valley School of Entrepreneurship (VSE) in the United States, one of the finest universities in the realm of Entrepreneurship. VSE has produced some of the greatest entrepreneurs across the world in the fields of Technology, Energy, Infrastructure, Retail, Education and others.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my privilege to present to you Mr. Jay Paul on your commencement from Valley School of Entrepreneurship.
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Jay Paul is the founder and CEO of Paul’s, Inc.
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The Commencement Speech
It’s an honour to be at your commencement today as you proceed to carve a niche for yourselves. You are the future entrepreneurs and change makers. I have never been to school or college in my life. All I have to share with you today is just one story that weaves 40 years of my life. Yeah, one story and 40 years of my life! While what I’ve done, I hope none of you does that; but what I’ve learnt from life, I hope every one of you learns something from it.
I was born in a low-income family in Calcutta in India. My mother was a housemaid and my father worked from home. He had lost his job and used to drink a lot. He became violent many times because he felt he wasn’t earning more than my mother and this made him feel guilty. He used to beat up my mother many times. I was too young then. My mother wouldn’t oppose else it would make my father even more violent. My mother loved me a lot and hence always tried to save me from being beaten up.
We did not have enough money to fund my education. The schools in my vicinity at those times used to be open air schools where the teachers would teach the students on a blackboard kept in the middle of the school premises and all the students would repeat together what the teachers taught them. And I would stand outside the main gate and would sneak at whatever the teachers taught.
One day the peon saw me sneaking and had beaten me up. I was 5 then. I came home crying. I saw my father beating up my mother and that enraged me, and I threw a vase on my father’s head to save my mother, smacked his face and stabbed him on his back. At 6, I tasted alcohol for the first time to see why my father became so violent. At 7, kids of my age would be afraid of me, as I would beat them up. I became friends with local goons. I had become a nuisance for my neighbours. My mother was very unhappy with me. At 8, the most tragic thing happened to me; my loving mother passed away, leaving me alone in the hands of my violent father.
Soon a young lady started visiting our place frequently. More conflicts occurred because of her. She then started staying at our place. Two years later she became pregnant and my father refused to marry her. At 10, I was in juvenile prison for attempting to murder my father because his torture had gone beyond bearable limits. A year later I got to know that my father passed away due to kidney failure because of excessive drinking of alcohol. My father had never visited me in prison. At 13, I came out from prison. I had no money to buy food, only one pair of clothes to wear, my devastated house to stay and I was all alone in the house with no mirrors even.
It was easy for the goons to make me an accomplice in their plans and I did because I needed money to buy food. I was involved in various delinquencies like robbery, pilfering money and extortion. I was put behind the bars many times for thrashing the kids and damaging my neighbours’ property. At 16, I was again put in juvenile prison for a very grisly crime and was shifted to adult prison when I had turned 18. There I met a contract killer who killed people for any amount of money. We managed to run from the prison. But I was caught a few days later and was put back behind the bars.
I have had severe fights in the jail with prison inmates. I was uncontrollable. When I came out, the contract killer approached me to join him. And at 21, I had done the most ghastly job. I had committed a murder of an enemy from the prison and was caught by the cops.
All this while I had never studied anything except a few sneaking sessions from the school gate. I didn’t have anyone to guide me to take the right path. I didn’t have a company of good friends. And most importantly, I did not have a job or business to support me forever.
Seeing my past records, this time I was kept in a dungeon in the basement behind two locked doors instead of a normal jail. It was the scariest place I had ever even imagined. It always used to be dark, with no windows for fresh sunlight. It was suffocating to stay in a room with bare block walls with an always-closed steel door. There was a concrete slab of about a meter, a mattress to sleep, very thin quilt and a small pillow. It was really difficult to sleep during winters. The prison guard was very strict. My past was responsible for my entire youth getting ripped off. Still today I get jitters when I think about how those three years had treated me.
But things changed when I was moved to a prison after those 3 years. The prison guard there was also strict but he wanted all the prison inmates to live a noble life doing something worthy once they are set free from prison. The living conditions didn’t change, however, we were now supposed to congregate at the central hall that had windows with sunlight permeating and lighting up the room. I couldn’t bear the heavy light as I hadn’t seen it for 3 years. We all gathered there for something that would change my life forever. As part of daily routine, we were made to meditate from 5 am till 6 am to heal our inner selves.
For the first 3 months it was really difficult to concentrate. I always thought of absconding from the prison but never succeeded. Then the prison guard started having one-on-one sessions with each prisoner and that, perhaps, changed my life. That one session of about 2 hours gave a new light to my thinking. And then the early morning meditation had become a routine for another 2 years. I had given up violence and had become a bit calm and composed. The next 3 years were a life-making experience for me. I had spent more than 7 years in the prison and seeing my good conduct, my imprisonment was reduced. The sojourn came to an end and I had only one person to thank for my changed life.
For the next 3 years, I struggled to live a normal life. I washed plates at a restaurant, swept the roads at night, delivered goods from one place to another and repaired vehicles to earn a living. I had enough money to fund my trip to the Himalayas to enhance my meditation power. I made my way through the corkscrew roads and traversed the mystic mountains to lead a life away from all the material things in the world and to engross deep into my meditation. It was enlightening, exhilarating, enchanting and exuberating; it was something that I had never experienced. I had decided that I wanted to do something of my own. After 6 months of stay at the Himalayas, I went back to Calcutta. I struggled to start something of my own. But I knew nothing about business. I wasn’t even literate.
Because of my criminal past, I had no credit history so no one would support me. All I had ever used were knives and guns for robberies, thrashing and killing. I knew how to make knives. With some funds remaining, I started making knives and selling it door-to-door, about 25 years from now. That worked well for a year but due to lack of finances, I was unable to upgrade to the latest technology and because of my past, no one was ready to work along with me. I struggled to pull it for another year, but could no longer sustain it. I was back to being a fresher. I was back to looking for a new business of which I had no knowledge; I was back to being penniless; I was back to the fear of carrying forward my criminal past.
By then, meditation had become a regular part of my life. A few people did come to me to learn meditation. I would teach them for hours while I was still looking for what was next for me. Opportunity did strike my door and I met the noble prison guard one day, who was on a holiday. He mentioned to me that he wanted more people to join him to teach meditation to prisoners. I grabbed the opportunity and started teaching meditation to the prisoners. I was on my path to change my life and be a noble person and hence I wanted to help as many as I could.
A few years later, the noble prison guard was posted to some other city and I was solely responsible for maintaining the meditation sessions at the prison. But the new prison guard wouldn’t let me do it. After a few months of struggle, I had to leave from there. Once again I was back to being a beginner, this time only with a bit of experience and confidence. In a few months, I started my own meditation centre.
Boy! It was easier to start than to sustain. In the first year we just had 10 people to pay for our healing courses. I tried to collaborate with the prisons from across India, just to realise that persuading the prison guards is an arduous task. Out of those 10 people whom I had trained in the first year, one of them ran an educational institute. We got our first breakthrough when he invited us to conduct a course to teach their students. And then we realised we were on to something. And today we are the world’s largest meditation centre with centres in about 33 countries, 7000 healers and over a million people trained in meditation, directly or indirectly.
I have never had good clothes to wear – initially because I did not have money and now because it doesn’t bother me much. Focus more on your work than how you look and dress. Believe me, it wouldn’t matter as long as you’re not in the fashion or related industry. Your work should speak for who you are. Also, just because you all have different names, and wear different clothes, and speak different languages, and come from different cities shouldn’t confuse you. Think beyond this. Do what you love and what makes you happy. Life would be so meaningful then.
I wouldn’t have been where I am today if the noble prison guard hadn’t been there. I wouldn’t have been running a meditation centre today if I had given up on the only good thing I started doing some 35 years ago. I hadn’t done anything worthy till 40 years of my life but at 60 now, I feel I have made a mark for myself. If ever you feel that your time is not good and that things are not going great just look at your fingers – they are not all of the same size. This indicates that there would be ups and downs in life. But in the end it’s all in your hands.
When I was about to start my own meditation centre, I got in touch with the noble prison guard and he told me, “There are very few people who’d believe in your dreams and you are one of them. The number is already less, don’t let yourself stop believing in it.” This is what I wish for you all. Believe in your dreams and don’t let your past come in your way to achieve those dreams!!
Thank you all.
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The fictional story first appeared here: CATapp
Some more of my short stories:
Ritu Raj Phukan
Thank you Gaurav And Bhawna!
Ashish Chowdhary
Thanks Hardik 🙂
Book is the ultimate dream..