Story of a female CA who has seen severe financial crunches but her strong determination made her a successful CA practitioner and now she serves the society
I don’t know from where to begin and where to end?
In the Golden Jubilee year of my life I am getting opportunity to revisit my journey of becoming a CA. Never though I attempt to write about my journey of being a Chartered Accountant. In fact I feel it’s a story of every CA student.
We all must have gone through this phase of failures where in we lose all hope and feel life’s moving nowhere.We begin to question our existence. We lose faith in almighty and to the extreme case, we give up.
Although I am writing in First Person Point of view, I want you all to visualize yourself too. And as I have already mentioned, it’s a story of every CA student.
Well, anyways, I was a bright student in my school so all my teachers and siblings always believed that I am going to do something big in life. Being a notorious student in school, I was appointed as monitor and this somehow sown seeds of managing and leadership qualities.
In my school days our family was considered as economically backward class. Hence, my education was sponsored by my school.
I was very friendly with everyone since childhood and because of my jolly nature I always got an opportunity to attend picnics of my school with the funds collected by my school friends. Nonetheless, I always enjoyed and cherished those days whenever I feel nostalgic.
Let me tell you about my family in brief.
My Father was mill worker and Mother did different varieties of work such as selling off newspapers & milk delivery and selling sarees and other clothing providing door to door service to customers and some tailoring work to support the family financially.
In my family there were total 6 members including me and my parents and 2 elder sisters and 1 brother. We lived together in Garage for 20 years.
We have seen very hard times but as all says it is how you take circumstances meaning one’s attitude matters. I had great time by playing antakshari and doing work of cleaning wheat, like removing kankar from gehu a work for which I will be paid 25 paise for cleaning 10kgs.
Since childhood I had believed in choose your love and love your choice the same rule in life choose your work and love your work.
Reading literature is my hobby and God was kind enough to get my admission in KC College whereby my hobby was full filled by travelling from Borivali to Churchgate for attending my college where I got time to read 100’s of books.
My college fees too was borne by the Government as at that time government has come up with the scheme to waive fees for girl child to promote education for female.In the year 1989, I completed my Commerce graduation from K C College, Churchgate.
Meanwhile, I started working as an accountant to support my family financially and the first job I had at Kalbadevi with the introduction of my college friend CS. Uma Mondal to one of the entrepreneur who really made my foundation strong with concept clarity and about the work ethics.
My first salary was Rs.400/- in those days in the year 1987. In that first job the boss was proactive and tech savvy so in the year 1989 we had computers in our office and which inspired me to do Diploma in computer programming from Indo German Institute to use computer easily. In the same year, I qualified my B.com with 50% only from ranker the reason was, now job and study both were to be handled along with social contribution like volunteering wherever required.
Now further studies was to be done for better future and scope.There were two options available in front of me pay 10000/-to join NIIT Computer course or pay 2350/- and join CA course.So obvious choice with constraint of money was to join CA and that’s how I chose to pursue CA.
I lost my father in the year 1990 when I just joined CA Course, so challenge was to study and also help the family financially.The next challenge was articleship training. Blessing in disguise was my principals CA Manish Sheth and CA Bharat Kanabar who really supported me in best possible way to complete my article ship as well as address my financial problem.
I also pursued LL.B. (gen.) from K.C. College which I chose to pursue the same due to my keen interest in law as a subject and also one of my friend CS Heena Chandiwala Kothari motivated and shown confidence in me to acquire this degree concurrently with CA.
Basically I studied from ICAI study material as and when, while travelling in train or waiting for bus at the bus stop. Due to financial constraint I never afforded long examination leaves like my other CA friends, so I had always taken 15 to 25 days leave for exams. At that time revision and solving practically past years suggested answers book with timer was my approach.
I had support of my Friend Anil Tahilani who gave one room of his home for studies as there was no place to study in my small garage home. Well, as I have reading as hobby helped me in my studies, I used to read 100 pages in an hour. I was firm believer that there is limitation to our mind to absorb new data, so use to study for 8 to 10 hours a day and rest of the time to rejuvenate used to read story books or watch serials. I did join classes for selected subjects with the money earned by writing books of accounts as side income over and above stipend and at times taken loan from uncle.
Inter CA first group cleared in May 1992 in first attempt. Then 2nd group in November 1992 failed in average. There were times when I felt much suffocated and just wanted to give up. Missing by 3 marks in average and all your friends clearing was the worst thing that could happen to someone.
But as you say whatever happens, happens for the best meaning the CA course teaches us to face the failure in life. You can never know the taste of success until you have tasted failure.
I was pretty much clear that becoming CA is a part of life and not life, there’s life beyond CA too.
I started making new friends, opened up to the world and trust me, world is not as scary as it seems,we all live in a shell and take time to open up and we all have some special gift and one thing I learnt was to never compare myself with others as you don’t know what the other guy has gone through,then I made a list of things I wanted to achieve…
Of course passing was on top of it but there were so many things I wanted to do which I couldn’t because of time constraints and more than that, ”mind constraint”, one golden rule I always follow “If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can’t,then you can’t. It’s all in your mind.
”Whenever I need a ray of hope in the darkest tunnel, I just pray to God and he shows me light.
I feel I am the Blessed Child of God. With my experience I can tell you that the most beautiful part about life is not the destination, it’s the journey.
I got group exemption in 3 papers of final 1 st group and was failed in Company Law. And that last paper I cleared in November 1997 attempt. The results were out on January 14, 1998, when I was at Jivdani Temple, Virar. The day I will never forget in my life, when I qualified as CA with all struggles.
At that time there was not much opportunity in Industry and belonging from Gujarati background I thought better to opt for mode of Practice where you can choose how much to work and till what time to work as per your own terms and conditions. So I start up my own practice in the year 1998.
I never had mentor in my life, so whatever today I am is just because of determination and hard work and never giving up attitude of mine. Hence, the people who know me consider me as “SELF-MADE” person.
Don’t wait until you reach your goal to be proud of yourself – Be proud of every step you take.
In this journey of mine my immediate family my younger brother Prakash always stood by me as my friend and support system whenever I needed.
My sister in Law Manisha took charge of household activities which enabled me to give time to WIRC activities like organizing and coordinating seminar and giving lectures to CA fraternity and give time to NGO like Rotary Club and pursue my passion of singing by becoming part of Singing Club.
Make yourself in such a way that you are always part of the solution, not the problem, be problem solver.
You must be big enough to admit your mistakes, smart enough to learn from them, and strong enough to correct them.
The wrong kind of people hate you for the Good things in you & the right kind of people love you even after knowing the Bad things in you.
Plant your own garden and water your own soul. Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
Effort without direction is Activity. Effort with direction is Productivity.
Your Faith can move Mountains and Your Doubts can create them.
And finally want to sum up my above journey by conveying my view points related to life:
Think beyond career and money.
Life is too short, so live it in your own terms.
Time is very volatile & stops for no one, do what you feel like no matter how big or small.
Do something for those who are not as blessed as you are.
Living a life only for yourself is the most selfish thing you can do.
I understand most of us are busy with our own stuff and don’t have time, but then that’s the whole point, if you can’t do it now and wait for the right time, you shall never be able to do it & always wait for the right time and that right time never comes.
So final message by a song which is the way I live my life “Aage bhi Jane na tu, Piche bhi Jane na tu, Jo Bhi hai bas yahi ek pal hai”.
Be happy – Not because everything is good, but because you can see the good side of everything.
Live fully in the present moment given by the God to us and make happy everyone around and in the process definitely one will be happy. As you can share that thing only which you possess.
Today when I look back, all the happy memories flash in front of me and that’s the beauty of time, it erases all the bad ones.
CA VANDANA DODHIA
FOUNDER PARTNER
VANDANA V. DODHIA & CO.
9820029281
www.cavandana.com/blog
She is a Motivational Speaker and TALLY Evangelist