When I started writing my life’s journey, I did not expect people to be so interested in my memoir. I thought why would others be interested in knowing what I had to say about my life. But after publishing two parts of ‘Diary of a Green man’ on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, the response of hundreds of people on all three mediums and WhatsApp encouraged me to write more of this series.

Let’s begin the third part of my journey in ‘Diary of a Greenman’. At the end of the second part I wrote that I will talk about how I got into the world of textiles and environment from the world of glamour and modelling. So let’s start from there. I started getting assignments in modelling and I turned my focus towards Mumbai, the city of fashion and films. I had many discussions regarding this with my daddy Sudhir Desai. I have already written about Daddy being my best friend, so it was just natural for me to discuss with Daddy the smallest details of my life. He as such had never imposed any expectations on me as a father. Daddy however, always insisted that no matter what field we choose in life, we should be at the top of our selected profession! And he always emphasised on two conditions in order to reach the pinnacle in one’s field- honesty and hard work. He would never think about cheating on someone or was never in favour of shoving anyone, he never even thought about it! Well, at that time I told my father, ‘Daddy, I want to do modelling…’ so Daddy told me in one sentence, ‘Well, do what you have to do… but my suggestion is that you should also finish your post graduation. If you face any setbacks in life at any stage, then a good degree will help you to fight back and rise again. So if you wake up tomorrow and have to struggle your way out in modelling, you will at least have a conviction in your heart that you hold an important degree! ‘ And I realised this quite early on, while doing a few assignments in modelling. I realised that the name and fame of the fashion world is uncertain and has its own ups and downs. The dazzling world of modelling can topple down any time in life. So for a young man like me living a higher middle class lifestyle, I felt the dire need to have an important educational degree. Following Daddy’s advice, I decided to do MBA. That time MBA course was quite fresh and newly started in India. In fact, many people were unaware of this postgraduate course! I was very interested in marketing so I decided to do MBA from Best College in Surat. Meanwhile I would also be working on my modelling assignments! At that time, little did I know that my Daddy’s suggestion and my decision to pursue an MBA was going to be a turning point in my life. During that period, I was confident that even after pursuing my MBA, I would still work in modelling field and leave a mark in advertising industry!     However, at the same time, an incident happened which forced me to turn my back on the field of modelling. The story goes like this – A very famous Fashion Institute was coming to Surat for some show. I was also offered modelling for the show, but without payment. They told me, ‘Is it a small thing to get a chance to do modelling in such a big show of a well-known Institute?’ I was very disappointed that time. But this incident certainly opened my eyes. I thought if such big names in the Fashion Industry refuse to pay for our hard work, then what to expect from others? Although I do not blame exploitation in this field as it happens everywhere. But yes, in my youth I felt that if we worked hard day and night and the reward was zero then it would be useless for us to be in that profession. It’s not that because of this incident alone I decided to leave the field of modelling. But there were several dots, which if connected in one line, would create a fun design and the face of a businessman could be clearly seen in that design! Of course, that design has been solved today. But at that time, the dots were not even understood! If it weren’t for that, why would I even think of hard work and compensation? That time, I had many opportunities to become famous. But becoming famous was not my goal. My goal has always been to give my 200 percent in any field and work hard with utmost honesty. But I strongly believed that those efforts should be productive. After all, the immense abilities we have, the ideas we have, should they be wasted? In the next chapter we will talk about my school life and then we will talk about modelling and MBA again. This way it will be clear as to what all these dots have to do with each other. . ? Are you enjoying my story?