The Story Behind My First Salary

7 April 2014.

I still remember this day.

Not because it was the day I became rich.

It wasn’t.

My first salary was ₹9,800.

But that ₹9,800 carried almost a year of waiting, rejection, uncertainty, hope, stubbornness, and finally, a little bit of relief.

For me, it wasn’t just my first salary.

It was proof that I had finally made it through the door.

The beginning

My B.Tech was coming to an end.

After spending years paying fees to schools and colleges, I remember thinking that now it was finally time to get something back.

It was time to earn.

Until then, I had barely travelled outside my city.

Most of my friends were moving to Bangalore or taking whatever opportunities they could find. Some were joining colleges as teachers.

But I had a very clear idea in my head.

Java.

Nothing else.

On 8 May 2013, I reached Delhi with one simple decision:

“I will work in Java. That’s it.”

I had no idea that Delhi would change that plan completely.

The hunt

I started collecting job advertisements from newspapers and job portals.

Every day.

I would find relevant openings, note down the addresses and go for interviews.

I travelled all across Delhi.

Sometimes I would reach a place and find hundreds of people waiting.

Sometimes thousands.

There were companies asking candidates for money in exchange for training or experience certificates.

There were endless interviews.

And there were a lot of rejections.

But there was one thing I didn’t lose—

hope.

Every morning, I would start again.

The vision was still the same:

Java.

Nothing else.

Months passed.

One month became three.

Three became six.

Six became nine.

By then, I had given around 80 interviews.

Eighty.

And still, I didn’t have the Java job I had been waiting for.

I had received offers for PHP.

I had received offers for .NET.

But I kept saying no.

Maybe I was stubborn.

Maybe I was too focused.

Maybe I was simply not ready to accept that my path might be different from what I had imagined.

Then life forced me to reconsider.

In January 2014, I finally accepted an offer to work in PHP.

My inner voice didn’t want me to reject it this time.

So I accepted.

My training started.

And then, just one month later, the organisation shut down.

Just like that—

I was unemployed again.

Nine months in Delhi had already cost me more than what I had spent on one year of my B.Tech.

This time, the situation felt different.

I couldn’t keep waiting for the perfect opportunity.

I decided that I would take whatever work came my way.

Technical or non-technical.

I just needed a beginning.

So I started giving interviews everywhere.

Media companies.

Schools.

Colleges.

IT companies.

At that point, I was probably giving more interviews than I was preparing for them.

And then came one of the strangest moments of my journey.

One day, while I was returning from an interview, someone called out to me from behind.

I was in a hurry and didn’t turn around.

A few seconds later, the same voice came again.

“Why so arrogant?”

I turned around and apologised.

“Sorry, I was in a hurry. I didn’t hear you.”

He looked at me and asked,

“Are you stuck because you’re not getting a job?”

I was surprised.

We spoke for a while.

He gave me a rudraksha and told me to dip it in milk and tie it with a red thread.

Coming from an Arya Samaj family, these weren’t things I had grown up believing in.

But that day, I took it.

I gave him ₹200 and left.

Before I walked away, he said something that stayed with me:

“You’ll have a job by 17 March 2014.”

I don’t know what made him say that.

I don’t know whether the rudraksha had anything to do with what happened next.

Maybe it was coincidence.

Maybe it wasn’t.

But sometimes, life gives you little moments that you remember—not because you understand them, but because they become part of your story.

5 March 2014.

I reached Shotformats Digital Production Pvt. Ltd.

I was there for a job.

At the interview, they told me they could pay me ₹9,800.

I actually asked them again because I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly.

₹9,800.

To me, those were some of the most beautiful words I had heard in a long time.

After months of rejection, I finally had a number.

A job.

A beginning.

But there was one small problem.

The role wasn’t technical.

I was hired as a Customer Executive.

There was a 15-day training period.

And my training?

Play songs.

Browse Facebook.

For the entire day.

I remember thinking—

“Is this really what I waited so long for?”

But I didn’t have the luxury of complaining.

I had a job.

And I had to start somewhere.

Still, I asked whether I could eventually move into a technical role.

They said no.

The position was non-technical, so why would they move me into technical?

Fair enough.

I accepted it.

And then life did something completely unexpected.

On my very first day…

A person from the software testing team suddenly left the organisation.

They needed someone to test an application.

And somehow, I was asked to do it.

I sat down and started testing.

I found one bug.

Then another.

Then another.

By the end of the day, I had reported 113 bugs.

I had no idea what that day was going to lead to.

But somewhere between those 113 bugs, I had unknowingly opened a door.

The next day, my manager called me.

And I was moved into a technical role as a QA Engineer.

Think about that for a moment.

I had spent almost a year trying to get into Java.

I had rejected PHP.

I had rejected .NET.

I had gone through around 80 interviews.

I had finally accepted a non-technical job.

And then, without planning it, without asking for it that way…

I found my way into software testing.

The path I had planned didn’t work.

But another path opened.

And that path eventually became a very important part of my life.

And then came 7 April 2014.

My first salary.

₹9,800.

I still remember how it felt.

It wasn’t a huge amount.

In fact, after paying rent and other expenses, I was almost back in the negative within a week.

You may have heard:

“The bigger the bucket, the bigger the holes.”

But in my case—

the smaller the bucket, the bigger were the holes.

Still, I was happy.

Because that ₹9,800 wasn’t just money.

It was nine months of travelling around Delhi.

It was 80 interviews.

It was rejection after rejection.

It was the days when I questioned myself.

It was the decision to keep going.

It was the first time I could say:

“I earned this.”

What did I do with my first salary?

I bought a saree for my mother.

And I bought a box of laddus for the One who kept me going—my Lord.

I didn’t have much money.

But I wanted to take something home.

Something that could say:

“We made it through this part.”

I still remember the happiness I felt.

And more than the money, I remember the feeling of being able to give something to my mother from money that I had earned myself.

That feeling is difficult to explain.

Life has changed a lot since then.

There have been many more salaries.

Many more jobs.

Many more challenges.

Many more achievements.

And many more failures.

But 7 April 2014 still has a special place in my story.

Because your first salary isn’t really about how much you earn.

It’s about the first time you realise that you can stand on your own feet.

It’s the first little proof that all those days of uncertainty were leading somewhere.

And sometimes, when I look back at that ₹9,800, I don’t see a small salary.

I see a young man who refused to give up.

I see the 80 interviews.

I see the rejection.

I see Delhi.

I see the uncertainty.

I see my first job.

I see those 113 bugs.

I see my mother receiving that saree.

And I see myself standing there, holding my first salary and feeling something I will probably never forget.

Pride.

Not because I had earned ₹9,800.

But because after everything…

I had finally earned my beginning.