Hello, I am Swati Jaiswal. A student at IIPS-DAVV.

Currently in 3rd year of integrated M.Tech (IT) and today I am going to present my first blog post on my own blog.

I thought to write something different, hence I decided to write this post dedicated to my mentor Ankit Kulkarni. This post has contribution from my team mate Pulkit Vaishnav.

Let me briefly introduce.

Apart from being a college student, I have been a trainee at Development Center IIPS. I have joined here approx 6 months ago. Since then, I have been working with Ankit and Pulkit, Pulkit is also a trainee of Ankit. This post is just an end note to my mentor. As I speak too less in front of him, so decided to write this post.

From the very first day of training, it has been a wonderful journey till now. Every day was full of new things and lessons. My mentor had a plan for how to work with us, he had put a goal in our eyes on our first interaction only. One thing that I remember from that day; he (my mentor) said:

I never point people personally, but on their work. If I ever scold you or say bad things, it will be solely for your work, never take things personally. The less you mind them, the more you grow.

These lines are the reason for me to take all the things positively.

Personally he is still a mystery, but as a mentor, he has been the best for me. While this post refers to the mentor, but it is intended for trainees like me, here I am sharing some incidents and their outcomes.

Sir,

It’s been an amazing experience to work with you. The whole journey was full of lessons, some successes, some failures, a lot of motivation, a flow of knowledge, cheerfulness, a little despair at times, lots of solutions for that, awesome team work, support, and above all, the stand of yours with us.

Things I got from you-


Motivation:

For me, the word in itself means my mentor. There were times, when I was not able to make things work. I was failing on my commitments, but one thing that kept me working was the motivation from you. Although your style of motivating is a bit different from others, but it always works for me. You first give hard tasks, and behave like a strict mentor, who puts deadlines, and pushes me towards the edge. Then you come up with the second side, which silently says, you can do it, don’t give up till the end. This whole process always works, and I do things, which I couldn’t imagine of doing in such small amount of time. When people ask me, “how do I manage things so well, do I not get frustrated sometimes?” I would like to answer them that, yes I do get frustrated at things, also face time management issues, but the only reason to be able to cope up with all these is, my mentor, whose trust is so important that nothing else comes in my mind, no frustration, no boundaries. Whenever, something stops me from completing things, I just think of my commitments to you, and things magically happen. Your faith in me was the key reason behind this.

If you are able to make your mentor believe in you, you have won half the battle. Because that faith keeps pushing you on your best.


Confidence:

I was not able to state things much clearly, and also could not communicate properly. But you always took the first step. You kept saying that, “I won’t keep looking after”, but you always had an eye on my work, my activities. In the beginning, I used to think, you give huge tasks and expect they would get completed, you never think about my troubles. But soon I realized, it was not like that, you always knew about the problems I was facing. Whenever we had meetings, there were times when you could guess things even before I could explain them properly. Even your ignorance towards some problems was just to let me solve them on my own, so that I could have the confidence of solving problems. It indeed gave me the confidence and the feeling of standing on my own. About some tasks, you knew, I will not be able to complete them, but you always pushed to give them a try. And at the end, when I was not able to complete them, you did not talk about the failure, but appreciated the efforts, this boosted my confidence.

Try to understand what your mentor says and what they actually mean. They will never put solutions in your hands, but will make you able to find those solutions. If you don’t get answer of any question from them, then think, that is your chance to solve and stand on your own.


Pressure handling:

From recent I remember, you accidently came to know about a thing that was not meant to be shared with you, you promised that you won’t tell anybody. But the very next day I came to know that you had shared that with your friends and other trainee. For 3-4 days they kept teasing me on that. I was feeling too bad. I was thinking how could you do this. And what did you get after all this. But after a few days of this incident, in the evening we all were sitting, and you shared some stories of you and your mentor. How he used to test your patience. That time I realized, what was your intention on doing that. You told me, how should I manage these kind of things, and not get in too much pressure. And from that day, that thing has not bothered me. Now I have the patience to handle that. I don’t get stressed. (Even now, I somehow have trust that you have not shared that.)

Have faith in your mentor, if they are doing something that you think is not right for you, have patience, you will soon realize, the second face of the coin. They know your limits, and will always try to broaden them, because life has much big things to show, and it is their style of preparing you for that. No matter how embarrassing things will be, but never take them too seriously that they begin to take control. You always have the choice to avoid, if you try to.


Communication:

One more incident, a few days back you mailed, that the training is going to get over, and lots of stuff remained incomplete that was to share with you guys, but will share sometime in future. We will stay in contact. It was a kind of good bye mail. After reading that, I was very upset for 2-3 days, as we used to have mail communications, which has always been a hazard for me to communicate, so your mail was something that put me on a thought of loosing your mentorship. I was thinking, how things are going to work now. Because I was sure, that I will not be able to communicate from my side.

And again you were there to rescue. Don’t know how, you get to know these things. But as I remember, after 2-3 days of that mail, I had a message from you asking about the work status. And the problem was solved; now I did not have to think a lot before putting a problem in front of you, because you had brought the communication more closer to me. Although I still have to mail, but now I had option for small problems. You always kept communicating from your side. Even in starting, we both teammates were not used to reply the mails and communicate from our side, but you never left us with the thought that, “If you don’t care, why do I ?” These were your efforts that, we became a team. Now communication does not look too hard to do.

Well, not much to say but don’t fear communicating your mentor. (Well, I guess, it is not the problem with all). Because communication is an essential factor for learning and working in team. If you don’t communicate, it shows you are not interested in working.


For the last one, I don’t have one incident to share, because there are many alike. You were always able to read my mind. Yes, exactly, I used to get surprised, on hearing from you, what I was going to say. I must say, my mentor has some magical powers :D.

Jokes apart, but it was actually amazing. This quality of yours has made me speak up my stupid ideas too, that I mostly don’t tell, because of uncertainty in them.

This one is a question for you(my mentor) – “How do you do this? :-P ”


Lots of things to say, but there has to be an end to the post. I didn’t want to go far from reality in the flow of words. Even my mentor will also not like it. That’s why, I have shared some real examples to explain what my mentor is to me. I don’t know how things are going to change? how will I be able to handle them? but I am sure, I will manage. Because this is what my mentor has taught me. The only way that I can pay him back for his warm company and great time is, being someone whom he will be proud of.

In this post, I not only had things for trainees to understand, but also tried to put a sketch of an ideal mentor. Although everyone is of his own kind. But still there are things which can be adopted for betterment. Because a mentor is someone who can change a life, so they bear a great moral responsibility. Which I feel, my mentor has carried successfully.

As my mentor says,:

Learning is a two way procedure. You can’t expect all the time from the mentor that they should share things and teach you, it’s your duty too, to find new things and share them with them. Mentors should keep observing their trainee’s responses and feedbacks, and should sometimes change the way of working according to them. Because if nothing else, but they can teach you some behavioral aspects that can help your personality to groom. Both people are teaching each other throughout the procedure, and it makes the mentor-trainee relation successful.

so keep learning keep sharing.

On this day, which is officially the last day of training (officially, because the training will never end as the learning will never end), I just have two words for my mentor, even they are not enough, and even if he doesn’t like them, but as being the only way to show gratitude in a simple way,

Thank you!


PS: I won’t say he is a great personality, or the best mentor of the world or a person with great thoughts or some big things about him. Because he indeed is a simple personality who has his own simple life, and general thoughts. But who has mentored me as no one did before. Its not that he taught me something that no one could but he taught me the way no one could. He did not put the developer in me, he made me realize that it is inside me. The thing that seems very easy but very hard to do, he transformed a personality. For me, he is no one else but, My mentor!

Stay tuned for more…