“Voyaging to Excellence” is an essay written by Indian businessman and author, Achyut Godbole. The essay focuses on the life of a writer who shares his learnings and experiences through storytelling.
VOYAGING TOWARDS EXCELLENCE BY ACHYUT GODBOLE
Summary of Voyaging Towards Excellence By Achyut Godbole
The story of the essay begins with the author, who came from a poor family and lived in a very small house. The author’s family didn’t even have the money to buy basic things like a fan, geyser, refrigerator, or dining table.
When the author enrolled in college, he received a watch from his family. During his childhood, poets like Vinda Kandikar, Mangesh Padgaonkar, and Vasant Bapat would visit the author’s home. The author would listen to them for hours. Vinda, Mangesh, and Vasant Bapat would discuss English literature at the author’s home.
They would talk about Keshavsut, Mardhekar, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and other famous poets like Thomas Hardy. The author never got bored listening to them, and his interest in literature grew day by day.
The author says, “I was very young and couldn’t understand their conversations properly, but I loved listening to their literary discussions.” Others, including Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, and Pandit Jasraj, would also visit the author’s home.
They discussed Indian music. This sparked the author’s deep interest in literature and Indian music. The author says, “Although I didn’t know much about music at the time, listening to them was what I was developing.”
I loved English literature, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like other subjects. I also loved science and math, and in school, I never studied for marks; I studied according to my own interests. When I was in seventh grade, I was solving ninth-grade physics and math problems. The author’s point is that he was very intelligent even in school.
The author’s habit of solving physics and math problems helped him in the IIT entrance exam. He scored nearly 100 in all his math exams. He also ranked 16th in the SSC board exams. When he was admitted to IIT, he was overjoyed, but his happiness was short-lived because all the professors at IIT taught in English, and he didn’t know English. The author was very weak in English and couldn’t even pronounce English words, so he felt isolated at IIT.
One day, the author was sitting in his dormitory when a senior student came up to him and started talking to him in English. The senior student noticed flaws in the author’s English. The senior said, “You make so many mistakes in English, don’t you know how to speak English?” The senior insulted the author and left. The author felt very bad and became depressed. He wanted to quit his studies and go back home. But he decided to learn English and speak fluently like the other students.
The author realized that he was from a small village, scored the highest marks in the university, and was also very good at math, so English was nothing to him. After this, the author started learning English daily. First, he started reading English newspapers and English novels.
Next, he began studying etymology and phonetics. The author would practice speaking English while standing in front of a mirror. The author practiced speaking English consistently for 9-10 months and became a fluent English speaker. He gained the confidence to speak English in front of anyone. His fluency in English proved helpful in his professional life.
The author says that he met many great people in his work life. He learned a lot from them. After meeting great people, he realized that he had much more to learn in life. When you sit among knowledgeable people, you realize that you need to learn a lot.
The author wrote four books early in his career, each approximately 500 to 700 pages long. In all four of his books, he discusses technology. All of his books were published by Tata McGraw Hill. Later, his books were translated into Chinese.
The author learned many great things in life, and one of them is the importance of teamwork. The author believes that you cannot achieve anything in life alone. If you are arrogant and believe that you are the only person capable of great things in life, you are wrong. If you are a team player, you can conquer anything in life. You can achieve anything in life through teamwork. You should treat your coworker like a friend.
After working for years in software companies, I left them. I started doing what I loved most: reading and writing. I started writing about human life and existence. Although I received two offers of ₹3 crore to become an English writer, I rejected them because I wanted to become a Marathi writer. After that, I wrote 34 books in Marathi. Many of my books became bestsellers.
Thousands of people read my books. It didn’t matter to me how many books I sold or how much money I earned; what mattered to me was how many people read my books and how many lives I changed through them. Two of my books have cured thousands of people of depression. These two books are Musafir (an autobiography) and Manat (a book on psychology).