I met Raghav Munda (name changed) at a mobile store in Patna. The affable 30-something area manager of a reputed mobile phone service provider was born to farmer parents in a hamlet in north Bihar. An untimely accident made his father, the sole bread-earner, a cripple. Raghav was then a student of class XII. His mother made cow dung cakes and sold them in the village, earning just about adequate to offer boiled rice and salt to a family of four. An elder sister was a victim of hawk eyes which preyed on village women past marriageable age.

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Raghav’s goal was set - he would not let his family starve. Neither would he let his dream of becoming successful in life be dashed.

He took admission in a college in the district of Sitamarhi, attended classes in the morning and worked as a dishwasher at a roadside dhaba in the evening. For a few extra hundreds, he occasionally drove truckloads of charcoal to adjoining districts.

With little time left, he cut down on sleep to devote those precious hours to books. Three years of excruciating livelihood (during which time his father passed away) were a roller-coaster ride, where banter, abuse and bouts of biting cynicism almost got the better of him. But failed, as Raghav fought on.

It was on a journey to Patna that he chanced to meet the deputy general manager of a mobile phone company, Amrendra Saxena.

Touched by the youth’s resoluteness, he offered Raghav a temporary job of an agent on a commission basis. Fifteen years on, Raghav, a management post-graduate and an area manager, now looks after his aged mother, with his sister happily married off. He too is settled with a charming wife and a three-year-old kid.

Anyone can give up. it is the easiest thing to do. But true strength is to hold it together when everything fall apart. Raghav told me it was easier combating the difficulties in life than warding off frustration from seeping in. I often quote Ernest Hemingway from his novel The Old Man And The Sea: “A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.” Striking a balance between ambition and performance holds the key to what all of us strive for, but few achieve — success.