To My Dear Chartered Accountancy Degree !

13th May, 2020.

To,

My Dearest Chartered Accountancy Degree.

26th July, 2004. I was 22. You became mine, forever ! I dedicated you to my little brother; who was no more with us, as it was his birthday that day ! The next two three days I was crazily calling up friends and relatives and professors and telling them, “Hello, this is Chartered Accountant, Prachi Rahalkar speaking” ! Listening to the congratulatory messages from the other side was just something else !

The next big question was choosing a career. You know, I had never really given it a thought ! I loved every bit of what I had studied while achieving you. But the one I had fallen for was Financial Management. So taking up a job in a financial management field was what I was thinking. But back then, there were hardly any opportunities in this field, in my city, Pune. Or may be I hadn’t researched enough. My bad. And leaving the city for a career was not my priority. So that dream went to the back seat.

In June 2005, I took up a job in one of the Big Four firms, in Statutory Audit. Except for the fancy trainings in five star hotels, I hardly enjoyed any bit of it ! While achieving you, I had studied 'audit'. But I never related to the way an audit was done in reality, against what I had learnt. So, eight months, and I quit. 

In these eight months, I had done a lot of thinking about, if am not liking audit, or the way it’s being done in the real world, what would I like?! The answer that my heart gave me was, traditional practice ! I wanted to implement everything of what I had learnt ! Audit, Direct and Indirect tax, Accounting, Company Law, and just everything. And that definitely wasn’t possible in a job. So my dear degree, I took up traditional practice and on 1st April, 2006, joined as a partner in my boss's firm (where I completed my articleship) and decided to do justice to you ! I was happy ! 😄 The situation was ideal, I knew almost all the clients and how that office worked. It was my comfort zone. Dad was not too happy about the decision as I had given up a financially great prospect, but mom stood rock solid by my side !

Things were going quite well, when one day, I had to take a decision of taking up a job somewhere, for personal priorities and financial stability. There came the big name, Infosys, in my life ! Since the day I decided to float my resume, Infosys was the first interview and I got through with a good package, on 21st September, 2008. The profile was SAP FICO consultant. Without thinking for a split second, that whether I really wanted to do a career in SAP FICO, without doing my homework about the profile, without thinking about the future career progression, I had ended up accepting the offer and joined on 1st October, 2008 ! The biggest irony? I hated technology and there I was working with one of the top IT companies in India ! Phew !!

Those 5.5 years ! I enjoyed the exposure that I received, the experience that I received, BUT, deep down in my heart, I knew, this was neither where I wanted to be nor where I wanted to go ! My dear degree, I was hardly using you ! In fact, you were used by me only for the sake of getting into that sprawling company, but after that, I hardly used you! But it was because of you, I was there, enjoying the financial stability ! A heartfelt thank you for that ! I also made some of my bestest friends for life, there. But in the process, I had lost you ! 

Finally after taking that maternity leave, I decided to close the Infosys chapter. I had decided that I’ll be taking a maternity break, for minimum of a year, to witness my child’s growth milestones ! By God’s grace, financial stability was not a concern then. But you know what, my dear degree, I never thought in that 1 – 1.5 years, how will I get back to you?! I just enjoyed my motherhood ! 

Then came the days where I started thinking that I need to get back to business. But I was obsolete to work as a practicing Chartered Accountant. But again, there was my boss, asking me if I could join back as a partner? And, my affection for that traditional practice set-up made me say yes ! Again, I did not think, did not do my homework, just went ahead with the decision, as I knew I belonged to that set-up !

1.04.2015. I joined back as a partner. My kiddo was nearing 2 and mom was with me. Again, rock solid, said she’ll take care of the kiddo. But, since I hadn’t done any homework, within 6 months of joining, I had started doing a post mortem analysis ! 🤦 I kept trying hard to update myself on the academic front. I was traveling almost 12 kms everyday, one way. Well, my dear degree, you’ll think that people travel between cities everyday for work, my 12 kms is nowhere! But you know what, am of the basic belief that daily travel is a waste of time and energy; and may be that was eating me up ! I was also feeling torn between my family life and my work. I was just not able to get over that two-way guilt; when in office thinking that am being unfair to my family life and when at home, feeling that am being unfair to the professional life. 

So, you know, we also shifted to a place nearer to my office. But all in vain ! Again, no homework and no root cause analysis ! The real issue was working in a traditional practice set-up, after a full fledged personal life, with a kid ! I wasn’t able to give my 100% and failed many of my oldest clients and was broken when they started loosing faith in me in spite of knowing me and the way I work, for years ! That was it ! I had to quit ! 

Sweetheart, doing justice to you, the degree, is not something that I would have possibly been able to do along with giving justice to my family life ! These years in my kiddos life are once in a lifetime experience, for him and for me too. I also needed to free up my mom a bit, so she could get sometime for herself ! And the choice was done ! 

I derecognised you on 1st October, 2018. I chose to take up a hobby, full fledged, where I could devote ample time to my family as I would work from home, at my own pace, and also keep myself occupied. It’s been a year and half since then, and am thoroughly enjoying and super happy about it ! And in all this chaos (may be stupidity 🙄) of mine, my husband has been my wall ! God bless him !

But, you’ll remain in a corner of my heart, silent for now. As we move ahead, my dear professional degree, I will come back to you, and truly own you ! May be in a new form by then, may be it’ll take another few years, but, I’ll own you again, someday ! Gracefully !

I have forgiven myself for ruining a career; though I do feel terrible about it at times. But will it be possible for you to forgive me, ever? I hope you will, just because you know that all the decisions were necessary at that respective point of time and I own those decisions !

I love you.

Your faithfully,

C.A. Prachi Rahalkar