Story of a stammerer

Today my primary (not my only) identity is as a co-founder of Rapido. Still, I get to play many roles as a sales guy, tech guy, product guy, design guy, support guy, and a guy wearing many hats… besides all these, there is a lesser-known label I carry. That is as a stammerer.

Like any other founder, my story has many ups and downs and personal battles, but the first one I always reflect upon is a lot more personal. And that begins with my story as a stammerer.

I hail from a small town in Karnataka, a second-born kid in a middle-class family, nothing really noteworthy or special. Just another ordinary kid, trying to thrive. But, When I was 12, I noticed I am not like everyone else. At Least I didn't speak like everyone else around me. Communication was hard for me, words wouldn’t flow out fluently for which I was often bullied. It's no surprise that the world or even school belongs to well-spoken extroverts or it seems so. My friends often pointed it out and soon I realized I had an actual speech condition. I am a stammerer. This took a toll on my self-confidence and soon became a label, one that I so didn't want then.

I was so ashamed of how I spoke, that I once borrowed a tape recorder from my cousin and recorded myself to really hear how bad I was. When I heard it for the first time, I felt pathetic, absolutely helpless, and lost. Things got no better as teasing and bullying soon became common among my peers. The self-pity and despair soon turned to aggression that I once smashed a bully's head into the wall and he started bleeding heavily. Not something I am proud of. But, this aggression soon turned to silence. Staying more silent than I wanted to be and being silent long enough limited my ability to express myself. I moved to the last bench so that I would be less noticeable. I consciously used to distance myself from others and eventually a few other labels added to my identity, that is as shy, loner and introvert.

I soon started finding solutions to deal with my condition. I spent my time after school hours in internet cafes, googling how to control my stammering. My friends pitched in with eccentric solutions. One said, eating pigeon meat helps! P.S. I am a vegetarian. Several exercises to flex tongue muscles were recommended. Trip to babas, temples and eating a few roots were all suggested by the people around. The poor me tried a few with sparing results. My dad soon entered the scene to help and took me to speech therapists who suggested I have a piece of gum or gems under my tongue all the time. Honestly, it did not help.

Meanwhile, I only selected activities that would avoid me speaking. I changed my lifestyle, my goals, my aspirations..everything in my head is moulded towards me not speaking.

As soon as I entered UG, cultural shock hit me hard. For someone who's already labelled a shy, loner, villager..competing with everyone who seemed to have better communication skills made me feel underprivileged. Throughout college, the library became my best friend. The one place where everyone is expected to stay strictly silent! Not a breakthrough moment yet, But I wasn’t ready to accept that I am any less. I decided to actively acknowledge the situation and swim through it. I consciously started participating in events, and workshops, and relentlessly tried to make it better.

After graduating, My roommates turned co-founders and I donned the hat of a newbie entrepreneur, which required me to speak..not just for myself but for my whole team. As I was representing my whole company, at times It was extremely challenging to express what I wanted to, though I had so many thoughts in my head. But not exactly being able to do so, made me question and blame myself for the lost opportunities. This made me depressed. I needed to change things and soon visited a therapist hoping for an aha moment. The only learning was, whatever change I was expecting needed to come from within rather than from outside.

The next morning I started walking out of the office collecting my thoughts and decided to not stop walking until I come to terms with this situation. Until I know how to embrace this, accept things, and know that I am indeed doing everything I can. I actually ended up walking 10km in the rain, all the way to brigade road alone with torn slippers

I came back determined to embrace it. The thing is, I heard the idiom so many times, fake it, till you make it. But I think that hardly works in real life and so many situations. When we fake it, we do know we are pretending to make us feel like impostors. whereas I think we need to acknowledge, accept and rather embrace things to actually make it. With this newfound wisdom, I decided to work on myself, yet again. Maybe it was a sheer coincidence but a happy one. I stumbled upon this on the internet.