CHENNAI: Taking a non-traditional career path is not easy for anybody, even for someone considered royalty in the music industry, like Ayaan Ali Bangesh. Despite being the son of one of the world’s most celebrated musicians (Amjad Ali Khan), there was a time when even Ayaan Ali Bangesh felt hesitant about revealing his father’s profession.
“In the first grade, we were all asked to draw pictures of our family. Everyone in the class drew their fathers holding a briefcase and I drew my father with a sarod. I felt left out and erased the sarod and drew a briefcase as well,” he said, to sniggers.
Ayaan was speaking on the subject 'How to navigate a non-traditional career path' when he recalled this incident from childhood. But even though it might seem like music would be an obvious career choice for him, he confessed that he too questioned whether he was good enough for it. “There was a point in time when all my friends were going off to college and that is when I had doubts about success in the industry.”
Yet, Ayaan believed in himself. “The only thing that you know for sure about choosing a non-traditional career is that you don’t actually know what’s going to happen. But any creative journey can only be driven by passion. If you don’t have passion, you can’t succeed,” he explained.
His fellow panellists, Michael Foley, managing director, Foley Designs, Rema Rajeshwari, SP, Telangana and Gautam Chintamani, author, also agreed that without passion and conviction, it would be impossible to become an achiever in a non-traditional profession.
Rema Rajeshwari spoke about how, for women, it becomes almost doubly difficult when it comes to venturing into professions that have predominantly male workers. “When a man chooses a profession mostly identified with women like nursing, his sexuality is questioned. If a woman chooses a profession like the security forces then almost everything is questioned. We have to strive to break down all gender stereotypes,” she said.