My first post for my personal blog – Pavan’s Perspectives

Lagbhag bees saal pehle ki baat hain (लगभग बीस साल पहले की बात है, approximately 20 years ago) – I’ll need to wait another year to begin this post in that dramatic style, a staple of so many Hindi films such as Karz, Meri Jung, Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki, Karma, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and others.

Actually it was about 19 years back, 2005…the first batch of students I guided to study in New Zealand. There were 3 of them, their names are etched in my mind – Sudhakar Reddy, Janardhan Reddy, Guntur Rajesh. They were going to do the Post Graduate Certificate Course in the New Zealand International College (NZIC), Wellington, the course being conducted by the Central Queensland University. The team at the consultancy I was working in, the students – all of us were so excited then by the success of our pioneering efforts at the consultancy to introduce New Zealand as a country where students could go for higher education. Regret I don’t have any pics of that time to share here.

18 years later, in August 2023, when I was in New Zealand to attend the New Zealand International Education Conference KI TUA (NZIEC KI TUA), …ping… there was a WhatsApp notification on my phone. It was a Good morning Pavan, welcome to Wellington…, from Guntur Rajesh. We had kept in touch off and on (I had guided a relative of his, a few years after 2005 to do a course in Weltec, New Zealand).

Rajesh called me in the afternoon that day, last year. He had contacted Sudhakar Reddy and Janardhan Reddy and the three invited me to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Wellington. Thanks to our mobile phone cameras, I am able to share with you below one of the multiple pics each of us took that night.

All the three are citizens of New Zealand, well-settled, with families. Both Sudhakar and Janardhan are in the IT industry and Rajesh is having his own business.

Why I have stuck to being an overseas education consultant for over 20 years

“You’re still sending students to study abroad, not got into something else?” people ask in surprise, when they meet me after a long gap of time. Almost all my classmates, my batchmates in school and college have changed careers, migrated to other countries, switched businesses and so on. I have remained an overseas education consultant, residing in India, or as they put it in India, I have been a ‘study abroad consultant’ since I took up my first job, about 22 years ago, as an overseas education counsellor, immediately after completing my MBA.

I can’t explain in words the satisfaction I get when my students (I’m not their teacher, lecturer, or professor, so can I call them ‘my students’?) complete their courses in the countries they have gone to, find good jobs and then have a good life, either abroad or after returning back to India. It is always a pleasure for me to continue to be in touch with them. Many keep updating me about their life’s journey, often thanking me for guiding them sincerely and always with their best interests at heart. Scores of them still keep referring others, their friends and relatives to me, “Go to Pavan, you can trust him with your dreams to study abroad. He’ll do his best for you.”

I can’t claim to be super successful financially but am quite gratified that over the past couple of decades I have made a qualitative difference to the lives of a few hundred students who I have been privileged to guide to study abroad. Thank you, guys, for giving me the opportunity to serve you all.