When I completed my engineering, the same question returned with even greater force: "Now what?" For my family, the answer was obvious. I had earned a good degree, performed well academically, and it was finally time to build a stable career. They encouraged me to take a job and continue playing chess only in my free time or on weekends. It was sensible advice, but by then, I understood something that I hadn't understood as a teenager.

Chess was not a hobby that could be pursued after office hours. It was an ocean without an end. If I wanted to discover how far I could truly go, I had to dedicate my life to it. Playing one or two tournaments a year while working a full-time job would never allow me to become the player I dreamed of becoming. I shared my thoughts with my parents. They listened patiently, but reality stood firmly on their side.

Our family was still struggling financially. My father worked tirelessly, yet his income was just enough to keep the household running. My parents reminded me that I was now an engineer, and with that degree came responsibility—not only towards my own future, but towards the family that had sacrificed so much for my education. My mother finally said something that changed everything: "If you want to pursue chess, do it. But you must earn your own money, contribute to the family, and fund your own tournaments."

It was a challenge, but also an opportunity. Instead of searching for a job unrelated to the game I loved, I decided to build my life around chess itself. In 2018, soon after completing my engineering, I started my first academy—Pro Chess Academy. It began with only three students. During the day, I taught; at night, I studied chess. Every lesson I prepared made me a better coach, and every position I analysed made me a stronger player. I realised that teaching was not taking me away from chess—it was deepening my understanding of it.

The beginning was far from easy. The academy earned very little, and whatever income came in was shared with my family. There was rarely enough left to travel, pay tournament entry fees, and compete regularly. So I made another difficult decision: before investing in my own playing career, I would first build a foundation strong enough to support it. For nearly two years, I poured almost all my energy into my students. Their improvement became my success. Their victories slowly built trust, and that trust brought more students. Little by little, the academy grew, and with it grew the hope that one day I would finally be able to pursue chess without financial limitations.

By the end of 2019, I had saved enough money to return to tournament chess. In January 2020, I played my first tournament after a long gap. I competed again in February, and for the first time, I had a clear plan—to play tournaments consistently every month and dedicate myself completely to improving as a professional player. Then the world came to a standstill. The COVID-19 pandemic brought every tournament to a halt. My academy was forced to close, my father's work was disrupted, and once again survival became more important than ambition. The savings I had carefully built for my chess journey were now needed to support my family.

For a moment, it felt as though the dream had been pushed further away than ever before. But I refused to let it die. Instead of giving up, I rebuilt everything from the beginning. I shifted my academy online, learning an entirely new way of teaching. Many students could not continue, and I had to start almost from scratch. Slowly, new students joined. The online academy grew stronger, and once again I focused on creating stability before chasing my own competitive ambitions.

When tournaments slowly began to return, I was ready to resume my journey. But fate had one more delay in store. The second wave of COVID-19 brought fresh uncertainty, and my family was deeply worried about my health and safety. After everything we had already endured, they asked me not to travel for tournaments for another year. It was another painful pause, but I understood their concern. Once again, I chose patience over frustration. So I waited, continuing to teach, study, rebuild my academy, save every possible rupee, and prepare for the day I could finally return. The dream never disappeared; it simply grew stronger through every delay.

Then, in 2023, after years of postponing my own competitive journey because of responsibility, financial realities, and a global pandemic, I finally sat across the chessboard once again. This time, I wasn't returning simply to play. I was returning to fulfil a promise I had made to myself years earlier—a promise that no hardship, no setback, and no passage of time had ever been able to extinguish.