A Pause Before the Next Chapter: Family, Leadership and a Journey to Jog Falls

In the middle of a significant professional transition, taking on the responsibility of leading VirtuNx, I had to travel to our Bengaluru office.

What could have been another routine business trip became an opportunity to take my family along, spend a few days with friends, and visit Jog Falls.

The timing felt right.

My recent days have been filled with product development, customer conversations, marketing plans, hiring, team building, and defining the priorities for VirtuNx and its products for the next six months.

Amid all this activity, my three-year-old had started asking me to spend more time with him.

Children do not understand product roadmaps, customer commitments, leadership transitions, or why one more meeting cannot wait. They understand something much simpler: whether you are present.

His request made this trip feel less like a holiday plan and more like a pause I genuinely needed before stepping fully into the next chapter.

A flight seen through a child’s eyes

Our journey began with a flight from Hyderabad to Bengaluru.

Although my son had flown earlier, this was perhaps his first flight after becoming old enough to understand what was happening around him. His excitement began well before we boarded.

For my wife and me, it came with the familiar uncertainty experienced by parents travelling with a young child.

Would he enjoy the flight? Would he sit through the journey? Or would the three of us become the entertainment for everyone else on board?

Thankfully, he decided to enjoy it.

He watched the clouds, played with the lights, ate his snacks, and kept sipping water. Every few minutes, he assured us that he was fine, as though he were responsible for calming us down.

He also had some amusing exchanges with the cabin crew. When they asked him to wear his seat belt and keep the window shade open during take-off, he listened carefully and responded with the seriousness of someone receiving an important assignment.

By the time we landed, he had successfully completed his little aviation adventure, and so had we.

As usual, Bengaluru welcomed us with rain.

From the airport, we travelled to his cousins’ home. Children meeting after a gap seem to follow their own predictable sequence: excitement, cautious observation, negotiation over toys, minor disagreements, and then complete comfort.

While they found their rhythm, I was still moving between two worlds. The family holiday had started, but my evenings remained occupied with office communication and conversations with colleagues and alumni about my new journey.

I was physically on the trip. Mentally, I was still learning how to arrive.

When professional and personal worlds meet

Thursday remained a regular workday, filled with customer meetings and conversations with the team.

The day ended differently, with my family joining me for dinner with my boss and his family.

It was the first time our families were meeting, and the evening allowed us to know one another beyond our professional roles.

Most workplace relationships are built around responsibilities, outcomes, decisions, and deadlines. But a family interaction reveals another dimension. Behind every professional role is a person with relationships, responsibilities, hopes, and a life that never appears on an organization chart.

It was a simple evening, but it made the professional transition feel more personal and grounded.

Leaving the calendar behind

Friday morning was filled with meetings and task closures before we could officially begin the holiday.

We then boarded a train for the six-and-a-half-hour journey towards Jog Falls, where my friend and his family were waiting for us.

The train brought a slower rhythm. We could watch places pass by instead of rushing between them. After the train journey came a 45-minute drive through the forest to reach our place of stay.

That night offered something increasingly rare: almost no mobile network.

Initially, it felt inconvenient. We are so accustomed to checking messages, scrolling through updates, and filling every quiet moment with a screen that the absence of connectivity can feel like a problem.

But gradually, it became a relief.

There were no calls to attend, no notifications demanding a response, and no endless stream of information. There was only time to talk, listen, laugh, and eventually go to sleep without one final look at a screen.

Sometimes, disconnecting from the network is what allows us to reconnect with the people around us.

An 800-metre lesson in leadership

Saturday brought the real adventure.

We began with a trek of around 800 metres through the forest to reach a river viewpoint.

On paper, 800 metres does not sound difficult. With children aged two-and-a-half, three, and seven navigating an unfamiliar forest trail, it becomes a small expedition.

My friend, who comes from an Army background, naturally took the lead.

What stayed with me was not merely that he knew the route. It was how he brought everyone along.

He kept the children interested, encouraged them when they slowed down, adjusted the pace, reassured the adults, and made the destination feel achievable. He did not ask everyone to move at his speed. He helped everyone move at theirs.

It reminded me that leadership is not about reaching the destination first.

It is about creating the confidence, clarity, and encouragement that allow people with different capabilities and speeds to reach it together.

The lesson felt particularly relevant as I prepared for a new leadership responsibility, but in that moment, it was simply a friend helping three young children enjoy a walk through the forest.

Jog Falls in the pouring rain

From the viewpoint, we began the hour-long drive to Jog Falls.

Throughout the journey, the rain played hide-and-seek with us. Whenever it slowed, our hopes of getting a clear view of the waterfalls increased. Whenever it returned, those hopes came down again.

Reaching Jog Falls on a rainy weekend brought another adventure: finding a place to park. It became a collective guessing game of watching vehicles, anticipating movements, and hoping someone would leave at exactly the right time.

Once inside, we waited for the rain to stop.

The sun appeared occasionally, almost like a blinking firefly, before disappearing again. Eventually, we accepted that the perfect weather we were waiting for might never arrive.

The local sellers were better prepared than we were. Rain covers of every possible size were available immediately and at affordable prices. They understood the weather, the customer, and the moment of need.

Covered from head to toe, we finally walked to the viewpoint and experienced Jog Falls in the pouring rain.

It was not the clean, postcard view we had imagined.

But it was powerful, real, and probably more memorable because of the rain.

The experience was another quiet reminder that waiting for perfect conditions can sometimes prevent us from experiencing what is already in front of us.

Corn, Maggi and understanding the moment

Travelling through forest roads with children creates one continuous concern: where will we find food that everyone is willing to eat?

Fortunately, a roadside stop serving fresh corn and Maggi appeared at exactly the right time.

Even during a holiday, the product manager in me occasionally refuses to switch off.

I noticed how the seller understood different customers without needing a formal segmentation exercise.

When speaking to families like ours, he emphasized the quality of the water, cleanliness, food safety, and where we could park. When a bus carrying around twenty passengers arrived, his proposition changed. Price, quantity, and quick delivery became more important.

Same product. Different customers. Different priorities.

It was a simple roadside example of something businesses sometimes make unnecessarily complicated: understand who is standing in front of you and what matters to them at that moment.

The memories children carry home

By the final hours of the trip, the children had moved completely into their comfort zone.

They shared, complained, screamed, laughed, and sang together. The adults revisited old memories, exchanged stories, and watched new memories being created in front of us.

When it was finally time to leave, my son became visibly sad.

He told us that he had enjoyed the trip and did not want it to end.

For me, that was the most meaningful feedback of the entire journey.

I had wanted to spend more time with him. Somewhere between the flight, train, forest, rain, waterfalls, cousins, new friends, corn, and Maggi, we had created memories that belonged only to us.

Children may not remember every place they visit or every activity planned for them. But they remember how a moment made them feel.

More importantly, they remember whether we were truly there with them.

Returning to the next chapter

A holiday does not make responsibilities disappear.

As I returned, my calendar was already reminding me of everything ahead: product priorities, customer conversations, marketing plans, team goals, hiring decisions, and the next phase of building VirtuNx.

But I was returning differently.

The trip reminded me that acceleration is sustainable only when we make space to pause. Leadership may require us to think about organizations, customers, products, markets, and the future, but life continues to ask whether we are present for the people travelling beside us.

This journey did not give me a dramatic leadership revelation or a new management framework.

It gave me something simpler and perhaps more valuable: time with my family, renewed energy, and a reminder of what all the work is ultimately meant to support.

Before beginning the next chapter, this was the pause I needed.

And sometimes, the most meaningful milestone is not found on a product roadmap.

It is a three-year-old holding your hand, looking at a waterfall through the rain, and telling you that he is happy.