I started manufacturing bicycle parts. I come from a city called Ludhiana where almost everybody is self-employed, and either you make bicycle parts or bicycles, or hosiery parts or hosiery goods.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My first venture was to trade bicycle parts and hosiery yarn. The initial days proved to be difficult, and I earned very little from my business. But I kept at it. Each day, when I retired for the night, I told myself that money would come in the next day.
In the 9th grade I began my first wage work for the West Side Drug store delivering prescriptions and sundries on my bicycle to customers who called in orders.
It takes a lot of help - nature, friends, family, craftsmen - for me to make what I make.
I've been an engineer, barman, skip lorry driver, coalman, boat window manufacturer, contract grass cutter and builder.
I am a mechanical techie. I can build things with my hands.
Cycling has never felt like a job. To get paid for something that you absolutely love is amazing. I don't feel like I work. I just do it because I love it and I get paid to do it. I just think: 'What an easy way to earn a living.'
My bike is my gym, my wheelchair and my church all in one. I'd like to ride my bike all day long but I've got this thing called a job that keeps getting in the way.
I remember, my first bicycle was very much a used bike. I wasn't going to Wal-Mart, buying a flashy 10-speed bike from China. Are you kidding me?
When I was 14, I did all kinds of different odd jobs. I had a chicken farm, had an ice cream operation in the summertime, worked as a caddy; all things to make money and save money. Save money in order to invest - that was the first step, though I never really accumulated very much because of other demands like bicycles and things like that.
I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets.