05.11.2026
Recently, I just graduated with a First Class honours degree in Art History and Visual Cultures from the Open University. It took me four years to do this while I was juggling a few jobs and voluntary positions, working 70 hour weeks. At the moment, I am still working full time in multiple jobs, have been promoted as a manager where I am working harder than ever and I am still studying. I’m doing a Master’s in Art History at the Open University.
When my ambition is writing, education and scholarship, when I am academically gifted, why do I have to work full time in a non academic space instead of pursuing my real dreams? Instead of being in the place where I should be? Why am I giving up the space to think for work?
Like many gifted people, I have had to prioritise work over thought. I have had to choose work over thought. The usual reason can be given in one word. Money.
What does money mean? It is a nebulous term. When I had finished my PhD, I was unemployed for a long time. I wanted to become a university professor and no one was giving me a chance. I didn’t get a single interview in the whole time I was looking for roles and applying. Nobody can tell me that this is not because of the racism of academia in the United Kingdom.
My family were all worried. Without work as an Asian man, there is no possibility of a relationship with a woman. The worries increased when we had to move homes as my father was retired and there was no source of income coming in to give financial security.
So, although I was filling my time between applications studying free online courses, reading around the things that I was interested in, being a student, working on two books at the same time (one completed in draft form, the other in outline), working on journal articles that were being accepted, I had to give it all up to take the pressure off my family. I had to get a job.
The first one was being an exam invigilator. The next one was working in a warehouse lifting heavy boxes of alcoholic drinks all day. There was nothing to eat there so I had to take food in a flask every day and conditions were horrible. Over time they started giving me overtime in the mornings in administration because they saw that I was clever. On the weekends, I got a job in a museum. This was what I was doing instead of following my academic ambitions and dreams.
But do you know what? Dreams are hard to kill. I managed to drop the warehouse job and get a full time permanent position in a museum. And as the money was coming in now, I pursued the Art History and Visual Cultures degree with the Open University. It was a big commitment. But I believed that I would do it.
I took my inspiration from the poor in India. The poor that did university degrees in a developed Western country while working part time so that they could send money home to the ones that needed it the most. I had become a poor person. I worked and I studied. In my free time, I worked as a curator as much as I could while I was working, completing a major research project in one workplace, curating a museum display in another place, being a virtual curator for websites and social media for plants in art and Japanese art. Just work on top of more work. The poor could do it. They were superhuman. And I? I also came from the poor. We were also superhuman. We would persevere despite everything.
I have never given up my dream, the dream of my people, the dream of education. The dream that education sells you is that you can transform yourself, the world and society. You can bring education to the people. Yes, I have had to choose work over thought. But I have pushed myself so that I can have thought. I have given myself freedom to pursue studies. There are two years left. And what is after that? I want an undergraduate degree in Biology or Botany and a Master’s in Botany. To gain your dreams, you have to be willing to sacrifice and work for it. And this I have learnt from the poor, my community, The Oppressed, the Dalits. Where I come from.
