Prague Confessions: With Vineet about Discovering His 3 Passions

I order a glass of wine and sink into a couch next to a piano. I know I’ll wait a bit while Vineet gets caught up on work. No problem. Prostor 39 is Žižkov’s coworking café and gallery and welcomes me to write another blog post. Vineet comes soon with apologies. He orders mošt and looks around. “Hmm, quite nice. I wouldn’t say the usual Czech pub, more like hipster of a place.”

Vineet left India for the first time in his life in 2013, 

when his company sent him for a couple of months to Ostrava. “I was the only contractor in the office, so I had to look for opportunities to socialize outside of work. People say about Prague that if you’re a foreigner, and you go out, you know more or less everyone. But in Ostrava, I literally, at some point, went out and knew everyone,” he laughs. “I met a few people who introduced me to some other people… It was a good lesson on how to find new friends in a new city.” 

Vineet had to go back to India. But he started to search for jobs in Europe. In the end, he applied for a position with DHL in Prague and moved here in 2014. “My first year was a bit slow and tough. But then I started to try out different things, some of them, I never did before in my life. I began to understand myself better – what I like, what excites me… Three things still define me at this point. Travelling, dancing, running…” he pauses. “And of course work,” he laughs. “I spend a lot of my time there.”

“Prague is a small capital; but then, there are so many opportunities here…” 

“…talking to people in different languages, different types of food, you can travel a lot ‘cause you are in the centre of Europe.” Vineet seized the opportunity. “In a blog, or a Facebook post I could only see the end result of travelling and everybody talked only about the perfect things. But not the journey. Once travelling myself, I found out there are missing gaps, missing tips…” Vineet shares the lessons he has learned. “Travelling takes away some of your fears and stereotypes that people associate with some cultures. When you give people a chance, it gives you a different perspective on life.”

“When I was young, I was very shy,”

He takes me to the story of his second passion. “Dancing was to me something that confident and extroverted people do. When you dance in public, you somehow express your thoughts. People can see you and judge you. But then somebody told me, ‘Dance like nobody’s watching,’ and that has changed my perception.” He joined a salsa class and started practicing in clubs. “Even if there were people, I just danced for myself and I started to enjoy it. Eventually the crowds stop being a distraction for you; they become something that adds to it.”

On the wave of trying out new things… 

…Vineet accepted his colleague’s suggestion to join a running group. “I knew how to sprint. But in sprint, you just go all out. Long-distance running is a different sport. And I had to learn how to hold the pace and plan my run.” He enjoyed the challenge, but the stakes got higher. “I had two big injuries in 2014, one after the other. My doctor told me to stop the whole sport scene.” Vineet had to take a break from running for almost a year. But as soon as he could, he joined a new running group called Adidas Runners. “I had to reinvent the way I do things, especially sports. I changed my running style, and the way I trained.”

In about a year Vineet got an opportunity to run his first half-marathon, in Paris. “I looked at some of the people who signed up while training much shorter than me. I thought, ‘Okay, if they can do it, I can try as well.’ And then a month later I ran in Prague, and another month in Vienna.” The experience gripped him. “These races keep you focused on your training because you have a goal to look forward to.”

And it gives Vineet an incentive to study more Czech. 

“I feel that I should learn more of the running lingo. I never get the opportunity to practice it when I’m out in a bar or just hanging out with friends. Everyone would think I’m a weirdo talking about thigh muscles, hamstrings or taking deep breaths.” I burst out laughing. 

Vineet would like to use his experience to help people who recently moved to Prague; “I can always relate because I was that guy too. I’m trying to think of some platform to offer suggestions where to go and what to do; to give people shortcuts. It could be in the form of a questionnaire or a social networking… It’s just an idea in my head right now.” I keep my fingers crossed for Vineet to succeed in making people’s lives easier and maybe encouraging them to discover their passions.

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