A PCB Tale

Every factory has two stories.
One story is easy to see.
It is made of land, buildings, cleanrooms, machines, conveyors, robots, software, drawings, production lines, quality systems, and thousands of components that eventually become a finished product.
The other story is almost invisible.
It is made of uncertainty, courage, mistakes, friendships, difficult decisions, sleepless nights, quiet victories, unexpected failures, and ordinary people attempting something extraordinary.
This book is about the second story.
When I accepted an opportunity to join SRK Techtronics in December 2025, I was stepping into unfamiliar territory. After spending more than two decades in the automotive and aerospace industries, I suddenly found myself entering the world of electronics manufacturing. At forty-five years of age, I was once again a student.
New city.
New industry.
New technology.
New people.
New challenges.
Like every newcomer, I carried questions. Would I fit in? Could I learn quickly enough? Would my previous experience still matter in a completely different industry?
The answers did not arrive in a classroom.
They came while standing beside SMT machines, travelling to suppliers across India, debating engineering solutions, walking through half-built factories, listening to colleagues, watching customers, visiting temples, observing birds, speaking to strangers, and sometimes simply sitting alone in silence.
Slowly I began to discover something beautiful.
Engineering and life are not separate subjects.
A production line succeeds only when every process works in harmony. Human relationships follow the same principle.
A tiny electrostatic discharge, invisible to the eye, can silently damage an electronic component. A careless word can do exactly the same to a human heart.
Traceability is essential inside a factory because every problem has a cause. Life, too, quietly leaves clues for those willing to observe.
The more I worked in electronics manufacturing, the more I realised that factories are not merely places where products are assembled. They are classrooms where leadership, humility, patience, teamwork, discipline, and resilience are taught every single day.
This book is not intended to be a technical manual. Nor is it simply a memoir.
It is a collection of true moments.
Some will make you smile.
Some may surprise you.
Some may encourage you to pause and reflect.
Whether I am describing a machine, a supplier visit, a spiritual conversation, a quality issue, a customer meeting, or an ordinary lunch with colleagues, I hope you will look beyond the incident itself. Hidden inside each experience is a small lesson that stayed with me long after the event had passed.
You do not need to be an engineer to enjoy this journey.
If you are a student, perhaps you will discover what the manufacturing world really looks like beyond textbooks.
If you are an engineer, you may recognize many moments from your own career.
If you are an entrepreneur, you will witness what it takes to build an organization from the ground up.
And if you simply enjoy stories about people chasing meaningful work, I hope these pages will remind you that behind every electronic product you use lies the dedication of countless individuals whose names the world may never know.
This book is my attempt to honour them.
As you turn these pages, I invite you to walk beside me—from the temples of Ahmedabad to the cleanrooms of an emerging ESDM company; from philosophical reflections to engineering reviews; from uncertainty to confidence; from one printed circuit board to an organization striving to build a world-class future.
The journey begins with a simple realization that greeted me on my very first day in Ahmedabad.
Growth rarely happens inside familiarity.
It begins the moment we have the courage to embrace variation.