Born many moons and several thousand miles from here and now, I grew up into a hardcore question nut that my parents were hard-pressed to shut up. Had I been born a few centuries earlier, I suppose I would have been charged with heresy and burned at a stake. Anyway, Dad decided to take the problem head on and became an invaluable source of info. All my 'why's and 'how's were answered patiently but only resulted in whetting my appetite.

After a minor flurry of schools in two cities, I joined Padma Sheshadri Bala Bhavan, a premier school in Chennai. And that, after my parents, has proved to be the biggest influence in my life. For exactly a decade from then, it continued to mould me into the person that I am today. Though I should say they didn’t do a good job of stanching the flow of questions.

At the end of my schooling, there was this desperate urge to break free, a desire to venture out into the world as a man would. Again, a few centuries earlier, perhaps I would have taken to the sea... become a sailor. But at the doorstep of a new millenium, this led me to Pondicherry, or more specifically Pondicherry Engineering College. Through my first year I was in a dilemma, juggling with the idea of staying in the Mechanical Engineering that I had chosen, or switching to electrical as my major stream. But then, God put his foot down. On my left foot, to be precise.

Having spent three months recuperating from an accident, I returned to a Mechanical that I was to grow to love over the next three years. It was then that I realized the true meaning of serendipity. Making an almost blind choice, that you later realize was exactly what you were hoping for. Academics apart, what is worth mentioning is the four years of hostel life that added a whole new dimension to the subject of this write-up (that’s me!!).

At the end of these four years, I still had not had my fill of ‘why’s and ‘how’s. So I decided to give myself some more time, although, this time I knew exactly what I wanted to know more about. And that’s how I ended up here and now.