I was born
at Hyderabad
a
city in the southern part of
India. It is the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh and is one of
the
fastest growing cities in India. It is aptly called the Pearl of South
India. The language Telugu takes its name from honey and is
sweet enough to be
called the Italian of the East. The Urdu accent that I used to
pick up
from Hyderabad was remedied in the long summers I used to spend in
Duggirala
(near Tenali of Tenali Rama fame) on the sands of semi-dry Krishna
canals with my
grandparents.
And here is a funny poem written in Telugu Script if
you know how to read it.
Andhra Pradesh is going
high-tech on
the
Infobahn and information can be accessed from the Official State Homepage or the
the site maintained by Software
Technology Park at Hyderabad.
My family consists of my
parents
Bharathi and Prasad who have been the most
constructive influence in my life. Sister Lalitha and b-i-l Narendra
are both doctors
from KMC now juggling with their work shifts while my darling naughty
nephews Monish and Lucky grow up with my parents.
I did
my
schooling till the second grade at Balanandam Public School,
Hyderabad, India. I have very few
recollections of this period. The most prominent is reciting a poem on
radio in the weekly program Balanandam which used to be aired every
Sunday
afternoon on All India Radio, Vividh Bharathi station. ( Do any of the
folks
from Hyderabad remember this program ? It used to be The Program in
Telugu for
all children). The funny part was when I was asked to tell my name to
the
audience. Guys who know my name know why.
Then for one year I studied
at a
small school called St. Xaviers Primary
School. We had shifted to the suburb in the middle of the academic year
and
this was the only school which would take me in.
The rest of my secondary
education
was at Atomic Energy Central School(AECS). I did
relatively well here except in Hindi which used to cost me my rank. I
topped
the school in Maths in the Secondary Examination. ( Actually no one
could
get higher marks since I got 100%. Some more got the same 100%
though.). I also
managed to get into the House Cricket and Soccer teams and also won
several
co-curricular activity certificates on my way to graduation.
My higher secondary
education was at
Little Flower Junior College. This was
one of the most boring periods of my life when the only thing that I
did was
slog for my exams and Joint Entrance Exam, the gate to the portals of
Indian
Institutes of Technology.
I studied for my
Undergraduate degree
at Indian Institute of
Technology, New
Delhi. This was the most exciting period of my life, ( barring the time
when I
saw ... ) and also the time when I was introduced to the world
of computers and the WWW. ( Its a whole new world ... ). I worked on a
Distributed
and Object oriented Geographic Information System for my B.Tech
thesis.
I spent one year at Ohio
State
University(Go Bucks!) in the Master's program. While I was
here my research interest gradually shifted from Databases to
Architecture (
big jump some people say). I used to teach introductory programming to
business
majors and used to love it. You can contact me for my slides on how a
computer is like a restaurant and a program is a dinner!
Midwest had beautiful fall colors, nice OSU campus
and lots of Tennis courts where we used play till 9:30 in summer. But
winters
and the beaches beckoned me to the golden state.
I did my Ph.D. in
Reconfigurable
Computing in Los Angeles (the city of angels) at University
of Southern California (Fight On! Trojans). Trojans won the AP
Football National Championship in 2003-2004! Apart from doing research
in the
Computer Engineering department, I had a ball of a time in Los Angeles
and USC. Look here
for some of my work. Here are some pointers to some sites.
Click here
to take a personality Test. I am still trying to figure out my
contradictory personalities on
different days. It varies from ENTP
to ENFP.
I
have a
large spectrum of interests and I cannot order them exactly. I'll
sample some of the consistent interests below.
- Listening
to
Music
- Cartoons
- Reading cartoons is one of my favorite pastimes. I devour the
cartoons page
of Los Angeles Times every morning. I love LA Times for their
extra edition
on Sunday. US kids do not seem to have the comic culture I was exposed
to in
terms of Superman, Amar Chitra Katha, Archies etc., at least I do not
find such
in bookstores.
Back home in India my daily bread was the cartoon pages of The
Pioneer and The Times Of India though I used to prefer the
Pioneer. Let me try to list the
cartoon strips and comics I have been reading regularly ( in
alphabetical order) - Archies, Asterix, Batman, Blondie, Calvin &
Hobbes, Dilbert, Farside, Garfield, Mandrake, Mickey Mouse, Phantom,
Spiderman, Suki, Superman, Tinkle, Tintin.
I am slowly building a collection of Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert
and Farside.
I have about 20 of them now (graduate students are not paid so much),
and hope
to have all in a few years. And NO, I am not lending any of them to
YOU.
- Photography
- My latest camera is a Canon Elan IIe with a 28-105 USM. It
is the fifth generation camera I am
using after a Hotshot 110, Yashica P&S, Zenit and Pentax ME Super.
Check out my Photography
Page.
I shoot around 4 rolls per day average when I am touring anywhere. I am
extremely happy with the
results even without using the Eye-controlled auto-focus.
Did a lot of research before I bought it so you could mail me for
advice if you are planning to buy a good SLR. Also my friend Dilip
bought a Nikon N70 so you could contact him for the
Nikon side of the issue. I don't get time to scan the photographs but
have a
lot of albums for you to look at my home. I did manage to get a few Online. I
was actively involved with the Photography Society in my undergraduate
institute, IIT Delhi. I also won several
prizes for my photographs during this time. I have some beautiful
pictures of OSU campus and some of cities I have been to but I have not
found the time to scan them as yet. They will come up on this site as
soon as I get some time.
Here is a good page on Photography.
Here are some tips for amateur
photographers from an experienced amateur photographer.
- Reading and wRiting
- I am a voracious reader and have read everything from pulp to
classics. I have no favorites and read the whole book through in one
sitting
if the cover story and the first few pages hold my attention. See my Booklist
which lists what I can recollect
from those I have read.
I have read a few thousands of Telugu novels again from classics to
pulp fiction. I haven't found many who have and can discuss them so
I'll desist from listing them here.
The poets I find cool are Keats and Robert Frost. I
did try my hand at writing a few limericks but
stopped once all those whom I wrote on started getting angry with me
and also started generating cheaper versions of
them.
I have written a few science fiction stories and won a couple of
prizes in school and IIT for my writing. I do not really have time to
write any constructive pieces nowadays but do put down random
thoughts online.
- Sports
- Gone were the days when I used to play for 2 hours every evening
when I
was a kid. I was in the cricket and soccer teams in my school. At USC,
cricket takes too much time and is not as physical as soccer. Now that
we have
started playing Soccer regularly at USC, i have broken my leg a couple
of
times.
I still play Chess
though (mostly with the
computer) and I play somewhat better than beginners. I am always
willing to learn by playing with better players. I took Tennis lessons
in the summer of 96 at Ohio State and planned to play on a regular
basis in California. I was so happy that here was a place I could play
Tennis even in winter, but I ended up playing very infrequently. Won
a couple of T-Shirts in the USC Intramurals, though in the Novice
division. Can swing my arm pretty well at Badminton, Table Tennis(Ping
Pong for the uninitiated), Racquet ball but do not expect me to be
very good at one. I like trying everything that I can get my hands
on... and always ready for trying new things. Am sort of a Jack of
all games and King of very few.
- Travel
- I love outdoors and am actually slightly claustrophobic. Didn't
travel too much in India except for a couple of trekking trips. B.Tech
was a hell of a load. US and especially California, has provided much
more opportunity. I have been to Arizona (Grand Canyon), California
(Los Angeles, Monterey, Napa, Ojai, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose,
San Francisco, Santa Barbara, St. Helena, Wawona Sequioa Groves,
Yosemite Valley), Illinois (Chicago, Urbana Champaign), Louisiana
(Baton Rouge, New Orleans), Maryland (Baltimore, Silver Springs),
Massachusetts (Boston), Michigan (Ann Arbor, East Lansing), Missouri
(St.Louis), Nevada (Las Vegas), New Jersey (Eatontown, Long Branch,
Newark), New Mexico (Los Alamos, Santa Fe), New York (New York City,
Niagara Falls), Ohio (Columbus), Oregon (Klamath Falls, Crater Lake,
Portland), Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh), Virginia (Fairfax, Arlington),
Washington
(Seattle), Washington
DC, and Vancouver and Mt. Whistler in Canada. Some day I hope to visit
all the 50 states in USA (count stands at 17 now) and at least 6
continents (count is at 3 now).
I also dropped by Kuala Lampur in Malaysia in Summer 1997, Singapore in
December 1999, and Hong Kong in 2002, on the way home. I
have some beautiful butterflies in my album from the Malaysian trip.
I had a nice tour d'europe in Summer 1999. I visited England (London),
Wales (Cardiff), Scotland
(Glasgow, Isle of Skye, Luss, Loch Lomond),
Belgium (Brussels), Luxembourg (Luxembourg City), Switzerland (Zurich,
Lucern,
Interlaken, Lausanne, Geneva), France (Versailles, Paris). Read and see
more
about my European
sojourn.
Summer 2000 started off great with a visit to Cancun, Mexico before
Cinco De Mayo!
- I have tasted
the cuisine of several countries.
My trip to SF MoMA has spurred a bit of interest in painting, which
has been enhanced by NY MoMA, Metropolitan and the mother of them all
- The Louvre. I can say I have seen the Mona Lisa original though it
was in a glass cage. I can differentiate a Picasso from a Renoir and a
Matisse from a Warhol now.
