About Me 

About Me sections always cause me problems.  For one, I consider myself very much a work-in-progress so by the time you read this, I’ve probably already changed  and a lot of what you’re reading may not be true <grin>

Besides, I grew up in a culture where it was considered really uncool to say more than two sentences about yourself.  Otherwise, you’d be accused of tooting your horn. 

After racking my brains forever, I copped out and inserted excerpts from a brief interview that I gave a local rag some time ago

Q) What was your first ever job?
A) Baby-sitting my sister

Q) What is your claim to fame?
A) None that I can think of.  At least, not yet.

Q) Who are your role models?
A) First and foremost, my parents.

There are no absolute gods.  But there’s a smorgasbord of assorted individuals, portions of whose life or work I am fired up by:  Sardar Patel, Alexis de Tocqueville, George Orwell, Bob Rubin, Richard Riordan, Bob Dylan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Milton Friedman, Warren Buffett, Bill Gross (of PIMCO, not Idealab).. The list could go on for a long time <LOL>

Q) What did you do with your first ever salary/pay?
A) I bought a bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate with my pay from the baby-sitting job. It took me two hours to finish but I enjoyed every nibble of it <grin>.  Yumm.  Still brings back vivid memories!  

Q) Which is your favorite book and why? 
A) I'm an omnivorous bibliophile so it's hard for me to pinpoint a favorite book.  Can reel off a few dozen books at any given point. 

Q) C’mon, at least a couple
A) Well, if I had to pinpoint a couple, in fiction I really liked "English, August" by Upamanyu Chatterjee.  Hilarious, and a great portrayal of my generation in India.  A deserved cult classic.

As for non-fiction I was quite taken with "Guns, Germs & Steel" by Jared Diamond.  It's a great combination of intellectual rigor and lucid expression.  And of course that old classic, “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Q) How do you unwind?  What is it that you enjoy doing after and beside work? 
A) Reading (omnivorous), music (equally omnivorous), writing (sporadically), working out (swimming, tennis, yoga, weights), hanging out with friends and family.  Pretty prosaic, right?  But them I’m a meek geek, so what do you expect <grin>

Q) What else would you be doing if you weren’t where you are now, professionally?
A) Teaching mathematics & English in a high schools in India.  Researching Jain & Buddhist philosophy (and other heterodox offshoots of Hinduism), especially a comparative study of these vis-à-vis Stoicism  

Q) If you had the opportunity to meet a person, anybody, living or dead who would it be and why?
A) Sid, of course

Q) Who are you referring to?
A) Sid as in Siddhartha aka Gautama Buddha. He sounds like a pretty cool dude. Seriously, I think that he was definitely the most influential Indian ever. The disappearance of Buddhism from India was an immense loss.

Q) What is your motto in life?
A) Come on..

Q) Surely you’ve got something to say?
A) Well, how about this: Add value, have fun, and above all, eat as many chocolates as possible…