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I was born in Pune, which is
regarded as the cultural capital of Maharashtra. Since the age of three,
however, I have lived outside Maharashtra, in several places. I studied in
Kolkata, in a Bengali medium school upto standard
IV, and did my standard V in Indore in a Hindi medium corporation school.
Then, our family moved to Secunderabad, where I
completed the rest of my schooling upto standard
XI (higher secondary of yesteryears) in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Picket. I did my B.Tech
at IIT Madras in the Electronics stream of the Electrical Engineering
Department. My stay and education in different parts of India has broadened
my outlook and enabled me to pick up several languages - I have learnt to
read, write and speak Bengali, Hindi and my mother tongue, Marathi, and to
speak Telugu and Tamil.
By the time I completed my B.Tech
at IIT Madras, I realized that I was cut out for a career in research and
teaching. I applied to reputed US universities for further studies and
received lucrative offers. At the same time, as per a scheme of the then
director of IIT Madras, my teachers offered me another option based on my
academic performance in B.Tech - direct admission
into the PhD program and appointment as a Senior Scientific Officer in the
EE department of IIT Madras. A patriotic impulse (internal factor) and the
promises of my teachers (external factor) motivated me to chose this option. Carrying through this decision has
been a great learning experience in my life.
Apart from professional activities, I have deep interest in
music (sing light and classical), philosophy, social service (participated
in the relief operations of 1977 cyclone in Andhra Pradesh; have
coordinated the activities of the Voluntary Blood Donor's club of IIT
Madras since 2001), and sports (participated in football, kabaddi, cricket tournaments and in some boxing
competitions too !).
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