Remembering the Gurus

Today is Guru Purnima and I use this occasion to express my gratitude to a lot of gurus that I had the good fortune of being associated with. My dad was an officer in a bank and was being transferred every 2-3 years, as such I didn't get a chance to be under the influence of a Guru for long during my formative years. Here's a list of Gurus that I'm deeply indebted to:

• My my prof and guide at SJCE when I was doing bachelors. Instilled loads of confidence and taught me the importance of life long learning. He was talking OOA/D in 1988 (honestly, we thought he was nuts). He was adamant even in 1988 (this was the period before liberalisation and we had not heard much of MNCs, S/w programming and even Y2K) that by the millennium there'd be only two kinds of people - people that know programming and people that doesn't. He was so sure that despite our weeklong protests, he wanted us to take-up a "software project" as opposed to standard non-software projects everyone else was doing (my bachelors is in Electrical and Electronics Engg). Later he pushed me to take GATE and made sure I joined M.Tech at NITK. He himself went on to do P.hd later and has held several influential and critical positions at SJCE and JSS Institutions. I regret that I didn't take his suggestion of doing an external P.hd at IISc for which he had done a lot of marketing on my behalf with a specific prof. Thank you Dr. TNN.
• Meet my 2nd Guru - he had secured 1st rank in 10th, 12th, BE (from NITK), 4.0/4.0 CGPA in both MS and P.hd from Carnegie Melon Univ (completing P.hd in a record 2 years), who then worked in AT&T Bell Labs as a scientist, then as a prof in University of Maryland, who then came back to NITK as a prof. What can you learn from him? Lots really. But he stumped us by his humility. We were in awe with him but he made us very comfortable in no time. He was the first to admit "I don't know" when he actually didn't know something, but promptly used to get back to us with answers. I once asked him "How come you say "I don't know" so easily when a lot of us try to "manage" while trying to hide that we indeed don't know". He said "When you say I don't know, it liberates. You need not have to pretend. And often saying I don't know is the first step to actually learn something and there is nothing wrong in admitting you don't know". He was my guide during my M.Tech and I had the good fortune of accompanying him on his lecture tours across industries and universities, numerous times. He too goaded me to do a P.hd, I disappointed him too. Thank you Dr. KPH.
• My 3rd Guru comes from Industry - Rajiv Mody, Founder CEO of Sasken, my first job. Sasken was only about 20 folks when I joined and Rajiv, though CEO, remained my skip level manager for better part of my 10.5yrs stay at Sasken. A lot of my personal values and leadership style is heavily influenced by him. I learnt the importance of putting people first, giving a lot of freedom to leaders, doing the right thing even if it was creating pain in the short term, making sure the people share profits of the organization, and bringing disparate set of people together and aligning them to a common goal with a set of shared values. Like the first two, he too remains extremely humble and is generous with his time. He had agreed to sponsor my P.hd, if I wanted to do one. Thanks Rajiv.
• I can't over emphasise the role of mentors. Over the years I've had a good fortune to learn from a lot of folks, who had only my interests in their mind. Who, while being sympathetic, but never shied away from pointing out the mistakes and excuses. Folks who helped me increase the size of my dreams. Who gave courage and encouragement when life dealt hard blows. Who never gave solutions, but asked a lot of questions so that I gained  clarity. Who continue to be there and who I can count on during my darkest times. First in the list is my cousin Ravi Rao (who has been my guide/mentor/philosopher since childhood days when I didn't know the word "mentor"), Dr. Milind Gandhe, Raja Chidambaram, S Ravi, Kichu Krishnakumar, Rafael Bar, Kurt Redfield, Dr. Vinay Dabholkar and Rob Giesen. Thank you all.
• Then I've been fortunate to work for some wonderful bosses. Dr. Ravi Pai at Sasken (7 years), Diego Kaplan at Kyocera (3 years), Gowrisha (1 year) and now Joel Sumner (3.5years and counting). Thanks to all these wonderful folks that are so patient with me.

Life would have been so different had I not run into the above souls and there is no bigger occasion than Guru Purnima to count blessings.