A Journey of Learning and Giving Back

A Journey of Learning and Giving Back

• * Submitting punched cards carefully bundled to the IBM 370/155 computer, only to have it returned at the end of the day with a “Line 489 Semicolon missing” – that did teach us all to make fewer mistakes the first time around in everything to avoid such high regret!

• * Or going to Workshop where, in one of them, we went in twice a week for months to file a big piece of metal down to a smaller piece of metal with blunt files – really taught us the virtue of patience!

• * Visiting Tarams (Taramani village gate used to be THE coffee place to go to) almost daily to get an SP or OD coffee with mud biscuits to help stay awake to study on the eve of yet another test only to discuss everything under the sun and beyond for hours and deciding to study the next morning with an LMDM (Last Minute Despo Mug in case that acronym is no longer in use!)… even today, my correlation of coffee with sleep confuses its intended use!

• * Volunteering to help with many thankless tasks – I think I even got voted to be recognized for “Does most work with least recognition” a few times in the hostel! Taught me the power of working in diverse multi-talented teams – be it for making the first color slides at OAT for internal publicity; organizing professional shows; editing, cyclostyling, distributing social and civil engineering magazines, etc… Even today, I get bored working only on one thing and really like variety to keep learning… and I still have a problem saying “NO!”…

• * Bicycling everywhere on the large campus under the hot, hotter, hottest seasons… Getting used to have exams at the exact appointed date and time, be it a sunny day or a cyclone or with no electricity or water… Walking to the next hostel to get water during crazy dry spells… Buckets for sambar at dinner (thankfully I understand we’ve moved on from that!)… a treasure trove of shared memories that knit each alumni batch together… also it taught me never to complain and to try and find good humor in everything – doesn’t matter if my work at the World Bank takes me to conflict centers or random villages with no electricity or running water.

• * It has been the foundation of most of us professionally and personally.

• * On the professional front, I learnt to never be fazed by any task to be done even under tremendous time constraints as this was a daily demand. The exams in the US were always to test what you know, but the exams at IITM were always testing what you didn’t know! This taught most of us great humility – everyone who came in was generally used to being a topper in class and suddenly find that the highest in the class in one of our first tests was 40% was certainly humbling! And everyone without exception was gifted in some way and were usually very generous with their knowledge.

• * I think it also taught you to respect everyone around you and make them find the things they were best at – from writing amazing notes in class (generously shared before exams) to being a god on the soccer field, or organizing events with no resources or writing and pulling together a skit and its cast in 15 minutes.

• * On the personal front, I am sincerely grateful for getting to know the amazing students (especially from the hostel that is such a brand!) that I got to know over time, and stayed in touch over the years. Accents may have changed a bit – but conversations today with the “gumbs” is like it used to be four decades ago! Good to see that groans from groan-ups are as effective over Zoom or WhatsApp as in person in encouraging me to continue spewing arbit PJs!

• * I have very fond memories of all my professors – each left their indelible mark on me in terms of their knowledge, attitude, and outlook. I often still remember Dr. Kalyanaraman saying “When I ask you to describe a cow, you tie the cow to a tree and describe the tree!” – that seems as pertinent in many meetings I attend today!

• * The huge diversity of classwork and extra-curricular activities helped me efficiently multi-task all the time – which has helped me in work and life over the years.

• * The changes in technology that I saw even during the 4 short years there were very educational… I was fortunate to be in the first group that worked on doing CAD on PCs when they first arrived on campus (no longer having to punch cards!) and this was so liberating to work in “real time”. Even today, when I’m a Global Lead for Disruptive Technology at the World Bank’s “Planet” group, I try to keep learning new tech and passing on the excitement to others just as I had learned to do at IITM.

• * The biggest influence were my fellow students – learning like sponges and engaging each other on endless debates about everything – being enriched by each other’s perspectives and actions with people often much more talented than me… and working together as multi-faceted teams on extra-curricular activities. Even today, I have a team of diverse youngsters drawn from around the world we call the KIDS (Knowledge, Information & Data Services) Helpdesk to help our teams and clients with demystifying tech and facilitating its use – where I keep drawing upon my experiences working with armies of “volunteers” where everyone does whatever they can to help – be it for a magazine newsdesk, or to sell tickets for a Zakhir Hussain concert, or get an academic topper to help connect up an Amp on an OAT stage for a show, or develop the first civil engineering newsletter! Certainly, many memories that will stay forever or till the fog of time clouds more…

• * I always love the way your friends cut you down to size every time you got an inflated opinion of yourself, I still remember when one of my hostel juniors called me up and said “Dude, you inspired me to do a PhD,” and just as my ego was swelling up, it got deflated with him continuing “I told myself if you could do a PhD, anyone could!!!”

• * I strongly believe that all of us alums owe a lot to the Alma Mater especially given that it helped provide a safe, nurturing, intellectual environment when it was the first time most of us were away from home for the first time in our lives. I want to do my bit to help new students get an even better experience reflecting today’s conditions and intake.

• * It is part of our responsibility as humans when we have gone beyond our basic essentials, to take care of others. As part of the World Bank’s annual eGive program, I give every year to about 10 different global organizations doing work to help people and ecosystems around the world. I also get inspired by the several new initiatives from IITM and support these when I can as I always get a smile remembering my time at IITM (perhaps the fog of time has been selective in helping me remember only the good times!)

• * Build a good set of memories – the students today don’t realize what you take for granted given today’s ubiquitous smartphones – in my Batch, it turned out that I was the only one with a camera and pretty much ALL the visual chronicling from those days for us are due to that one device! But do create and remember the good memories and make great friends who will remain with you forever!

• * Also, don’t wait forever to start contributing – at any income level, you can support needs around the world (and in your alma mater). There is always someone less fortunate than you are anytime! And sometimes, more than money, your time is the donation – use it to help others, to educate yourself on topics you wouldn’t have come across normally, to mentor younger colleagues, to accept invites to share whatever knowledge you have with others who may be inspired, to appreciate the work of someone else, and to help someone for no reason at all other than it makes you feel better.

• * Every time I go back to the campus or talk to colleagues and new friends from there, I’m amazed to see the changes – new buildings springing up everywhere, a much larger (and more gender balanced!) student intake, Profs using more than chalk to communicate, more multi-disciplinary studies with a stronger focus on sustainability, and students who seem amazingly committed to succeeding.

• * I was very enthused to talk to young students whenever I went back to IITM – great to often see a better version of oneself from a few decades back – and hope I could pass on the enthusiasm not only for technology but to find a career where you can think big and improve the world as you know it with whatever knowledge, attitude, and diligence you can provide.

• * I have been extremely fortunate to build upon my academic years at IITM, Syracuse and Harvard/MIT to provide me with a solid technical foundation that keep getting deeper and benefitting from the students, teachers, and facilities there. Now, with over 28 years at the World Bank (where I’m transitioning in my next decade here from an actor in a lead role to best supporting actor), I have had the privilege to work around the world (be it in the Nile Basin or Kabul, Amazon or Malawi) on issues of environment, water, and other natural resources, climate, and technology to work towards our new mission to eradicate poverty on a “livable planet”. I wish the next gen all luck with their journeys - I hope everyone can follow their path without just focusing on what job pays most upon graduation but to see what you need to do to invest in yourself to make the most meaningful impact for a more sustainable world. As a high school math teacher used to tell us “I don’t care if you set up a tea stall – you don’t have to make it the best tea stall in the world – but you need to work hard to make it the best tea stall YOU can create!”

Demonstrating Resilience and Empathy