Even as a young 15 year old schoolboy, questions like “what is the purpose of all this that is going on around me?” bothered me, and I was deeply convinced that there was a deeper purpose to life as I saw it, than merely existing. I loved Physics and Math in school thanks to the excellent teachers we had for those two subjects. I was generally curious about everything around me, and I am happy to say that at 63, I still retain that curiosity and sense of awe about the universe and everything in it. There is a famous quote attributed to Einstein (some people question that Einstein ever said it, hence the choice of words) that “there are two ways to live life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, and the other is as though everything is.” It doesn’t matter if Einstein ever said it or not, when I look at people around me, I think it is very true. I truly believe that everything around us, indeed life itself is an amazing miracle. And as science explains more and more of the phenomena that we are immersed in, it seems like more of a miracle to me, not less.
Music is one of my passions, and I have had some training in vocal Indian Classical Music, and also play the flute, or should I say, take flute lessons in Classical Music. After I quit my job at i-flex solutions in 2008, I launched a portal for Indian Classical Music (www.ShadjaMadhyam.com) I also love old Hindi film music, and founded an IIT Bombay alumni orchestra called Y-Point Orchestra with a few other alumni. We have done four shows so far and plan to continue doing more in the years to come.
I was never much of a sportsman in school, and thought the sports period, which most kids eagerly looked forward to, was a bit of a bore. In my IIT Bombay days I took to trekking, and many years later, did a few serious treks in the Himalayas, Kilimanjaro in Africa, and a few less strenuous ones around the Great Wall in China, in the Chiang Mai hills in Thailand, and in the Fjordlands National Park in New Zealand. The photograph on the Hone page of my blog was taken on a trek to Gokyo in the Himalayas in 2012. I took to cycling three years ago, and have become an avid cyclist.
Having spent the better part of my life as an Information Technology Professional in the banking and payments domain, I studiously keep track of developments in IT and more specifically in Banking and Payments, and take up consulting assignments that come my way. I also like teaching, and teach as a visiting faculty at a couple of the IIMs whenever I get the opportunity to. I have been doing some angel investing in IT start-ups and try to “mentor” them when they care to listen.
I confess that I am a procrastinator, and although I got a WordPress account 4 years ago, I got around to writing this “About me” page today, June 1, 2016
Nandu Kulkarni 