I am currently (2004 - ) a systems engineer with Yahoo! Bangalore. Here I am part of the team which takes care of Yahoo! Mail related operations all over the world.

Previously (2000 - 2004), I was a technology consultant with Exocore Consulting (P) Ltd in Bangalore. My work involved checking out new technologies and applications on open source platforms like Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD and providing open solutions.

Background

I was born in Mangalore on December 13th 1978 and have spent my entire life in Cochin. My family has been based in this south Indian city for the last 50 years and are originally from a place called Punaroor in Udupi (Karnataka).

Family

We were originally a Hindu undivided family with my grand father as the head of the family. When my dad got married, he decided to move into his own house which is just a kilometer away from my grand pop's place. At home, I have my dad, mum and my younger sister.

My dad (P.R Balakrishnan) is a businessman and runs a gold/silver shop and is also a bit into the hotel/travel trade. My mother (Prathima) is a homemaker with varied interests like Hindustani classical, gardening (Orchids are her favorite) and interior decoration. She is involved in the functioning of the Ernakulam Women's Association, the local chapter of the Tulu Brahmins Association. My sister,Sharanya is still in school and is doing her 12th in Chinmaya Vidyalaya (as on 2003), Ernakulam.

I simple cant remember my lineage. Need to go back home, check with mum and then put up something in the Family section.

Religion

I am a Udupi Madhva Brahmin, which is one(?) of the highest caste's (does it matter ;) in the Hindu religion. My religious beliefs are very simple - there is some thing which is more powerful than anything I can humanly imagine which I would like to refer to as the force. I believe in the force! :-D

Language

My mother tongue is Tulu. Tulu is a phonetic language (Yay, no script!) commonly spoken in Udupi and surrounding areas of south Karnataka. I am extremly proud to say that despite being a non Keralite, I can speak better Malayalam (accent included :-) than most of my Mallu friends. Kannada and Tamil are other languages which I am reasonably comfortable with (to speak). My Hindi sucks, though I have learnt to read/write Hindi in school, I just can't get the grammer right.

School

My folks enrolled me into Chinmaya Vidyalaya (Warriam Road, Ernakulam). It was the default choice since my cousins where already going to Chinmaya and it was also the closest to home, My school and home are on the same road. More importantly, the pricipal, Mrs Kamakshi Balakrishnan (not related to me), was already known to dad! ;)

Chinmaya Vidyalaya is a complete school. It follows the CBSE syllabus and has courses starting from kindergarten to 12th. So all my parents had to do was enroll me in there and forget about me for the next 14 years! Not that I am complaining! :-D

By the time I was in the 10th, the school had grown so big that we where running out of space. It was decided to move the school to a new spacious location in the suberbs called Vaduthala. Vaduthala is atleast 15 kilometers from the city and I had to take a bus at 7:10AM in the morn if I were to reach on time. Fortunately, bus rides in the morning where enjoyable, there was hardly any traffic and the rides used to be very fast plus all my friends would end up in the same bus!

I choose Commerce branch with Computer Science (instead of Math) in 11/12th grade.

College

I scored 74.2% in my 12th grade exams, just .8% short of a distinction :( Like all joe's, I applied for B.Com course in all the popular college's in and around Cochin and St Albert's College was the first to accept my application. The place I was hoping to get through was Sacred Hearts, Thevara. Albert's was an all boys college and I was slightly disappointed in the begenning as the sudden change from my old co-ed hep school to an all boys public college. The new atmosphere was alien to me.

Anyway, Albert's worked out quite well for me in the end. I was part of the college tennis team and I could bunk classes in the pretex of "practice". I used to attend only the morn session and bunk the rest of the day. This gave me the time I required to learn Linux and also do some freelance consulting to earn CD money! In fact, in my final year, I must have barely attended 2 month of college.

After all the loafing around, I managed to pass college with a 2nd class score. Its been 2 years now and I still have not applied for my grduation certificate.

Sports

I am definetly not a studious person and used to spend most of my time at the club (Regional Sports Centre, Kadavanthra). School timings where from 7:30AM to 1:45PM so I had lots of time on my hands for sports during my school days. Tutions were from 2:30pm to 4pm and then it was off to RSC for tennis. We used to play tennis everyday till the would switch off the lights.

It rains for most of the year in Cochin, and since the tennis courts where outdoors, play was impossible when it rains and I took to the gym. Most of my tennis friends had left Cochin for higher studies and soon there where no one of my age to play with. I gradully lost interest in tennis and instead trained out 4 days a week with Rohit, my school chum/training partner.

Cochin is always hot and the best way to beat the heat is to take a dip in the pool. On the days in which I dont workout, I used to swim.

Now that I am in Bangalore, all this had come to an abrupt stop. As of today (May 1 2002) I am 10 kilos overweight and my waist length is broader by 2 inches. :( As a counter move, I have joined the local gym with a 4 day week workout plan. Let me see how fast can I get back in shape. :-D

Cricket

Aah Cricket, the less said about this game the better! Could a game get any longer and boring than Cricket?

Music

My music tastes has been greatly influenced by the people around me. In my school days, it used to be a steady diet of popular mainstream music. The kind of stuff everybody listens to. Lately, I have expanded my musical tastes thanx to the Internet and the magic of peer-to-peer file sharing. :)

Click here to seem my ever growing CD collection. and the equipment which I use to listen to them

Science Fiction

Science Fiction interests me a lot. Star Wars, Star Trek, The X-Files and Farscape are some of the stuff which I follow very closely. Speaking of Star Wars, I saw Episode II: The Attack of The Clones "first day first show" at Rex, Bangalore. ATOC was amazing. It certainly lived up to all the hype that a typical Star Wars flick creates. Way to go George!

I hate TV dramas and soaps, they are soo boring. Gimme comedies like Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends any day.

Movies

IMHO, Indian movies suck. For how many eons can one watch the same story and songs over and over again. Speaking of songs, why the fsck do they have songs in movies anyway??? Grow up India!!!

Cartoons

I grew up watching cartoons. Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, The Pink Panther and Looney Toones still manage to tickle my funny bone to this day. Some of the funniest cartoons on TV today are the The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter and The Simpsons. Mr Chuck Jones, I salute you for creating all those fabulous cartoon characters and animations.

Food

Brahmins are strict vegetarians and most of my relatives are also vegetarians. Though there is nothing stopping me from eating meat, I still have not tried it. So I guess you could say that I am vegetarin by choice. I dont have any problems going to a non-veg eating joint, sharing a table with meat on it or anything like that. Sea food however makes me go green! :-D