We all have a wealth of fond memories from our IIT days. Our campus memories interweave common threads that create a unique shared bond. Mine was a somewhat different path after IIT – hardly by design but driven by a lifelong interest.
Like some of you, my career after IIT was related to electronic hardware, whether working for startups or mega-corporations. I started in engineering design, moving into general management and after a while, decided to switch to advisory roles in strategy & planning. Though my first job was designing hardware interfaces for defense projects at a minicomputer company, I jumped at opportunities related to anything graphical – connecting computers to plotters and the 3D graphics displays of the ‘70s. In the early 80’s I worked for Computervision, near Boston, the leading company offering 3D CAD/CAM workstations – from hardware to application software, it was the pinnacle of vertical integration. My team developed GPUs and display hardware, compelling me to learn about 6 degrees of freedom and NURBS, the domain mostly of mechanical engineers. I then moved to California, developing GPUs for Sun Microsystems in the early 90s. Being in California, it was hard to resist the startup bug, and I ended up working for a few early-stage companies, developing leading edge chips incorporating MPEG (MP2, MP4) for Digital TVs, DVD players and other consumer devices. As I reached 50, I opted for a more stable environment, working for Intel as an architect and strategic planner for Digital TVs and, later, depth processing cameras for augmented and virtual reality applications.
Pixels were the common theme through this journey, whether manipulating them in 3D, processing them for highest visual quality for TVs, or processing captured images for efficient translation into 3D data. I enjoyed working with mathematicians and researchers in the image processing domains. Though not very savvy at mathematics, the analytical skills developed at IIT to get down to the “fundas” were crucial to leading multi-disciplinary teams that translated signal processing theories into silicon chips that delivered actual visual results.
Looking back on my career path and its connection to visualization, I have realized that my love for visuals started very early in life. Living in the Shivaji Park area, I was fortunate to attend Balmohan Vidyamandir, possibly the best Marathi medium school in the state. The founder, Dada Rege, had a unique talent to nurture children’s innate abilities at a very early age. To encourage drawing and painting, we got watercolors during art classes starting in the 1st standard. This was very rare for the times!
Painting became my primary hobby throughout the middle and high school years, working with pencils and watercolors. When I joined St. Xavier’s college, I ended up meeting Mohandas Pai & Vikas Tipnis, as we were co-commuters from the Shivaji Park area. Vikas, an avid painter, introduced me to oil paints – a totally different experience compared to watercolors – with its richness, vibrance and depth. Many of my weekends during the college and IIT days were occupied with various painting projects, mostly copying someone else’s work. It helped develop the necessary skills to mix proper hues and shading techniques. For Vikas and I, the go-to subjects were covers of the Deepavali magazine, created by the famous artist, Dalal. Most of them were about romantic couples, apropos for our age at the time, of course.
The painting, however, took a backseat as I started working and focusing on career and family. Our son, Nikhil, was born in ’83 with a genetic bone disorder which necessitated many surgeries, hospitalizations and long recovery periods throughout his growing years. Fortunately, he is also gifted with an optimistic, outgoing personality which has enabled him to overcome the physical challenges with grit and determination. My wife Charlene was able to keep a flexible career in real estate, allowing her to look after Nikhil during his long recoveries, while I pursued my career involving long hours and frequent travels.
In 2004, to escape from Silicon Valley’s fast paced, hectic lifestyle, we decided to buy a second home with expansive ocean views, in Aptos, a small town on Monterey Bay in California. Having always lived within a block from the beach in Shivaji Park, this was the ultimate dream home for me, I was back to long beach walks, staring at the breaking waves for hours, and getting lost looking at the vivid, colorful sunsets filled with clouds streaked with color, changing from white to yellow to orange to purple, before disappearing into the twilight. Very soon, I was back to my childhood hobby of painting, trying to capture nature’s beautiful seaside as best as I could.
Never one to shy away from ambitious undertakings, I started painting larger canvases. Though the experience can be intimidating initially, the impact I could create with larger paintings encouraged me to pursue it further. The hobby has now turned into a retirement occupation. Incidentally, Charlene has also got into painting, creating abstracts and impressionist pieces, that are very intriguing and complex.
Now during these twilight years, it is very rewarding to see Nikhil settle into a career of his choice while continuing to deal with his health-related challenges. After his PhD in environmental decision making from Stanford, he is now working as a Sustainability Policy analyst for a think tank in San Francisco. I am indeed fortunate to have had an engaging and rewarding career that allowed me to stay close to my real love of visuals. In retirement, I have been able to make my hobby into an extremely fulfilling pastime. We are also very fortunate to find a market for our work though it takes significant effort. But it is extremely gratifying to realize that the memories of nature that I was able to capture on canvas have been pleasing enough to have someone else – someone totally unrelated or unknown to me – take them home for them to enjoy for many years to come.
IIT Bombay 1974 Reunion 