My Life so Far...

This is my life so far as I recollect it.... It had many ups and downs but wonderful nonetheless...

Childhood Years (in Bhilai):
I was born in Tekkali, a small town in Andhra Pradesh... And to my relatives who used to tease me as a kid that my Mom found me in a bathroom, it is now official that I was born in a Hospital:-) Dad used to work in Bhilai then. This is the time when I have least recollection of... I have a few stories though which I remember very vividly..

• 
  I along with my childhood friend Deepa once sort of ran away from home and kept walking on the main road until a stranger dropped us home... really don't know what we were thinking then...
• 
  Bunty-Chintu taking my tricycle by force... they always made me cry...
  I was a very gift-freak... once on my birthday I remember asking Munni why she hadn't got a gift for me and having a row with her.. Finally my Mom dealt with the situation somehow.. bad Jyothi..
  
• In my first grade, my mom(very young then) gave me some ice-cream for lunch:-) I still remember crying when I saw that she had cheated me... It was all milk when I opened my lunch-box... Neither of us knew that ice-cream melts:-).....that round red box with a white lid... it is such a cute memory..
  
• I didn't like dosa's then.. In my kindergarden I got dosas for lunch one day... I didn't feel like eating them.. I noticed that one kid got roasted peanuts...yummy.. I went to her and happily told her that my Mom gave me an empty lunch box.. and she believed it too.. she shared some peanuts with me... so sweet..
  
• Kamalakka getting injured on Diwali ... when Peddamamayya and friends tried to have a big explosion by covering a Laxmi bomb with a big tin can and when one of the pieces of can cut Kamala akka's foot..
  
• Those numerous ice-creams peddamamayya and his friends used to buy for me at the Civic Center..
  
• This one I don't remember but my parents do.. We used to live in the 6th or 7th floor then.. I used to have a big basket of toys.... I used to throw out each single toy from the balcony saying 'Govinda.. Goooovinda' by putting my hands on top of my head after I threw it... Then poor Mom and Dad used to climb down all the way to get those toys back.. there were no elevators then.. And one fine day.. one of my toys landed on a persons head... again my parents had to apologise for that... God!! I must have been a nightmare!!
  
• Again courtesy my parents... One of my Mom's friends wanted to take me along to the market as company... So I went along and was having a nice time until.... it started raining.. I love rain.. to this day.. I was so overwhelmed with joy and couldn't stop myself that I started singing really loudly 'Jaaneman Jaaneman tere do nayan'.. Aunty was very embarassed and never invited me to be an escort after that... We lived in Bhilai until '83 when Dad got a job in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. I have visited Bhilai a couple of times after we moved out but things had changed a lot ....

School Days:
We moved to Visakhapatnam in '83 and have been there ever since. I had just completed my first grade then... this is when I started to read/write Telugu .. my mothertongue. Mom used to give me the incentive of one mango per alphabet...actually gunintaalu to ppl who understand Telugu... I had learnt just the alphabet from Mom.. not words and sentences.. Now it gets very interesting.. Many people say that movies are bad for kids.. but I would have to disagree with that.. I have been a crazy movie fan since childhood. So when I went to school in a rickshaw daily, I used to read the names of movie posters that you find everywhere... So by end of my second grade I could read/write Telugu without assistance but with some amount of difficulty.. Who says movies spoil kids:-)

Chiru's 'Abhilasha' was one of the movies that I liked so much in my 2nd grade. I became a Chiru fan then... Many relatives complain to this day that after watching this movie I used to tell the story to everyone I could get hold of... they still laugh when they think of me and 'gedda mukku pantulu'.. I used to enjoy my summer holidays in Vijayanagaram .. playing 'ashtaa chamma' with Usha chelli.. eating ice-fruits and 'peechu mithai' on the streets.. we used to get those for 50 paise those days.. But I used to love my holidays with my paternal grandparents even more... I and Rani were their only grandchildren and we were pampered like anything..

I went to Kendriya Vidyalaya from 3rd till 12th grade and so have lots of memories there.. Life at KV was lot of fun.. I was always teachers pet as I was good at everything....Never stood first until my tenth grade but was amongst one of the toppers all the time.. never studied hard though.. too many extra-curricular activities.. declaimations, debates, singing, dancing, basketball, running, kho-kho, kabaddi.. u name it, I was in it... Tens of certificates still there at my home in Vizag to remind me of those wonderful days... I learnt many many good things at school but one of them that stands out was an incident in my 5th grade Hindi class which had a huge impact on me.. We were being given dictation then.. after the dictation, we were asked to grade it ourselves. I had misspelt one word and hastily corrected it to award myself full marks... My teacher noticed the obvious correction and asked me if I had done it after she gave us the answers.. I accepted my mistake and was scared that she would punish me. But instead she handed me a chocolate and told me that 'tumne sach kaha hai, to yeh tumhare liye'... From that day onwards I told myself that I would never cheat and would never lie.... I kept my promise on cheating to this date. never cheated in any exam..not just exam, never cheated. About telling lies... I do lie... but very rarely.. and when I do lie, it is harmless... Needless to say I hate lies.

It's my school environment which taught me the importance of values.. Among these moral and ethical values top my list... I cannot tolerate immoral or unethical behavior.. Then comes social values... about equality amongst people irrespective of economic status, caste, creed, sex or religion... none of these differences mean anything to me... I am not sure exactly when my sense of patriotism developed but it's staying there forever:-)

Made some really good friends....A. L. Sireesha and Brijesh Kumar Jha being the best of all... It's hard to find a nicer person than Sireesha and a better friend than Birju(as I called him). Wherever they are I wish the the very best in life. I used to be like Hermione(from Harry Potter books) who used to try to answer each and every question that teachers asked... Up went my hand for every question... some guys in class hated this and I was teased a lot.. trust me, a lot... And I still have this annoying habit:-)

7th grade was the worst time of all.. Grandpa passed away and then all of us got chicken pox one after the other... It took us quite some time to come out of it...the 10th grade was the best of all.. we won the inter-house basket ball and I had scored the max baskets:-).. Studies went okay till a month before10th class board exams when I suddenly started studying really hard... My Grandpa always dreamt of me topping 10th exams.. And I stood first.. this is when I saw a glimpse of what I could do if I put my mind into something. And unfortunately, it was the last .... that was the only time I worked hard for something... After 10th I never struggled.. something or the other would always work for me...

College Life:
I was the only one in my XII class to be able to make it into Engg on merit basis(less fees, no reservation). Got a big rank 1698 in EAMCET but got into Electronics branch at GITAM. First year was really bad.. as I didn't know many people.. This was the first time I was meeting ppl from the city.. Until then my world was limited to Steel Plant. Second year was much better... made lots of friends and we had tons of fun.. went on a big North India Tour with parents and sandy.... Industrial Tour in the Third year.. and then came final year.. this was the scariest.. I had no idea what I would do after college.. Thought of GATE and got some material from Brilliant Tutorials... but then sth hapened and all of a sudden it was GRE.. had only one month to prepare and got 2030.. screwed up in anal.. then I had no clue where/how/what to apply... I accepted Univ. of Toledo as I got a tuition scholarship .. had no problem with the Visa.. got a counter visa actually:-) so things went pretty smoothly..

In US:
Only after landing in Toledo on Aug. 8th '98, that I realised that I had no place to stay and had no assistantship and no idea what my major would be.. But somehow things went fine.. got a job in Dining Services, took VLSI as my major and got an apartment that I shared with three others. Used to feel very nostalgic all the time...so my phone bills used to be really high. After I finished my Master's in Aug. '99, I moved to Chicago to look for jobs. 9/9/99 -- was the day I got my first job at Motorola... I joined in Oct and was there until dec. '00. Then I got a job at Xilinx and moved to the bay area where I currently stay.

I'll keep updating this page as and when I find time.. so please come back...