Shastras say that it takes incredible amounts of goodness in one's thoughts and actions in all  previous births  to be born in human form. If that is true, then I simply cannot fathom what I could have done to be born as the only child of  Mrs. Indu Menon and Mr. V.D.M Menon in God's Own Country, Kerala.

             Anand M.Menon,  I, was born on a Friday morn, August 17th,  1979 years after Christ. Most of my childhood was spent at my maternal house. The home, built entirely of rosewood and wild-jack, is a legacy of that bygone era when zamindars ruled over their fiefdoms and subjects with such carte blanche that, at times, it gave God a complex. But even as these stories get buried deep in the tombs of pre-independence history, I could never help conjuring up images of monumental splendour, the 400-odd year old naalukettu (traditional keralite home) basking in the halo woven by a setting sun, the wide, lazy river on its way to meet the sea, and the elephants, with their ears flapping to melody audible to none but them...

             I came over to stay at my father's home, in Kochi (Cochin in those days) as the city was the place where good schools came to collect good students. And so, in 1983, I was admitted to the Naval KG School, LKG - A. I was reluctant to go to school and would have crippling pangs of pain in my legs just as school loomed into view, and inevitably, had to be dragged into class. I was never treated for the pain though. I joined St. Paul's English Medium School, Fort Kochi, where I did my 1st and 2nd standard before shifting to a newly started Naval Public School, Kochi, better known as NPSKochi. It is not often that a student gets to grow with an educational institution, and its even more rare that one person, or a group of persons, have so much say in the various policies implemented. The 10 years of life at NPSKochi is best left unsaid, simply because of the want of an apt vocabulary to do so. If I possess any good quality, or did so at any point of time in my life then, undoubtedly, the credit goes to my teachers and friends at NPS. I have won innumerable prizes, all for NPS, and was also elected (unanimously) the Asst. School Pupil Leader during the year 1995-96. I did play my share  of cricket too, we wouldn't want anyone questioning our 'Indian-ness', would we ?

             After the XIIth std, I had my first taste of regular college and no, they didn't run around trees or sing songs in class! I spent close to a month at Sacred Heart College, Thevara. One month is often too restricted an interval to pick fights and so I had a gang of over 40-odd friends from many batches, and to this day, evoke fond memories in them whenever I meet them... 

             Entrance coaching at Prof. P.C Thomas classes have gone a long way in creating many of the IIT-ians and AIIMS-ians from Kerala over the years. But, I suppose, a much greater advertisement for the great institution would come from the fact that it managed to drag the likes of me to an engineering college!  It had less to do with Me being stupid, was more to the inability of being able to chose between Astrophysics, Architecture, Computer Science, Film-making, Interior Designing, Law, Literature to name a few, strictly, in alphabetic order. The huge rank in the Engineering Entrance ensured that I would join University College of Engineering, Thodupuzha and pursue a B.Tech degree in Computer Science & Engineering, the only one branch of Engineering I would have completed within the stipulated 3-1/2  years. A little bit of logic, and CSE is one subject that one can often walk into the examination hall with nothing but 8 hours of sleep in the preparation-column next to one's name! And, for the same reason, I would always maintain utmost respect for all other branches of Engineering. After all, one couldn't draw a squirrel-cage rotor, or an astable multi-vibrator  to suit one's fancy but most programming problems can be designed, en situ, as long as the logic is agreeable. The initial hurdle of gaining acceptance in class was a much bigger hurdle than expected, but all became rosy once the Tharavadiz joined forces. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to say that I learnt many, many things while I was at UCET, though not always from UCET. The Tharavadiz managed to carve out a name for themselves at UCET, without ever being partial to either the good or bad books.

             M/s WIPRO Technologies came to us for Campus Recruitment while I was in the 6th Semester. I was under tremendous pressure, since just on the previous Sunday I had made it to the final interview of M/s Infosys Systems, only to be told that they preferred students from non-computer batches! But with God's grace, on the following Thursday, the Tharavadiz were celebrating my selection to WIPRO, along with that of two of my fellow Tharavadiz...! The IT-slowdown may have had its say, but as I have always believed, when ambition becomes a state of mind, the world ceases to exist... and it was that belief that kept me in one-piece during the 1.5-year gap before which WIPRO called the 2001 campus recruits. The two companies I worked for in the interim were wonderful learning experiences on their own and the memories there are cherished forever. On Jan 13th 2003 I joined WIPRO Technologies, Chennai for Induction Training and on Feb 24th 2003 I was posted to E-City, Bangalore in the HP-ODC. Got to work with HP's Printer drivers and the workings, was fun some of the times, learning most of the times and work all the times. But the fancy taken to PPDs and Postscript from my WIPRO-days was soon to alter my destiny in a way then unknown to me. The sheer genius reflected in the product called Postscript created a great regard for its owners, M/S Adobe Systems Inc., and so it was this name and only this name that made me even consider an opening outside heaven (a.k.a Bangalore). And thus, on 7th July 2004 I joined the Noida campus of Adobe Systems India. Adventures abound in Noida and also the rest of N.India, but may be, its too premature to recount, just yet!

To be continued...