Happy Father's Day, Papa!

Dear Papa,

Today is father's day and I miss you so much. Earlier, I used to mock the tradition of father, mother, and other such days. But today I cannot help feeling sad about not having you around me. Your fatherly figure, your smile, your voice, your presence, your ideas, your teachings, your virtues, and just about everything about you was so good, so true, so pure, and so virtuous that you being no more is too surreal to be true. It's been a year since you have been gone and I am getting to miss you more and more every single day. Somehow life has been very unpredictable and disorganized since then and I just don't seem to get back on my feet. Things keep getting twisted and complex in one way or the other. I keep regretting my decisions and keep wondering what you would have done or suggested to do instead. My practical guide and my moral compass are completely missing and I don't seem to be able to think straight. I have also been realizing that I don't have anyone to talk to about my problems, someone who would understand and empathize with the way you did all these years. But coming back to father's day, I had a pretty interesting day today with lots of thoughts coming to my mind.

First of all, I could not help but appreciate the precious moment between father and children. My kids were so excited and they gave me such amazing gifts today. I made extra effort to spend the time with them and make their day special in the little ways possible. We rode bikes, made lemonade, went to the park, played football, baked pizza, and did a whole bunch of small talk. Both Aakhya and Aashya are now chatterbox and they love spending time with me. I was so glad to spend a quality Sunday with them and could not help but wonder about your emotions and feelings whenever you got a chance to spend time with Jiji and me.

Second, the unpredictability of life doomed me yet again in my mind. It feels strange to me how we keep pushing through our lives without knowing when it will all come to an end, just like that, and then nothing is going to matter. Nothing at all. After that, we turn into memories to remember and wall pictures to stare at. Like a vivid dream that gets fuzzy over time. It just makes me wonder what is the whole point of everything. I know this sounds very negative and defeatist, but it does make me rethink our lifestyle that is so consumed in daily pleasures without looking at the big picture.

Towards the end of the day, ironically, I began thinking that perhaps I worry too much. You did not raise me to be a scared and diminished soul, but rather to fight out the best and hit the nail on the head. You did everything in your powers to make us chase excellence in whatever we do and to think of ourselves as any less would be insulting your upbringing and your whole life's worth of struggles and progress. Rather the better way of looking at myself is a solid product of great ideas and principles and to build on top of them and take me to the next level. I should not be shy about being bold, ambitious, unapologetic, and just being myself in everything I do and seek out.

Finally, I yet again realized the importance of making more friends and more relationships that are lasting and that could help tide through the waves of life.

To conclude, father's day was yet another reminder of everything that you stood for, Papa. Your values and your principles will always be the guiding star of my life and I will do everything in my power to make you proud, today, tomorrow, and every single day!

Yours,
Udit

The years as they go by ...

As we approach a new year and speculate what this year will mean to us, here I look back at what the past years have meant to me.

2023 -- Startup

After several years at Microsoft and one year at an early stage startup, Keebo, I finally mustered the courage to start my own. I soon realized that I knew very little of starting a business, including raising capital, building from scratch, and getting customers. The year taught me some tough lessons and was my first unpaid period of time in 17 years. While I still remain unpaid, I finish the year with a strong team, our first paid customer, and a finalized seed round. The road ahead is going to be very challenging with a lot of financial pressure, yet I am glad to get out of my comfort zone and hopefully make my father proud. 

2022 -- Chief Architect, CTO, US Citizen

A year of bigger roles that brought in more power and responsibility. After years of climbing corporate ladder Microsoft, I joined an early stage startup as its Chief Architect and build some of the foundational things there. I later also picked up CTO and board member roles and got exposed to new dimensions of business and company matters. Finally, I naturalized as US Citizen this year. USA is my home now and I am proud to be building a life and raising my family here. I am committed to upholding its values and principles. I will also be giving up my Indian nationality which is an emotional moment, but then these are the trade-offs we make and live by every day.

2021 -- Losing my Father

My parents were a constant since I was born, but that changed this year. I lost my father this year and it was the most painful period of my life so far. He was my true pillar of strength, providing me the motivation, the purpose, and the meaning in life and I suddenly seemed to have lost all of that. Now I need to grow up to take care of both my mother and my father's legacy. This is a new phase where I feel the value of life and its vulnerabilities all the more and am constantly trying to find ways to distract myself and keep things moving.

2020 -- People Manager

This year I got the opportunity to start managing a team of people. People management is a job that is often a much sought after and after several years of professional experience, I finally got the chance to experience it. While I got more power and visibility in this new job, there was also more politics, more randomization, more overheads, and more stress. My learning was steep, especially as we started working from home a week after my promotion to manager!

2019 -- Principal at Microsoft

Turning principal at Microsoft was a career milestone. I dare say it is a bit similar to getting tenure in academia in terms of reaching a level where people start taking you very seriously. Several things had to fall in place for my principal promotion to happen and it was really satisfying to see it come through. Needless to say, those were moments of true joy for my entire family. 

2018 -- Getting publishing mojo back

This was the year I got back into publishing with new zeal and gusto. Publishing had become boring the last few years primarily because of a lack of real problems, but things changed this year with several exciting problems and several top tier publications in the same year. In fact, I was already looking at a healthy pipeline of exciting projects and accompanying publications coming up.

2017 -- Second child

Aashya was born and while we always wanted a second, we were never sure of the perfect timing. But seeing her melted all our apprehensions. She is a beautiful gift to each and every one of us. She looked identical to Aakhya when she was born, but over time we realized they are as different as siblings could be. This was a year of warm family togetherness, now that we were four.

2016 -- First home

We got our first home in Kirkland. The feeling of ownership after so many years of nomadic dwelling across cities, countries, and even continents, was exhilarating for both of us. It was a very bold decision for us to buy right as we were moving into Washington state and to take such a big loan. But we went through trusting our instincts and we never regretted it as our first one.

2015 -- Industry researcher

I got a scientist position at Microsoft. Given that I was seriously considering academia for a while, this was not really planned or expected. However, I was very much intrigued by industry research and a place like Microsoft, with all the famous academics on its payroll, seemed just perfect. This was also my first real job after seven years of back-to-school and seemed a pretty good start.

2014 -- First-born

We had our first-born, Aakhya. This was truly an anxious time for us given that we knew so little about so many things. The world just seemed too overwhelming in every possible direction. There was also uncertainty in terms of my future career. But Aakhya was the tiny little angel that made our lives shine and things just got easier. Cambridge was also the most amazing community we lived it.

2013 -- MIT dream

Finally, we reached MIT. This was a rollercoaster with the most unexpected turn of events. We had been stuck with visa processing for over six months and it was pure luck to finally get through. MIT was an ocean of the smartest people I have ever met and it was a privilege working with them. It was also an experience settling in the US, after years in Germany, with Mansi making some great friends.

2012 -- Doctorate

I was a doctorate. After my father and mother, I was the third doctorate in the family. I felt pride and humility at the same time. My Ph.D. was pretty accelerated and so it ended without seeing the blocker phase that many researchers go through. My research was on the current hot topics and I was able to land a Postdoc position with the database group at MIT.

2011 -- Finding love, finally

Mansi and I got engaged towards the end of the year. This was a new, exciting, and a nervous time. Getting to know someone, care about someone, and plan your life with someone was very new. Getting to do things together, as a team, and creating a world of our own, was exciting. And suddenly gaining a lot more responsibility was nerve-wracking. A new life to look forward to.

2010 -- Early research success

I started my Ph.D. and got early success in our projects. This was super encouraging as a new student. The VLDB publication in 2010 remains my top cited paper to date. Full credits to both my advisor and the postdoc in our group to nudge us in the right direction. The year was full of confidence and creative ideas, all thanks to the early success.

2009 -- Back to school

I was back in school after a gap of almost three years and had to adjust to the new lifestyle. The college rigor came back after three years of corporate luxury. Fortunately, I made friends who helped me go with the flow. The year was filled with a lot of upheavals -- living on limited means, deciding courses for future careers, thinking about the Ph.D. option -- the thoughts were never-ending.

2008 -- New hope, foreign land

After a couple of years of indecisiveness, I finally decide to pursue my Master studies at Max-Planck in Germany. This was after I considered MBA, startup, and even civil services for a brief moment.  Germany was indeed very daunting, cold, and lonely at first. Later, it turns out to be the place I will always remember with a lot of warmth.

2007 -- Wandering

This was certainly a year of wandering without any definite purpose or goal. My sister constantly kept pushing me into doing more and my parents continued supporting me in whatever I tried. I worked as crazy in my first job, then changed jobs for no apparent reason, then again worked as crazy, and then again had moments of pondering, still in search of a purpose.

2006 -- First job

The mist of IIT was finally over and I was in the real world with a real job. I was nervous and a bit afraid of the harsh realities about to come my way. The first manager, the first project, the first paycheck, the first savings, the first shared apartment, the first landlord, and the working bachelorhood are all never to be forgotten. Bangalore will always remind me of so many firsts.

2005 -- What's next

As we entered the final year of our undergraduate program, the single biggest talk was "what's next". People were trying for Masters/Ph.D., MBA, Civil services, or simply to land a good job. Even in each of these groups, there were so many choices and so much discussion. I ended up going for a job to get some experience and was lucky to land a job with BT within the first week of placement.

2004 -- Electrical engineering

This year was filled with much of the core courses of our electrical engineering program. The breadth of sub-fields in our branch -- from power to electronics to communication to computer architecture -- makes electrical engineering perhaps the most diverse branch at IITK. However, I also found it very tough to score, given the relative grading and the agonizingly hard-working "batti" junta.

2003 -- Rigor and mayhem

The academic load at IITK was serious and I spent much of the year managing the rigor and the mayhem. On top of that, there were numerous festivals and events going on that solicited active participation. I was hardly active anywhere. However, I did waste a lot of time doing "bulla" --- talking to people, arguing on weird topics, or picking up random games of table tennis.

2002 -- The IIT dream

This was a year of dreams, most importantly the dreams of my parents and their years of sacrifice. Getting into IIT gave my parents a sense of unmatched pride for having raised a worthy child and a confirmation of having done the right things all these years. It also gave me a humbling experience and a cut-throat competition into a world of very high achievers.

2001 -- Top of the school

The highlight of this year would definitely be me being at the top of my school in board examinations. After standing at third and second places respectively in the previous two internal examinations, coming at the top was especially satisfying. Even though I did not do well in any of the entrance examinations, I will be leaving SJC at the high mark.

2000 -- Lacking confidence

Our class sections were re-organized for class 11th and 12th, and I moved to the supposedly tougher A-section. This was a year when my self-confidence was all over the place. I was intimated by the tougher section, didn't appear in top-3 positions in any of the examinations, lost many of my former friends, and my sister got busy in her college. Only good thing: Y2K came and we all survived.

1999 -- Early signs

My first public examination and I stood third in my college. I felt great joy and there were celebrations all around. My secondary school had been great so far and I was looking forward to senior secondary with great hopes and expectations. There was also a sudden change in how friends saw each other in terms of grades, something that I hated.

1995-1998 -- The happy bubble

My secondary school years from class 6th to 9th were like a giant happy bubble. I made great friends at school, did well in academics with a consistent 1st in almost all these years, and had a very active friend circle in our neighborhood at home. I was young, feisty, competitive, and almost like a star kid in every department of my life, never knowing that this period will come to an end.

1988-1994 -- Elementary bliss

I was very shy and reserved in my elementary. My teachers always had the perfect quiet boy image of me even though I was very active at home. My mother used to help me with my studies and I was doing reasonably okay, without having any pressure whatsoever. Elementary life was nothing short of bliss without having to care much or do much.

1982-1987 -- Childhood

My memories of this time are a mix of what I have been told and what I faintly remember. I indeed remember having attended a preschool in Allahabad and another one in Hapur, before getting coached for admission into St. Joseph's College.