I was born on September 16, 1976. I lived in Calcutta, India for the first six months of my life. I can't remember much from then. I used to go back every four years or so (but not in the last decade) and all I can remember is that its really really really hot and polluted there. But its still pretty neat, people are so nice there.

Of course I think so because I grew up in New York City, the City of Brotherly Murder. For the first few years of my life my parents moved from apartment to apartment, which I can remember nothing of. Then we settled down in Flushing, New York on a house right near the main Flushing library.

I lived in Flushing throughout fourth grade. I went to PS 200, the worst school in my district. It was flooded with FOB (Fresh Off the Boats), who could barely speak English at most times, and gangsters-in-training. It was pretty fun though. Like my life has always been, I found a small 'gang' which I joined and took a leadership position. I still remember, the two guys were Bum-Suk and Damien. We had fun teasing a girl named Olga. The things you remember..

Damien went to a special school which he got in and I didn't. We tried to keep in touch, but mainly because of my fault, we didn't. Bum-Suk I've never heard from again. My other close friend, Arturo Molina, was a new FOB from Salvador. He was very smart and cool, and since the teacher assigned me to show him around, we became close friends. For a few Christmases afterward, he would send me cards. I never responded, and he stopped. Sigh. I've never been good at keeping old contacts.

I moved to Whitestone, 15 minutes from Flushing. It was a nice new house, which my mom wanted. I wanted another house for the same price that was twice as big, but my mom liked this house better. Guess who won. How unfair. In any case, it was quite a change. I almost failed out of school because I had moved from the worst school in one district to the best in the same one, and I wasn't quite prepared to work. But I worked my way back up, and was in the IGC (Intelligent Gifted Children or something) program. I also came face to face into racism, since I was the only Indian kid in a very predominately white school. However, I was also the strongest, and combined with the other minority member, Casey, a black guy, we could easily kick the ass of anyone who bugged us. :) We didn't need to, because by definition, racists are cowards. However, that didn't mean they bugged me once in a while. Ah well. Nothing of note ever happened, though, so I'm glad for that.

In sixth grade I found out I was accepted for Hunter College High School (7-12th grade), a high school for the gifted, among other more well-known schools such as Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, etc. I was even accepted into Stuyvesant in 9th grade. However, I stayed at Hunter and am glad I did; despite it's shortcomings socially, it was a great learning experience. My younger sister now also attends Hunter.

So I went to Hunter for six years (seventh through twelfth grade). A long six years, fraught with stories, none really interesting. Became a computer geek pretty early on. Started running a BBS. Again formed a small group of friends, after a brush with popularity, which I was BURNED by because you can't trust flakes like the popular people at my school.

Afterwards, I moved onto Carnegie Mellon University, where I graduated from December 1997. I consider the early phase of my life over at that point, and things just keep getting better. Shortly thereafter I joined IBM, and am now working my way up through the ranks. I have bought a house, two cars, got married and have settled into the suburbs. I'm living the American Dream, except my dream doesn't involve kids (never was interested in having kids, my wife feels the same way).

I've bored you for long enough, but thanks for reading.