About Me

How should one describe themselves?

No matter what label we choose, the reader will have their own interpretations of those labels, and the corresponding limitations that come with it, e.g. if I were to choose to describe myself as a Mathematician, a lay-person is likely to think of me as dryly quantitative, while an academic might think of it in more posturing terms.

Labels also tends to take away from so much more about who we are as people, e.g. who we are as spouses, parents, or as friends.

That being said, the label that's likely to cause the least amount of controversy for me, is an Engineer. It's also something that I find myself reasonably comfortable with, for the simple reason that it is a core part of who I am. For as long as I can remember, I've relished building things, tinkering with them, fixing them. Be it professional large scale distributed systems, or being the family's handyman, the intrinsic nature of joy is the same. It's also a part of my life where my late father left a significant imprint on me. There's a beauty and craft to being an engineer, that's rarely understood by anyone who isn't into it themselves. And that's part of the reason why the tech industry often has so much attrition and hiring issues. But I digress.

I'm also a nerd, in the sense that I have a strong instinctive urge to go into the details of things I care about. Be it the nitty-gritty of a particular software, or my favourite other areas of STEM. I also got lucky that my wife enjoys this part of my personality. I used to think it was my charm, but she disclosed (much) later, how it's hard to not feel the radiating happiness of a nerd nerding out (her words, and also the first time I realised someone considers me a nerd).

Also, my wife is the Hobbes to my inner Calvin.

I hold a B.Tech (Hons) (don't forget the honours!) in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, though given how much everyone in my little town was surprised by this, I sometimes do wonder about a potentially Truman Show angle to this. The probability is non-zero.

I'm competent at most sports. Not because of any special talent, but mostly because I hate losing so intensely that I throw everything at the game. When I do lose, I sulk whine & cry my way through it, but am back the next day. I can do this all day, so long as you suffer through my sulk & whining.

I enjoy console & computer games as well, though I suck at multi-player ones. My all time favourites are the Half Life & Portal series; the Dishonored & Deathloop universe; all of the God of War series, along with Nintendo titles like Zelda & Mario.

I love Mangas. My current favourites are Kagurabachi and Chainsaw Man. I'm also currently reading Wild Strawberry but yet to develop a yearning for it. I absolutely loved Jujutsu Kaisen until chapter 235, then hated it for about 10 chapters after that, post which the mangaka's sloppy writing made me develop an "I don't care about this anymore" feeling towards a manga that I used to love. My other favourites are Bleach, Naruto, Death Note, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super & Demon Slayer.

I'm not much into anime, but I did enjoy Jujutsu Kaisen (I have no idea how the animators will save the series from the mangaka's horrible writing later though) & Attack on Titan.