First Day at BITS  / Venkatramani Kalyanaraman (Friend)

BITS Day One....Morning.  Registration about to begin.  I was so tensed to finish the registration formalities...I was rushing towards M block..I was searching for a Professor's office...There I saw another guy who is also searching for the same thing..Yes, That was Navin...He is the first wingee I met in our sweet wing.  I met him in BITS M block entrance.  He was so bright and knowledgeable.  After a brief search, We both finally found the prof's office..He was so nice in talking to people that he became my first friend in BITS.  We stood in line to meet our professor for orientation.  I was standing right behind him.  He went in first and I followed him.  Once his orientation is done, he waited for me outside the Professor's office.  Then we both heard from someone that the computer center is nearby!  That aroused our curiosity and we both together searched for the computer center (called IPC).  That was the first time, we saw a real computer center!! 
After that we parted and went on to finish our remaining orientation process.  
Now it is lunch time!
I came back to the hostel room to goto lunch with my parents.  When I walked into the wing, guess whom I saw, NAVIN.  I was so much feeling at home to see him in my wing.  We both got along instanteously .  He was so cool and was smiles all over his face!  
Then we both went to lunch together with our parents.
My First Day at BITS was filled with memories of Navin.  He is my first Friend and one of my BEST Friends in BITS.
There is only one Navin in this world...I have known him for 11 years now..
I will miss him forever.
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Cool Dude  / Srivatsan Balasubramanian (wingie @ bits )
Navin, I have lots  of things to say about you. First, you define the word "cool".. Not just with your  oakley sun glasses which you wear even when you go to sleep.. but also with your charming and effervescent nature.. you have the gift of the gab which not many possess.. it s really hard  for someone not to be impressed with you the first time one meets you.. 

Navin, you rock dude.. we all miss you..Will be back to post more messages soon...  Close

Brilliant Guy, Great Friend  / Rajesh Rajamani (Wingee at Pilani )
I first met Navin in 1993 at Das's tuition center in Chennai. He was from Michael's and used to stay close to my place in Mylapore. I remember him as a very jovial and friendly guy. He used to ride a blue TVS suzuki motorcycle and sport long hair!!

After spending both the years (XI and XII standard) mostly at the backbenches at Das's, we both headed to Pilani. Coincidentally, we both joined the Physics program at Pilani and I was relieved to see a friendly face at Pilani.

Over the next five years, we (the entire wing) bonded like no other. We were known as "MTV" and our passion was cricket. Interestingly enough, our batting order was representative of our personalities. Our openers, Kuma and Navin, were the most brilliant guys in the wing. Reddy, Venkataraman, Songy, Vela, Sumo, Dassi used to play in the middle order - magnificient players on the days they gritted it out. Poove, Bicha and I brought up the rear-guard. Navin was our pivot in the batting department. Turned out he had been coached at the TNCA facilities when he was part of an under-13 team. He won many matches for us single-handedly. Our crowning achievement was the Krishna Bhawan inter-wing championship win in our sophomore year. Played under lights, the Physics team just clicked that day.

Acads were a completely different cup of tea. We mostly got by with average grades in the first two years - our focus was on Cricket and Travel. We were there to have fun and with the inimitable Venkataraman and ever playful Navin, we were always travelling or kicking up a racket. We went to Jaipur, camped overnight in the Desert near Jaisalmer, went trekking in the Jim Corbett National Park and visited the beautiful Nainital.

Navin, Venkataraman and I were especially close. We used to debate late into the night about all and sundry topics. The one thing that stood out was Navin's love for the good things in life and Venkataraman's extremely positive attitude. It was widely rumored that many girls found Navin very cute and decided to send him a Valentine's card each. Unfortunately, they got his room number wrong and the cards went to someone else. Not that it'd have mattered - Navin was way too shy to start a conversation with girls.

3rd year (Junior year) at Pilani was when we got serious about studies. Navin became very serious about studies and started acing just about every course. Particularly, the math courses (Complex and Diffix) which everyone had a very rough time with. The rest of us blokes banked on Kuma and Bicha to "teach" us what the professors had tried to during the course of the term. While most of us scraped through, Navin had a cakewalk during the 3rd and 4th years.

Despite the new found seriousness in studies, we continued to travel and visit new places. Navin used to be the master planner of all our trips. He used to meticulously research and find the best deals. He made sure that our parents felt that their money was being blown away in the most imaginative way possible :) He sure had a tough job - Reddy insisted on having Onion utthappams no matter where we went and Kuma refused to eat "unhygenic" stuff (the only exception he made was to smoke the same beedi the local rediwalla smoked). It was during one such trip that we lost Venkataraman in a rafting accident (See http://srivatsanbala.blogspot.com/2006/05/raft.html). It was a very tough time for all of us. Despite this, Navin stayed in touch with Venkataraman's mom and used to write to her even after he moved to the US.

Needless to say, we guys stayed in touch after moving to the US. Navin and I used to meet up every 2-3 months (Santa Barbara was just 3-4 hrs drive from SFO). He used to love riding my convertible and used to take it out for spins whenever we met. We also used to get-together with the rest of the wing during thanksgiving. I'll post some snaps from our get-togethers in SFO and Dallas.

Navin was very close to his family and extremely proud of his sister. He inspired her to apply to the London Business School for an MBA (she was accepted and is to start soon). His parents had come over to see him walk last year. He took time off to show them around and had brought them to SFO too.

Aparna and I met him recently when we were driving to LA after we got married. He took us out to a fancy restaurant in SB and I was suggesting that we introduce him to some of Aparna's friends. We missed each other when he made trips to the Bay area for job interviews. He wanted to join a research company and contribute to building newer and faster transistor technology. He had decided to take up an offer with a small company in Southern California (San Diego I think). I can't keep away the thought that I'd have talked to him last saturday but for my sudden trip to India.

Its difficult to express in words what Navin meant to us. I feel privileged to have had such a great friend and wish I could roll back time. To be told once that "we lost your wingee in an accident" is painful, twice a great tragedy - I hope it does not happen a third time.





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Coolest thing about Navin!  / Sreenivas K. (Wingee at BITS )
The coolest thing about Navin was his style and charisma! He just looked good doing what he did! Close