The three factors that have had a profound impact on me are the diversity of culture, thought, and lifestyle.
I completed my schooling in Bangalore (India), a unique city as the majority population is from “out of state”. Consequently, the student body in my classes was diverse in language (English being the common thread), culture and food habits. This was particularly enriching as it provided me a balanced perspective of different Indian cultures. Born in Chennai and having previously lived in Singapore and Mumbai, I possess a modicum of “cultural ambivalence”, which has made me multilingual - I am proficient in English, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. I am therefore most comfortable in multicultural environments and I believe they are optimal for growth and development.
The most striking influence of diversity of thought was my parents, who hold advanced degrees in management and literature. While management and literature are often considered as art, I chose to pursue science. My long-standing emphasis on logic, reasoning and
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My parents are deeply religious and believe in many of the tenets of Hinduism. Growing up, I cultivated a temperament of scientific inquiry and reasoning. This was not always consistent with the various religious practices we had at home, some of which could not be justified scientifically! I vacillated several times between absolute and selective religious acceptance. For one to believe, religion must satisfactorily explain life while also reconciling with science. These conflicting experiences also let me explore Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, which have their own set of great ideas and idiosyncrasies. Over the years, I have developed selective acceptance of certain religious practices, while rejecting those which aren't rationally explained by science. The dialectic principle of The Unity of Opposites has helped me construct a balanced, tolerant and non-binary view of