Venkat Venkataraghavan, a close friend of the Pichai family, shared his memories of a young Sundar
Sundar Pichai with his parents
Chennaiites have been celebrating ever since it was announced that namma paiyyan, Sundar Pichai, was appointed as the CEO of Google. Born in Chennai, Sundar studied in Vanavani Matriculation Higher Secondary School and later on, at Jawahar Vidyalaya Senior Secondary School, before heading off to pursue engineering at IIT-Kharagpur.
It is commonly known that the family lived in a two-room apartment here. Sundar’s father, Regunatha Sundaraja Pichai, was an electrical engineer and his mother briefly worked as a stenographer. In an earlier interview to Bloomberg, Regunatha Pichai recalls: “I used to come home and talk to him a lot about my work day and the challenges I faced. Even at a young age, he was curious about my work. I think it really attracted him to technology.”
Venkat Venkata-raghavan, a city-based Chartered Accountant who worked with Sundar’s father during the early days, said, “I have had the opportunity of working with Sundar’s father, who is a humble person.”
Venkat added, “He was very jovial and never showed off, despite being such a brilliant engineer. Back then, Sundar had made it to IIT-Kharagpur. His father was very proud of his sons and used to narrate stories about them. Regunatha would constantly keep cracking jokes and never cracked under pressure — probably, it is the same genes that have been transferred to Sundar,” he said.
Very few know the sacrifices Sundar’s father made to ensure his son has the best education. After graduating from the IIT Kharagpur, he won an additional scholarship to Stanford University. Sundar recalls this in an earlier interview to journalist Brad Stone, where he said his dad applied for a loan to cover the cost of the plane ticket and other expenses.
It didn’t come through, so he spend the family’s savings to ensure that he could go to Stanford. Sundar was quoted: “My dad and mom did what a lot of parents did at the time. They sacrificed a lot of their life and used a lot of their disposable income to make sure their children were educated.”
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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