Sundar Pichai lives his school’s motto ‘Be Brilliant’

It was much later in the day that the fact sunk in —1987 alumni Sundararajan Pichai had been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Google.

Even as the cyber space was abuzz with comments and posts about the “Chennai boy”, the school was calm and quite like their former pupil, who had literally lived the school’s motto—“Be Brilliant”.

Mrs Alice Jeevan, school principal, said Sundararajan Pichai completed his schooling at JV in 1987. “Sundar studied here from class I to X and was one of the calm students we have seen. He was good at academics. We have been following his growth ever since he was appointed in a top post in Google a couple of months ago.

Nothing gives me satisfaction than Sundar becoming CEO of the top company. We would love to invite him to our school. He was much interested in science subjects at school,” she said.

Sundararajan Pichai completed class XI and XII at Vanavani matriculation higher secondary school in the IIT-Madras campus. Meanwhile, a couple of km away, the Pichai residence in Ashok Nagar too was quiet, with its only resident at the moment —Sundar Pichai’s 91-year-old grandmother Renganayaki, choosing to block out the exuberance of the outside world. Her neighbours ensured that nobody disturbed her with questions about her grandson.

Sundar’s father Regunatha Pichai worked as an engineer in the erstwhile General Electric Company (English Electricals) in the city. Getting inspired from his father’s work in electrical and electronics, Sundar turned to engineering.

One of his batch mates at the school who did not want to be named said that Sundar was interested a lot in science and used to refer several study materials about subjects taught in the school, besides taking up science talent tests. A. S. Kumar, who coordinates the “Beyond Batch Group,” a network of Jawahar Vidyalaya alumni and who is known to Pichai’s family, said both the parents were currently with him in the US.