Catchup Meetings

 Met Adithya Padala, a classmate from school, who counts Sabeer Bhatia among his friends. He is a lso an active member of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and lives in the Sonoma county which produces wine. He also has a vineyard that produces Chardonnay grapes. I learnt he went to USC (South Carolina) for his MBA in 1983. I was at Clemson, SC a bit later for a Ph.D. Small world..

His wife Tulasi, who clicked the pic below.. right, above. Prarthana and Anu are on the left.

He was visiting Pune, so we caught up at Blue Diamond, the Taj hotel which was once owned by the Kirloskar group.

Great conversations, about school and family, and plans for the future. In short, everything under the Sun.. 2024 is still alive with possibilities, including Golf..

Truth is a Pathless Land- Book Review

This book is about Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the well-known philosophers from India. What is somewhat surprising is that he was a made-to-order philosopher, almost forced by his mentors, at the Theosophical Society, into becoming one.

Deborah Richards writes about his days during the process of being transformed into a thought leader. How an Englishman spotted him on a Chennai beach, took him under the wings of the Theosophical Society, and how Annie Besant became his foster mother, and took him on Kailash Mansarovar and other trips to help him discover himself.

The accounts of his having discovered the highest chakras of Kundalini are similar to what I read about in UG Krishnamurthy's (no relative) autobiography. While one cannot comprehend this process, our gurus seem to have documented it in ancient texts.

What Jiddu did after being annointed a messiah was surprising, though. He dissolved the Order of The Star, which he headed. He said an organisation was not needed to discover Truth, or God. It is a personal quest.

The characters in the book include the wife of Edward Lutyens, who also played a role in helping him survive in England, and other friends of Annie Besant and the Society. There is no mention of the Schools set up by Krishnamurti Foundation (Rishi Valley, etc.) which might have happened during the time of this narrative. But what I found out from this book is that he mostly lived in California rather than in India. A good read for fans of Jiddu.