My First Computer

If you know me well enough and in particular are quite familiar with all the computer hardware that I have used, I wouldn’t blame you for being startled for a moment at the title of this post. As unlikely as it sounds, the Dell Dimension 8400 desktop that I took out of its packaging and turned on, last night, is the first computer that I actually bought for myself.

As I felt an almost childlike delight at turning it on, hitting away on its keys and admiring its beauty, I stopped to think about my somewhat long association with computers.

The first time I ever saw a computer and laid my hands on one was back in 5th grade. Our school had recently acquired a bunch of PCs (and even one PC-AT, if I remember correctly) and put them all in what was called the “computer room.” And there being the common misconception (at the time, of course, but I don’t know if it still exists) that computers needed air-conditioning to function, the computer room was perhaps the only room in the entire school with some pretty nice air-conditioners

Although I would have loved to have much more access than a couple of hours a week, there wasn’t much of a choice I had. Computers were terribly expensive machines and nobody I knew had one at home.

It was when we moved to BHEL Enclave (near Gunrock, in Secunderabad) in 1991 that my luck turned around. A seemingly innocuous little computer institute that went by the name of “Dawn Software Solutions” happened to be located not far from our home in BHEL Enclave. I didn’t realize it then but I know now that what I was witnessing in 1991 was the start of India’s so-called “IT boom” (which the Economic Times stretches the definition of far too much, calling every isolated incident a trend and everything happening around a boom, but I digress). These computer training institutes were in the business of teaching anybody who enrolled in their courses, most things about computers – from DOS and BASIC to COBOL and Oracle and a host of other popular technologies at the time. That phenomenon also led to the rise of what is one of India’s biggest companies – NIIT.

Dawn Software Solutions had a proprietor whose name was Uday Bhaskar. Mr. Bhaskar was very kind to me and my friend, Krupasagar (who would like to be only referred to as Sagar but I, having known him much longer than most of his current friends refuse to honour the request). He let us use his facility (which wasn’t much really, just about 4-5 computers in a tiny room) for a very modest fee. I remember spending many a Saturday afternoon programming (I wasn’t allowed to go during the week or at the expense of school work) for upto 6 hours at a stretch and paying only Rs. 5! Mr. Bhaskar really didn’t care about the money, though, because he hardly ever asked us for it.

When I look back at those days, I am always filled with a deep sense of gratitude for what Mr. Bhaskar did for us. He was one among many people in my life who recognized how much I loved computers and did what they could in their small way – my parents, my teachers at HPS, Krupasagar Sridharan, Rustam Bhote, Sandeep Reddy and many others.

I wonder, though, if Mr. Bhaskar knew that in his own way, he was the first person responsible for helping that 11-year old kid find what would become the passion of his life.

I have always known that my passion for computers is anything but commonplace – probably the reason why I resented being clubbed along with the thousands of others who flocked to the field for the lucre.

“You want to study computers, eh ? Why ? There are no jobs nowadays – no money in it anymore,” they would tell me.

I would smile and say nothing in response.

I was born for this.