About Me: Transcript of my toastmasters speech

Here is a Transcript of my icebreaker speech at ToastMasters Club:
----

Who is Mahesh? What is his story of Life?

Fellow Toast Masters and Dear Guests. I'll try to run-thru 26 years of my story in 6-7 minutes...

I was born in Macherla, a small town in Andhra Pradesh. Its on the bank of river Krishna near the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, the longest man-made earth dam on the planet.

My Dad, Siva Reddy worked at KCP. The company's colony pretty much defined the town. People respected him for his hard work and asked him for advise because he was very straight forward and called spade a spade. My Mom, Vijaya was housewife. She truly believes in "Athidhi mahadevobhava", Treat the guest in your home as God. The whole colony loved her. People booked slots with her for cooking advise. She was a famous chef of the town!! Add to all this: I was the only small kid in that tightly knight community. So I was the toy for everyone and they liked to play with me. I was never constrained by the four walls, the whole colony was a playground, i had clothes in every house, slept anywhere i wished to. Life was beautiful.

When i was 4-5, my grandmother took me with her to the Village, I live with my grandmother and great grand mother- my mom's mom's mom. Two beautiful women, and all they cared for was for me to be happy. I played all day, everyday. It doesn't get any better. I ran bare foot on stony roads, chased butterflies, climbed trees, played in mud..There are no rules, thats the way of village life. It was glorious and Life was exotic.

Reality struck my mom after an year and she put me up in a school. I studied in a govt school, KV. The fees was 15/- per year, the cost of one Masala-Dosa now? Enjoyed lots of free time and games periods, I don't remember doing any homework. Everybody has a nickname in school. I was called the doubt master. I was too curious. Some teaches were happy to answer questions, some got irritated. But, i didn't care. I asked them anyway :-) Everything fascinates me. I carefully watched the workers digging the earth to lay telephone cables, work at house construction, Bus driver replacing the punctured tyre. I watched them in fascination and they watched me in fascination :-) I picked up everything, i found on the road..bolts, empty cigarette packs, stones, used rubber bands..u name it. Fight with my kid brother over small things... Life was fun.

Time passed by and i joined college. I was in a big fix, should i focus on EAMCET, the local engr college exams or prepare for IIT-JEE? Parents and neighbors advised to focus on EAMCET instead of putting foot in two boats. They had a point, but IIT was a romantic goal and I didn't know what to do. So, i tossed a coin :) Heads showed up and i wrote JEE. Thanks to good friends, i cleared it and joined IIT Kanpur. I was in the linux geek group and we loved to hate Microsoft for no reason. Contested in Elections and became hostel president and learnt a bit about real-life. Life passed by like a dream.

After IIT, joined Y! labs and worked on some problems related to Artificial Intelligence. After 3 years, I gave up the job to chase dreams. I am now doing a start up and I'll keep you folks updated on it...


So, here i'm... Celebrating Life and Hoping to make a difference. Over to you ToastMaster.
---------------

PS: This is a speech delivered to an audience..so apply a reality filter to it :) Everyone has their ups and downs. We remember the good things in all its finest detail..and forget stuff that is not so pleasant. Thats Life!!


A few interesting tidbits: Was dangerously close to a charged up one-horned rhino that came out of nowhere in a Safari@Kaziranga, A passenger in a supposedly hijacked plane, Stood on the edge of GrandCanyon, Do 50 pushups, Manage a bullock cart, Spray pesticides in a field, Was lost in the crowd of Kumbh-Mela, Did a Bungee jump, Been to Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Vienna, The Alps, California, Bangkok, LasVegas and a lot of other interesting places in India. Wish to drive a 20wheel truck on the freeway and honk madly(like the one in Terminator)