Sri Krishna Guru Dhata Anatha Rhagava
Prologue
I never set out to have an interesting life.
There was no grand plan, no vision board, no moment in childhood where I looked at the horizon and decided I would chase it.
Most of what has shaped me arrived unannounced — a hostel that taught me discipline, a fictional AI that chose my career for me, a sister who set the rules and somehow always knew best, and a country I never imagined living in that quietly became home.
I was born in unusual circumstances, grew up across cultures, stumbled through school, collected backlogs, fell in love with films, moved cities, faced rejection, found code, lost my footing, found it again, flew halfway across the world, learned to cook badly, cried without knowing why, and somewhere in the middle of all of it — became someone I'm still getting to know.
This is not a story of extraordinary achievement. There are no clean victories here, no straight lines from struggle to success.
My dad never got to walk through the door he deserved. I've been walking through doors for both of us ever since — not always gracefully, not always confidently, but always forward.
This is that story.
Chapter 01
Schooling
My story begins even before I was born — and yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but bear with me.
During my mom's pregnancy, her routine checkups were going smoothly for a few months. Then, out of nowhere, she lost the pregnancy — or so everyone thought. A few months later, she started inexplicably gaining weight. When she went back for another checkup, there I was, quietly tucked away in the womb, as if nothing had happened. I had apparently been hiding the whole time.
My sister, however, tells a far more dramatic version of this story. According to her, I didn't hide — I murdered my twin. I've never been able to win that argument, and she markets this version with great enthusiasm to anyone willing to listen.
My full name carries a certain weight to it — Sri Krishna Guru Dhata Anatha Rhagava.
School began with kindergarten, which I treated less as an institution and more as a suggestion. I bunked class regularly and wandered around as I pleased. Recognising what she was working with, my mom decided to put me in a hostel — and that's where I lived and studied from Class 1 through Class 8.
Those were some of the best years of my childhood. It was a CBSE school, and what made it truly special was the mix of people. Kids had come from Bihar, Jaipur, Manipur, and countless other corners of India. Growing up around different cultures, languages, and stories shaped me in ways I didn't fully appreciate until much later.
There are many memories I carry from those hostel years, but one stands above the rest. On one of my birthdays, my sister came in the morning to wish me. I was grateful, but quietly disappointed — I had hoped to see my mom. I didn't say anything, but my sister noticed. She always noticed. That evening, without telling me a word, she quietly arranged a birthday party right there in the hostel. Friends, laughter, cake — everyone became family that night.
My habit of waking up early also traces back to those hostel days. We'd be woken up every morning between 4:45 and 5:00 AM, and over time, that rhythm became mine. It stuck long after I left.
By the time I was finishing Class 8, my sister had completed Class 10 at the same school. With her primary education done, and my own desire to finally live the life of a day scholar growing stronger, I pushed for the change. After plenty of back-and-forth, I won the argument — or so I thought.
What followed was a rude awakening. Moving from CBSE to a state school came with changes I wasn't prepared for. My school hours doubled. The pressure doubled. The stress doubled. And somehow, in the middle of all that adjustment, the knowledge felt like it zeroed out entirely.
The one unexpected gift at the end of it all was a quiet shift in how I saw subjects — the love I once had for science slowly migrated toward mathematics, and it never left.
And the boy who could never stop talking? He became someone who chose silence.
Chapter 02
Intermediate
My SSC results came in, and the pressure that had been sitting on my chest finally eased — my exam load had been cut in half, and for the first time in a while, I could breathe.
Most students from my area chased seats at Sri Chaitanya or Narayana, the big coaching colleges everyone treated like golden tickets. I didn't. Whether by choice or circumstance, I ended up at a quieter college that most people hadn't heard of.
It turned out to be a stroke of luck — I was placed in the IIT batch, which sounds impressive until you hear what came with it. Junior lecturers who seemed to treat students as targets. I somehow slipped through without taking the full brunt of that, and I consider that a quiet victory.
A few friendships formed here that actually lasted. Some of those same people would later walk with me into Aditya Engineering College — which says something about the kind of bonds that form when you're just figuring things out together.
The real transformation during this period happened away from the classroom.
With study hours finally cut down, I had time — real, unstructured time — and I filled it with films. Up until then, my watching had been mostly Telugu cinema. But something shifted. I started pulling at threads, exploring films from across the world, different languages, different storytelling styles, different ways of seeing life. A cinephile was quietly being born.
Then came Iron Man.
The first two films didn't just entertain me — they genuinely changed something. It wasn't Tony Stark that got me. It was Jarvis. That calm, intelligent, ever-present voice that could think, respond, assist, and understand. Something about it lodged itself deep in my chest and refused to leave.
By the time the credits rolled, my mind was already made up. I was going to study Computer Science Engineering. Not because someone told me to, not because of rankings or salaries — but because a fictional AI made me fall in love with the idea of building intelligence.
Chapter 03
Engineering
After the exams, the counselling, and all the chaos that comes with it, I landed a seat at Aditya's second campus.
I hadn't even walked through the gates on the first day when my friend pointed out a girl on the bus — Shareen Fathima. Instant crush. No conversation, no introduction, just quiet admiration from a few rows back on the same bus every day for a week. Then, as these things go, the crush quietly crushed itself. Engineering had begun.
So had the reality check. The dreams I'd carried from those Iron Man films — the Jarvis fantasy, the vision of building something intelligent and remarkable — hit the ground hard on day one. The gap between what I'd imagined Computer Science to be and what it actually looked like in a classroom was something nobody warns you about.
Still, the years that followed gave me something I hadn't expected: people. I met friends from different branches, different backgrounds, different ways of moving through the world. Engineering, for all its frustrations, was generous with the people it put in my path.
What kept me going through all of it was a simple trio — movies, learning, and those friendships.
My daily routine had its own quiet rhythm. Up at 4:30 AM, a film before the sun properly rose, then onto the bus with music in my ears and the city waking up outside the window. There was something almost meditative about it.
In class, I was never a front bencher. The back bench was home — better perspective, less pressure, more room to think. I had a simple rule: if the lecturer was good, I listened properly, and that alone carried me through most of my mid and semester exams.
That said, the backlogs were real. Not one, not two —0of them. I wore them less like a badge of honour and more like an honest record of a student who was interested in understanding things rather than performing on cue.
One subject changed everything though: Compiler Design. I failed it the first time without much ceremony. But when I sat down to actually prepare for the supplementary exam, something clicked.
I became genuinely fascinated — not just with the subject, but with the question underneath it. How do things actually work? Not on the surface, not in theory, but physically and virtually, from the ground up.
That curiosity never left. It's still with me, and I think it's quietly shaped everything I've built since.
Chapter 04
First Job
College ended without a campus placement. The backlogs I'd collected along the way made sure of that. So I did what you do when the conventional path closes — I packed my bags, moved to Hyderabad, and started knocking on doors.
It was brutal in a way I hadn't experienced before. Rejections came fast and often, sometimes back to back, sometimes after getting agonisingly close. For five months I kept showing up — interviews, follow-ups, more rejections, repeat.
It was the first time in my life I truly understood what it felt like to want something and keep being told no. But somewhere in that stretch of persistence, a coding job came through. A quiet, unglamorous landing — but one that would change the entire direction of my life.
The Google Moment
In the middle of all that grinding, my sister provided an unexpected dose of inspiration. She was working at the Google campus in Hyderabad — her vendor was Google, which meant she had access to the main office. One day she snuck me in.
I remember walking through that space and feeling something shift. The breakfast, the dining, the whole experience — it was like a five-star restaurant had decided to become a workplace. I didn't say much, but I filed that feeling away somewhere important.
The job itself came with a six-day work week, which left me exactly one day to exhale. That one day almost always went to my sister. We'd go shopping, hunt down new restaurants, try food we hadn't had before.
Hyderabad also had a strong pull when it came to films — I saw most releases with friends, and the city had a way of making even a regular Tuesday feel like something worth stepping out for.
Then, about a year into the job, my sister's life quietly began to change direction — and without knowing it, so did mine. Matches started coming in for her. She looked through them the way she did most things: carefully, without rushing. Then she said yes to one. An Australian match.
I remember thinking it was exciting news for her, a new chapter beginning. What I didn't realise was that her chapter and mine were still being written in the same book — and Australia had just been written into both of them.
Chapter 05
Australia
Not once in my adult life had I pictured myself studying abroad. It simply wasn't a vision I carried. Then something quietly clicked — and the reason, when I sat with it, wasn't ambition or opportunity. It was my dad.
He's a mechanical gold medallist.One of the best in his batch, good enough to earn a place at a prestigious university for his M.Tech. The only thing that stood between him and that future was money. He couldn't afford it, and so that door closed. He never made a fuss about it, but I never forgot it either.
I wanted to walk through a door he never got to open — not for my résumé, but for him. When I told my mom I wanted to do my masters, just so dad could feel that happiness he never got to experience for himself, the world wasn't exactly lining up to help. But she was. Without hesitation, she made it happen. That still means everything to me.
Day One
The first day in Australia arrived with an immediate reality check. Within hours of landing, I was hit with a $400 fine — for carrying a packet of Act II popcorn through customs. A silly mistake, an expensive lesson, and a memorable introduction to my new country.
The next morning, my sister took me for a walk to show me the city. She gestured around at four buildings and said, essentially — this is it. I stood there with a look on my face that I can only describe as: have I been scammed?
I had not been scammed. But it did take some adjusting.
Australia changed me in ways I didn't anticipate. Back in India, comfort was easy to reach for — things got done eventually, or they didn't, and somehow life continued. That version of me didn't survive the move. Here, I had to figure things out myself. Cook, clean, navigate, manage — all of it.
My sister and brother-in-law trained me well, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, but the result was the same: I became self-sufficient in a way I genuinely hadn't been before. On the cooking front, I'll be honest with myself — a C minus. Generous, but fair.
The academic side surprised me. After everything — the new country, the responsibilities, the adjusting — I didn't fail a single subject through my entire masters. Coming from seven backlogs in my bachelors, I allow myself a quiet pat on the back for that one.
Then came the last semester. I thought it would be a straightforward finish line. It wasn't. Something hit me — hard, and without much warning. There were days where I genuinely didn't know how the next day would feel, let alone look.
What carried me through was the people around me. A handful of friends who somehow knew when to show up, when to make things lighter, and when to just sit with me in it. The bonds I formed during that time aren't casual ones. They're the kind that live in your chest — emotional, honest, and real.
Chapter 06
Jobs in Australia
My first tech job in Australia was at GO1, a startup that had the kind of energy you don't easily forget. The atmosphere was vibrant, almost filmy — the sort of place where you actually wanted to show up in the morning. I loved it.
Five months in, I was laid off due to poor performance. No dramatic story, just an honest outcome. I packed up, went back to square one, and spent the next five months improving — genuinely improving — before finally landing my next role.
Life settled into a rhythm I genuinely enjoyed. Living near the city with a friend, trying different restaurants on weekends, catching films, and for the first time in my life, going to the gym with some regularity. It was simple, but it felt like mine.
Work was interesting in its own way. To give you a sense of how adaptable I've had to become — I'm the only person handling front-end work in the entire office. The rest of the team is based in Pakistan, which means I don't just write code, I coordinate releases across time zones, communicate constantly, and bridge gaps that most people don't even realise exist.
It's taught me more about patience and communication than any course ever could.
Then my sister called. She was pregnant, and she needed help — someone to be there through the pregnancy and to help look after the baby once they arrived. I said yes, which meant stepping into a role I had absolutely no preparation for: part-time nanny, full-time student of what women actually go through.
The early phase was eye-opening in the most humbling way. I had no idea — genuinely no idea — how much a woman endures, physically and emotionally, through pregnancy. Watching it up close gave me a perspective I didn't have before and one I won't forget. I came out of that period with a deep, quiet gratitude for every woman who has been through it.
Then
Now
And then the babies arrived — and kept growing. I've watched them go from fitting entirely in my hands to tearing around the house like absolute maniacs. They are, without question, the most chaotic and wonderful little humans. Cute enough that sometimes, I genuinely just want to bite their cheeks.
Chapter 07
Hobbies
Flying Drones
Flying drones really does free my soul. At least I can't fly — but sending something up into the sky and seeing the world from that angle scratches an itch I didn't know I had. It's the closest I'll get to it, and honestly, it's enough.
Editing
Watching as many films as I have comes with a side effect — you stop being able to just watch. Now my brain catalogues everything: lighting, cuts, setups, payoffs. I want to learn it properly. Cuts, transitions, music, colour grading — the full picture. I've given myself two years.
Archery
After finishing the Mahabharata, one character rose above the rest — Arjuna. His focus, his discipline, his relationship with his craft. Archery isn't just a hobby I want to try; it's something I want to do in his honour. Next time I'm in India, this box gets ticked. No exceptions.
Maths & Physics
Great user interfaces aren't just design decisions — they're physics. Motion, timing, weight, response — all of it is grounded in fundamentals most developers skip past. I don't want to skip past them. Code is the final layer. Maths and physics are what make it feel real.
Gym
Two years ago I had a thought — a simple, slightly ridiculous thought — that I wanted to see abs. Just once. My own. I started working toward it without any grand plan, and I'm still working. Is it achievable? Genuinely not sure. But the consistency is there, and maybe that's the point for now.
Travel
I didn't fully understand what travel could do to a person until Japan. Something about being in a place so entirely different opened something up in me. I came back changed in a small but real way. Next on the list: New Zealand, Bhutan, Nepal. Each one chosen for a reason.
Chapter 08
Investments
My sister had one rule, stated clearly and non-negotiably: I was not getting married until I had my PR. So the little I'd managed to save went back to India — invested, sitting quietly, waiting for the right time.
That time is getting closer. My brother, sister, and I are currently investing together in a house. Once construction is complete, we'll sell it and split the profits. What gives us an edge is that our family is already in the construction business — we can manage the build directly, control costs, and protect the margins in ways most investors can't.
It's a small start, but it's a real one, and there's more to come.
Now
Family house investment
1 Year
Own house purchase
2 Years
Software business
15 Years
Share market yield
By the end of next year, the plan is to purchase a house on my own. The thinking is simple: the sooner I own it, the sooner I start paying it off, and the sooner it becomes an asset rather than a goal.
On the shares side, I've started investing passively and without urgency. The returns will show up in fifteen years or so — which means the best thing I can do right now is be consistent and patient. No rush, no noise.
The bigger ambition sits two years out: my own software business. The goal isn't overnight wealth — it's stability. If the business can cover fifty to sixty percent of my daily expenses, it's done its job. That kind of foundation changes everything. It means choices, breathing room, and a life that isn't entirely dependent on someone else's decisions about your future.
For now, my heart is still firmly in tech. But I'm not naive about where things are heading. AI is reshaping the industry faster than most people are ready for, and future-proofing matters. My plan is to move into embedded systems — hardware-level technology that sits at the intersection of the physical and digital world.
It's one of the few areas where AI replacement isn't straightforward. If that day ever comes, honestly, we have bigger problems than job security.
Chapter 09
Family
On paper, we are anything but a nuclear family. My father has five brothers and three or four sisters. My mom has one brother. Draw the family tree and you'd need a second page.
Over the years, as life tends to do, people scattered — moved cities, moved countries, moved on — and what was once a sprawling network quietly thinned to the ones who stayed close.
When I visited Melbourne for the first time, I met the extended family, and I was reminded just how large that tree actually is. My natural response to walking into a room full of people? Find the nearest exit and quietly disappear. It's not personal. It's just survival instinct.
— A Special Introduction —
Sravanthi Vadina
Melbourne
But of everyone in that extended world, one person stands apart.
I could attempt a proper introduction, but no words I write here would do her justice. Cinematic elevations, dramatic background scores, slow-motion entrances — none of it would be enough. Some people simply exist beyond the reach of description.
Jokes aside, she has one of the warmest hearts I know, and she's been genuinely waiting — keen, patient, and ready — for you to walk into her life too.