Very few of us called him by his name Madhusudan. Most of us called him TKV and then towards the end, I think he had earned the nickname “King”. We studied Computer Science together in IIT-Madras (Chennai) and were a few doors apart in our hostel. I believe he was room number 247 and I was room number 239. That would make us about 8 doors apart.

My recollection of him includes how hardworking he was (he used to get up at the crack of dawn to go to the computer lab to work and block time for the rest of the day), how well he used to do academically and that two wheeler he had! I think it was a TVS Suzuki but I am not totally sure.

The last time I saw him was in 1989 when he left for the US. I had heard about his illustrious career in Sun, Microsoft and Facebook but got to meet him for the first time after 33 years this weekend in Atlanta. He and his family were in town for a wedding and Aluru and Suman took the initiative to put together a lunch meeting.

The credit goes to them for making this happen. I simply showed up. Pretty much like those Computer Science classes. This time, I brought the two wheeler though!!