Pranams

Made by many hands

परम्परा · paramparā — the unbroken line, hand to hand.

I did not make myself. What follows is a partial accounting of the hands that did — family, teachers, friends, a few strangers, and one or two market crashes — from a Kerala village in 1980 to now. The full version would be a book. This is the index. If your name is missing, it is my memory that failed, not my gratitude.

1980: A baby named Sreekandh, born into the Balakrishnan family in a Kerala village. Everything below is what that boy was given.
1980–1994: A simple village boyhood — school, the temple, my father's factory. I spent hours driving his car on factory errands, half help and half excuse to be near him. Ambi, my father's brother, was effectively my caretaker through those years. Grateful to him, and to a family that made the ordinary feel safe.
1995: A small bike accident kept me home with my books. In the term exam that followed I scored well — and for the first time studying became interesting rather than required. A fall that turned me toward the desk.
1996: SSLC — the tenth standard. Shanta, my English teacher, was an inspiration I still carry.
1997: A handful of tutors lit the fuse for chemistry, physics and mathematics — and through them, a real love of STEM. Grateful to Ajith, Radhakrishnan and Jayaram sir.
1998: My elder brother Sreeram and my father pushed me toward computer engineering. The two halves I still live by came from my brothers — Sreeram opened engineering to me; Sreedhar instilled the spiritual values underneath it.
1998–2002: My father met Prakash Anna, who became my spiritual elder brother and mentor. Around the same time came Nair Uncle — Parashara himself, who could read the twenty-seven nakshatras in anyone's body and tell the past, present and future of a soul. I spent those years travelling temples and ashrams beside him, instead of collecting the usual teenage habits. Grateful to them both.
2000: In college, Raju sir opened the door to open source — Unix, Linux, the whole ethic — and I fell hard for it. Meeting Richard Stallman at an event sealed it. My email handle, gnuyoga, is from those years: GNU (GNU's Not Unix) and Yoga, from the Art of Living. Two loves in one address.
2002: Graduated in computer science engineering — 60 km each way, 120 a day, for years. I owe that degree to my father and to my brother Sreedhar, who funded my studies. Loving them is easy.
2002: Right after graduation I left the business family behind and moved to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living ashram — to find myself, and to learn what service means. Grateful to the many teachers there who gave me Sudarshan Kriya and the practices that have steadied me ever since. That year I also met Bishan — a true friend for life.
End of 2003: Joined the industry — deliberately a young startup, where I more or less lived in the office and learned the nuts and bolts of hardware and software by doing. Grateful to Anil.
2007: We finally shipped a product to market. Grateful to Rajeev — Rawjeev, as he calls himself.
2008: The market crashed and the company shut down. Strangely, I'm grateful for that meltdown — I learned more about life in that wreck than in any good year. And in the middle of it, I met Priyanka — Sripriya, the spiritual name her master later gave her, is the name she goes by now.
2008: Haps — Harpreet — came into my life and quickly became a pillar. He deserves a page of his own, and will get one.
2009: Became a freelancer, with Kamal as both inspiration and guide.
2010–2015: The consulting years — phase two of my career, mostly advising and building. Grateful to Prakash, Bhavin and Simran.
2011: Within those consulting years I met the Laxminarayan brothers — Abhishek and Parik — who opened the professional door that shaped the decade to come. Abhishek welcomed me into tech; Parik taught me business ethics, and how to run and scale a global business. The longer story is here →
2015: Went deep with a SaaS startup and built the first 40-person team. Grateful to Sunil, and to the many others I met along the way.
2015: Met Robin — an inspiration to work beside, who helped Parik and me co-create Artemis. Around then came Junaid (2013 or 2015 — I honestly can't remember), Niraj and Rajesh T. Each of them deserves a page of their own.
2015: Krish was born. Becoming a father humbles you in a way nothing else does.
2016–17: The spiritual thread came back to me through Aksharji of Akshar Yoga — we organised an International Yoga Day for five thousand people, my son on the stage. Through him I came to Kulantakpeet, where I've stayed since. (The full spiritual lineage is its own essay — A foreigner in an Indian body.)
2017: Sreenath G joined on the engineering side — my first senior engineering hire, and the beginning of many great engineers who came through him.
2018: Joined Enchanting Travels as CTO — Abhishek brought me in, and through it I came to work with Alex and, later, Florian. Parik and I already went back years by then; this was the chapter where it all compounded. What a journey.
2018: Rajesh T and Niraj joined Artemis 3.0 and have been with me on the transformation journey ever since — I'd attempt almost anything with them. Keerthana, then our engagement manager from Equal Experts, was part of it too. This is where I really learned pair programming, TDD, what a true agile team feels like, and how product scales.
2018 onward: Thomas at Equal Experts showed me something I'm still absorbing: you can run a company without OKRs or weekly meetings — simply by keeping the whole focus on customers.
2019: Took on a new role at Travelopia as Global Technology Director. Grateful to Andy and Mike.
2019: Neeraja was born — she, too, deserves a page of her own.
2020: COVID hit, and life reset again — the same hard reset as 2008, when the market fell and my startup folded. The second time, I knew the shape of it.
2021: Began scaling a decade of learning through Travelopia. Grateful to Chris Storey for the partnership.
2021: Kirat came into our lives. Without him my family wouldn't have come through COVID — he held Sripriya and the children while I held work, and he got me hooked on yoga again. Deep gratitude.
2022: Venky joined the journey, and we began building the India team. When Venky speaks, I listen — there's a whole corner of this site for that.
Now: A new spiritual chapter, too — I've begun Jyotish, Vedic astrology, with Vikram Devatha. And the list keeps growing. Honestly, I think it takes a five-year window to look back and name people fairly — so take this as current to here, and unfinished by design. Many more to be added. TBD, always.

Many more whose names belong in their own essay. Pranams to all — known and unknown, this lifetime and the ones before. I'm just grateful I get to experience this life. Gratitude always.