By the time I was 12, I was the terror of the neighborhood. We were constantly up and down peoples' private property and their trees looting and pillaging blue berry, guava and mangoes depending on what was in season. With the onset of summer vacations came, freedom. My friends' and my parents, to get us out of their hair lifted all curfew restrictions. We were out of our houses before daybreak, walking more than one and a half kilometers to the railway line, to see trains. There were very long goods trains, there were tanker trains, there were local shuttle trains and then there was the glorious (especially for us in those days), Rajdhani Express, Indian Railways pride! The Rajdhani Express traveled at speeds in excess of a 100 kilometers per hour. The slip stream caused by it was like nothing we had ever experienced before. And we used to religiously carry coins with us which we used to keep on the railway track, for the train to pass over, hoping that it would turn into a magnet. It never did.

In high school I joined the National Cadet Corps(NCC) a form of voluntary armed forces reserve. It was here that I got my first taste of the uniform. The NCC used to take us school boys for various training camps. It was also here that I first got my two major kicks in life, shooting and gliding. At the firing ranges, I got to shoot using the Lee Enfield Mark III bolt action rifles, stationary paper targets(with bulls eyes), skeet shooting( I was rather good at this), and also revolvers and stenguns.

More than the shooting, I loved to fly. Gliding became, for the next 4 years, an obsession. I did my first solo flight after 28 launches, on an antiquated training glider called the Rohini. This was a side by side seater, with an open canopy and tiny windscreens in front, very similar to the WW-I Sopwith Camel. The only single seater glider that the club had, was already obsolete by then. The Rohini was a very gentle and forgiving aircraft, but at the same time demanded that you use up quite a bit of muscle power. After one and a half years of flying, the club got a brand new Ardhara glider. This for us in those days, was truly bleeding edge. The Ardhara, had a very low sink rate of 27 feet, thereby making each flight last just a little longer. She also had a completely closed Perspex canopy, was fun to do aerobatics with, and nearly got me killed once.

We used to use a winch to take off(launch the glider). Normally, the winch pulls a cable which in turn is connected the glider. After reaching the required altitude, the winch operator eases off on the power, and the pilot releases the cable from inside the glider. This is a fairly safe and simple method with very little or minimal risks. Safe because, in case of an emergency the winch operator can cut the cable from the winch's cable drum using a mechanical device, or the pilot could head straight to a point above and beyond the winch, thereby releasing the cable automatically. In my case there were two failures. First after reaching an altitude of 1200 feet, the winch operator reduced the power. Like a hundreds of times before, I pushed the joystick forward to bring the glider's nose down and get a little airspeed. Then like always, I reached forward and pulled the cable release knob to release the cable. Nothing happened! I pulled it again. Still nothing. Sweating, I pulled the release knob a few more times, futilely. By this time I was almost over the winch, Hoping that the automatic release would work I flew more than two hundred feet beyond the winch, and still the cable did not release. Talking loudly to myself, I kept telling myself not to panic, the winch operator would cut the cable. That too was not happening. I later found out that the cable cutter on the winch was jammed too.

Try to imagine this; It was almost like I was on a toy aeroplane tethered to the ground, going around in ever smaller circles, knowing that if I strained the glider against the cable then, I was definitely going the become an airborne sling shot, losing whatever little control I had of the rapidly sinking glider. All this time There was another little piece of information, crowding my awareness. Four hundred feet beyond the winch were very high tension railway power lines! I remembered seeing countless times before, those same power-lines and the little red boards on each power pylon reading, "Danger! 11,000 Volts". With all these dangers clamoring for priority in my mind, I checked my altimeter yet again, it was now reading five hundred and fifty feet. I was sinking like a rock! That was when I realised that I did not have much time left. The cable, still attached to the glider was simply dragging me down. At five hundred feet I was already too low for me to carry on taking steep banking turns around the winch, trying to stay close. Banking too much, too close to the ground would be disaster, there was always the chance that I might scrape a wing-tip on the ground and the glider would just cartwheel itself an me to death. I decided to act.

I turned downwind, away from the winch, slowly opened the air-brakes, and began the best ever landing approach that I had made in my whole life. At about one hundred and fifty feet above the ground there was a loud bang and the whole glider shuddered, and started rising! The cable had released. I carried on straight, heading for the tall grass next to the runway. Now I had a new fear. I had no idea, what the condition of the under carriage was. Did I still have an undercarriage? If yes, could I land safely with it? I made a perfect landing. Later, inspection revealed that there was too much wear on the cable release mechanism, and the ground crew had just failed to notice it. And yes, I still love to go gliding and soaring.

The first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur. I was about 8 or 9 years old then. I slept through most of the movie, because I just could not understand why the people on the screen were chasing around on strange looking horse drawn carriages, when we had cars and bikes which could do the job so much more better and of course more interestingly.

School was like labour camp. We had to wear navy blue trousers(skirts for the girls), white shirts, black leather shoes, a school tie, and a school belt. I used to hate the uniform, because it just used to get dirty, dusty and crumpled within an hour of my getting to to school. I was a bit of a bully in my early school years. I mellowed latter on though.

My first job was in New Delhi. I worked with a firm which had its' fingers in more pies than I care to remember. They were into exports(trading), film making, cableTV, housekeeping and quite a bit else. New Delhi also gave me my first taste of a Big City. There were so many things you could do and so many places you could go to.

I got married to Sophia Anitha on the 26th of January 1997, India's Republic day. This was the day I too lost my independence and formed the Jacob republic. Ours was an arranged marriage.

Like me, Anitha is very fond of wandering. We have traveled all over South India either by car or by motorcycle. Anitha lately changed her status from domestic engineer to working class after a maternity break of more than one and a half years. This in turn means that I make my own coffee nowadays, if I want it at non standard hours.

Reesha, our older daughter, was born on the 30th December 1997 and our newest addition, Ritu the younger one was born on the 30th of December 2000. Our lives, , now revolve around these newest additions to the Jacob clan.

We presently live in our own house in Bangalore, India. I work for a software services firm. Work is interesting and quite bleeding edge, and I have a company full of friends.

My social life in Bangalore, has lately mutated to a lot of TV and the computer. And, while on the subject of TV, I think we relate to the Simpsons rather well.

My current passion, as you must be aware, from this website, is my Royal Enfield Bullet 350cc single cylinder four stroke motorcycle. I like music loud. To while away an evening I prefer bowling to pub crawling. I stopped being a lager lout. Maybe I grew out of it. My favorite import, though, is Heineken, and my favorite Indian beers are UB and Kingfisher.

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