"And you're talking to the Product Head!," he said, after he had just finished demonstrating the '5 Paisa' App to me, his elder cousin of 15 years, whom he was probably meeting after 5. He didn't try to hide his pride.
Santosh Jayaram was always the prodigy of the family. Innately gifted, he picked up the art of classical Indian dance at a very tender age by just accompanying his sister to her weekly dance lessons.
His true calling (I thought) though, was music! His voice could melt hearts and just when one thought that he would soon challenge the Jambavans of Indian classical vocal music, he chose the Veena as his instrument of musical expression.
Years of relentless practice (accompanied by his mother, my aunt's, incessant nagging) saw him grow from performances at family do's to concert halls and stages across the big cities of India, as part of his fusion band 'Agyna' and accompanying stalwarts and legends of world music.
"Music could be his career. Life!", I said, when my aunt worried (as she does for everything) about where he would be placed as part of campus recruitment at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, where he was just about to complete his dual degree in Engineering and Business.
I encouraged her to get comfortable with the fact that he may have no real job and even asked her to get ready to travel with him as he went from one world stage to another. In my own mind, I had built him up to be the one, not to take the beaten path in a family full of Engineers!
Not only was I able to quickly relate to the app, but also provide one little point of view, because (as I explained to him), I am myself in the middle of the process of leading a change in the mobile app experience of the Home Security / Connected Home brand that I work for.
"How is Agnya?" I asked, as our conversation continued. I wasn't sure what the expression on his face meant, but he quickly clarified it saying he'd hardly found time for anything other than work in a while, leave alone music.
Watching him pore over his emails (from his ipad) over the next few minutes, in that hotel room, while on vacation to attend another cousin's wedding, made me wonder where I had gone wrong!
All this while I had thought that his software job was only a means to make his ends meet and waited for the day he would announce that he was quitting his software career to pursue music full time.
And here he was, having embraced 'FinTech' (an expression he used to describe his line of work) whole-heartedly and at all of 28, carrying the responsibility of a Rs. 100 crore backed wealth & investment management product on his young and able shoulders.
The music's still there! He let me savor a few aalapanas, once as we were seated right next to the Nagaswaram troupe at the cousin's wedding and once as the radio played during a car ride.
The prodigiousness just seems to be being put to use elsewhere for now...
