Man of many parts

ICE PEOPLE/ Achyut Godbole

, CEO of Disha Technologies, one of the world's leading testing and quality-engineering companies, has been there, done that. And some.

Godbole lived with Adivasis for several months after acquiring a degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, in 1972. He's written three textbooks on computers which are part of the curriculum not only in India but also overseas, and intends to write three more (to be published in the next year).

He anchored computer and music programmes for Doordarshan. He's been CEO or managing director of three other companies "� L&T Infotech, Apar Technologies and Syntel. And he's a Hindustani music critic who won the Kumar Gandharva award.

That's not all. Along with two friends, Ravi and Suhas Malde, Godbole recently set up a school at Andheri in Mumbai called Ashiana for autistic children. The school has around 40 students and Godbole dreams of setting up a network of such schools throughout Maharashtra.

What makes Godbole tick? His background certainly has influenced the course of his life. Born in Sholapur in a middle class family, he got interested in literature, music, Indian and western philosophy, economics and existentialism at IIT. After IIT, he started his professional life as a supervisor overseeing night shift workers at a plastic factory for a modest Rs 125 a month, but studied computers at night.

Next he joined IBM in India, went to the UK where he designed an ERP package at a time when ERP was just three alphabets to most people. Later he joined Patni Computers and started writing articles in Marathi newspapers on computers, to encourage the young to take up computers.

All the while, he's been restless. "I join a place to do something and when that something is over, I move on," Godbole explains his philosophy. So don't be shocked if at some point he becomes a full-time teacher.