Soft Rock

We are headed towards being the number one software company in our business in India, declares Ramana Gogula, managing director (Saarc countries) of Sybase the US $1 billion software company. That is not a hollow claim, considering Sybases consistent profits in the last six quarters.

Gogulas words, then, must sound like sweet music to his parent company back in the United States. But, Gogulas words are music to Sony Records, which is releasing his first album in February 1998. I have also done a music video, with a Telugu song, which will soon be on MTV or Channel V, he says, excitedly.

 

Music, in fact, has remained Gogulas constant alternative career. He doesnt remember ever having any software role models. In fact growing up in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, Gogula never imagined he would ever be in the software business. Beatles, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton and Jethro Tull influenced me a lot those days, he reminisces. At 17, this prompted him to form his first blues and rock band, Smiles International. It was also during these years that he discovered within himself a talent that he is only now beginning to exploit. I found it easier to write and compose my own songs than copy others, he laughs.

This proved useful later on when Gogula joined IIT Kharagpur to pursue a degree in Physics. It was during the inter-college festivals and shows that we hosted as students that I began to experiment with jazz and then did some fusion music.

His love for music did not fade away even when he went for a masters degree in heat transfer to Louisiana, USA. There, he formed a reggae band called the Algo Rhythms. Simultaneously, he was working as a radio jockey. I spun records every week for two years on the KLSU radio station and then moved to San Francisco to get seriously into world-music, he says.

There, he formed yet another band called Misty Rhythms with six Bulgarian women and a couple of Hungarians. I produced six albums of Bulgarian songs and then did a few South African songs, he adds.

And today, though Gogula enjoys the corporate trappings and the challenge of beating the competition, he thinks it is only a matter of time before he eventually moves on to more creative pursuits in life.