Kalyan Verma free essay sample

Childhood of kalyan varma. Kalyan varma, wild life photographer was born on January 13th 1980 in Vishakapatnam. He studied at kendriya vidyalaya- a Govt school- which, he says, was a very good thing. He moved for every three years making new friends which he felt â€Å"Not so good! † From Vizag to Gulbarga, then Vijayawada and finally one year in Canada, kalyan finally settled in Bengaluru after class 10. Kalyan was an average student having ups and downs and like any other kid growing up, even he had ‘dreams’. As a kid many always want to be an astronaut, pilot etc. , but kalyan wanted to sing which he tried but failed. Then he wanted to be in the forest. Watching National geographic – Jane Goodall especially- he always said, â€Å"Hey I want to be in the jungle watching animals all day. † Later The closest kalyan got to the wildlife at that age, when the family went to Ooty on LTC. We will write a custom essay sample on Kalyan Verma or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page When Kalyan was a small kid, he used to watch The Jungle Book and it was love at first sight. Kalyan wanted to grow up to be Mowgli and play with Bagheera, Baloo, Kaa etc like many other kids do. He would give up sweet Sunday morning sleep to watch the National Geographic specials that used to air on National Television before we had Animal Planet and NGC on our television sets. The dream eventually came true. Photography was a late hobby and playing and experimenting with those point-and-shoots took most of my time. After college, when he started working, he could afford a good camera and picked up one of the earliest versions of the Nikon Coolpix 5700 3 In 2004, he started to visit forests quite often and quickly realized, wildlife photography was something that he loved from the bottom of the heart and it was a dream combination of two of my biggest passions in life. Around the same time, Kalyan also fell in love – with computers. It was the early 90’s, there were so many exciting developments in that field. Hackers, in particular, fascinated this young man. He started computer programming very early and that was a very nice thing to do when he was still in school and he enjoyed it a lot. Kalyan joined PES College of engineering, in Bengaluru. It was okay with academics, so he did not get the top engineering college or even the C. S branch. But he wanted to be in Bengaluru and took up mechanical engineering at PESIT. He also liked robotics a lot. He used to bunk classes but not just to hang around canteen but spend hours in the computer lab playing with all those things. Kalyan Varma – Award winning wildlife photographer 27 February 2011 One Comment Hi All.. There is a saying.. â€Å"Some people dream when they sleep and some stay awake to chase that dream. † And today, I have a very very special guest in the show on Coffee With Experts who is an epitome of chasing ones dream! Please join me in welcoming Mr. Kalyan Varma – Award winning Wildlife Photographer from Bangalore! He freelances with BBC and National Geographic Channel! What is even more fascinating is the fact that he worked in Yahoo! as a securities expert.. decided to quit what one would call â€Å"comfortable well settled† job.. only to chase his dreams.. And man, he did chase them quite well.. Very happy to host a Mr. Kalyan Varma on the show. Through out the interview, you can see some amazing photographs from Kalyan Varma. You can check out his entire collection at Kalyanvarma. net More about Kalyan can be seen here on the wiki page – http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Kalyan_Varma Me: Sundar Rajan G S KV: Kalyan Varma Me: Hi Kalyan, Welcome to the show on Coffee With Sundar! Through out your career†¦ you have made interesting choices.. Like Mechanical engineering student to the world of Yahoo.. Then to photography.. Can you speak about yourself.. your background and what you went through when making such critical decisions.. KV: Hi Sundar.. Happy to be on CWS.. My decsions have always been based on what I like.. Not necessarily based on best career choice.. All of us have a lot of interests.. from school days.. I was fascinated with computer technology and robotics.. The whole thing about Artificial Intelligence was exciting me.. so I chose to do Mech.. But I got disillusioned.. We were not doing anything close to what I wanted to do in Mech While I was in mech.. in late 90s.. the dot com movement was picking up.. That was when I got fascinated with the concept of open source.. linux.. security etc.. In a way I was fascinated by movies about hacking I did spend a good amount of time doing all of that in college.. Thats how I landed up in Yahoo where I was working on security.. Elephant Me: You received the â€Å"Yahoo Super Star Award – 2003?.. You should have been very good at your work†¦ Are you sure that you didnt find it passionate.. KV: I really enjoyed the work there.. Infact every minute was enjoyable.. I was solving security issues which were hard.. so I enjoyed it.. I was not bored at all.. But I was interested in photography wildlife from young.. Although I have never spent time in jungle, I used to watch a lot of national geographic channel in India.. But yes, I was quite intersted in the job.. KV: I was earning money when I was at work.. I was able to stay in wildlife sanctury.. I was able to fund my camera.. Wildlife and photography was more like a weekend passion for me.. I worked for 3 years at yahoo! I used to enjoy it.. I spent long hours at work.. At one point, I wanted a break.. So I took 2-3 months off.. I just wanted a time off.. So I decided to spend some time in jungle.. Kinabatangan River KV: The more time I spent in the jungle.. the more I became really passionate.. I was really fascinated by the whole concept of Jungle and nature etc.. There is a government of Karnata eco-tourism resort where I was a regular customer.. I told them that I wanted to spend a few weeks.. They said why not work with us.. So I started showing the tourists all the wildlife in the forest.. And that is how the journey started.. Lion with the kill KV: So.. I spent time in forest.. amidst the tigers the elephants.. I spent time with the tribals.. The whole thing was so fascinating and found that it was difficult to come back to a desk job.. So what was planned as a 3 month visit.. ended up for 1 year†¦ Me: Wow.. That is indeed quite a story! What about the money and livelihood.. How did you manage.. KV: Ofcourse thats the difficult part I was not earning.. Even the work with the resort was a free of cost work.. I wasnt making money there.. I was just burning savings.. But at the same time.. I didnt want to come back.. So I decided to do consulting.. I must admit I was very naive when I thought I could do 10 days a month of consulting.. I couldn’t do justice for both my consulting work and for my photography.. When I am with the tigers.. in the middle of forest.. I used to get phone calls about the projects.. And vice versa.. I was thinking of the jungle while I was consulting as well.. This went on for about 6 months.. I was not really sure this was the way ahead.. So absolutely right.. it was difficult! Orangutan