I am a focused person who believes in cultivating a healthy combination between head and heart - both IQ and EQ are equally

important - to ensure success and balanced growth in the life of an individual. Medical studies are increasingly revealing that talent is inborn and has to be manifested via proper guidance, discipline, hard work and aspiration. Being a person with several interests spread over technology, ecology, the humanities and art, from a young age I was fascinated by sounds and the rich exposure to music - instrumental and vocal - at home aroused a deep desire to create music. I have been influenced by Indian and Western genres of music and admire the composers, musicians and performers. My mother would make it a point to gather a vast selection of music CDs and regularly took me over the years to numerous live performances in India and abroad. Besides, at home, my dad's brother, being a Hindi film director, was, during his frequent visits, always talking about music themes for his upcoming movies and would at times take me along to meet famous Indian music composers and maestros like the Oscar-winner A R Rahman, Remo, Pam Craine, Kishori Amonkar, Sonu Nigam and others. I was introduced by my family to many musical instruments and set out to learn how to play them either through the help of others or on my own. Over the years, I attempted to learn many musical instruments to no success as I found them boring. I tried learning the tabla(Indian drums), drums, percussion drums, clarinet, flute, violin and piano. But the one instrument that attracted my attention was the guitar. I began my learning with a traditional acoustic guitar until I moved on to learning the electric guitar. The feeling when I played my first complete song on my personal Ibanez Prestige was the feeling of exuberance and cannot be described with words. Music has served to give an energetic, creative and harmonious edge to my intellectual faculties and I play the guitar not only to unwind but also before audiences to entertain. Playing the guitar also helps me to express my feelings through the lyrics and tones of song. Scientific experiments with music indicate that music is a form of therapy. While studies and research in the promising area of different technologies will be my intellectual calling at university and later in professional career, music will be an aid to achieving a healthy balance between body and mind and in this way serve as a stimulus to harness my creative potential in intellectual endeavors as well.