School and IIT
Nandan’s growing-up years were marked with volatility, owing to his father’s frequent job transfers and re-locations. He spent the first twelve years at Bangalore, where he studied at the Bishop Cotton Boys School. He then moved in with his uncle’s family in Dharwad for a brief while, after his father had been transferred yet again. “When I moved to Dharwad, I joined St Joseph’s, an SSC school. I had moved from a big city to a small town. And from living with my parents, I moved in with my uncle and his family. In fact, my upbringing has helped me open my mind towards dealing with unpredictability.” Nandan later got into IIT, Bombay where he studied electrical engineering. “Those were the days when the computer was not known. The only realistic option available was electrical engineering”, he says.
Nandan has often publicly acknowledged the role that his years at IIT, Bombay have played in shaping his attitude and his value-system. In his address as the Chief Guest at a convocation ceremony at IIT, Bombay, he mentioned that apart from providing a superb academic education, the IITs instilled in him a code of conduct that he was to live by for the rest of his life. But the early years at the IIT proved to be a little difficult in social terms - “In those days, a very different kind of person went to the IITs. It was all the sophisticated big city guys – and at the time, I was a gawky 18-year-old from a small town – unused to and unaware of the big city life.” However, he started working on what he had quickly recognized as his core strength: his organizational ability. “I realized I was good at organizing things. So I got involved in organizing Mood Indigo and other such events. I became a quizzer and in my final year I was the general secretary of the IIT.”
It was at one such quizzing event that he met his future wife, Rohini. “Nandan and I met when he came to my college, Elphinstone, as part of the IIT quiz team. We had common friends, so our relationship grew steadily,” recalls Rohini.