www.gramkumar.com

 I was born at the temple town of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India in 1979. 

 Since I was born on a Ram Navami festival day (Lord Ram's birthday), I was named Ram Kumar. So I  celebrate my birthday every year on Ram Navami day. 

I went to more than half-a-dozen schools and kept myself in the above average club with occassional flashes of brilliance in academics. 

I am an introvert by nature but can at will, become an extrovert. 

I like multi-tasking and enjoy having a finger in every pie simultaneously.  

As for my qualities, I'd describe myself as calm & cool person, fun-loving and quite friendly with people. While I don't have a large number of friends, yet I do believe in having a small circle of friends who are genuine in their friendship and have stood by each other in times of need. And I'm lucky enough to have such kind of people as pals & that's what keeps me going.  

My Family Background 

My Ancestry  

I come from a very traditional & orthodox family. 

While we stick to traditions & customs when it comes to family values, celebrating festivals yet we are forward-thinking, modern and progressive in our attitude & outlook towards life.  

My ancestors are from the farming stock and were wealthy landowners who made their living through farming and selling the produce. Our family hails from the southern temple town Tirunelveli more famous for its mouth-watering halwa sweets.

With the advent of British rule in India, the occupational patterns of my forefathers took a new turn, if not a sea change. Taking advantage of modern education system introduced by the British Raj, soon they began to take up white-collar positions in the Government.

You wouldn't get to hear my forefathers taking up professions such as law & order like police, army, etc. Either they were bureacrats in the administration, teachers, engineers, doctors or accountants. We are neither given to pursuing rough & tough professions nor running businesses.

As an aside, almost everyone in our family is a teetotaler, non-smoker and kept themselves away from any kind of vices. Also, we are strict vegetarians so much so some of our folks prefer patronizing food outlets catering solely vegetarian dishes! Despite the times in which we live, everyone has upheld this family tradition to this day. Touchwood! Hope to continue to have this unblemished track record in the years, perhaps generations to come.

Eventually, with the passage of time land holdings & farming as an occupation was given up and serving the Government or a private enterprise became the vocation for my forefathers.

Both my grandfathers - paternal & maternal were top bureacrats in the Government of Tamil Nadu.

My paternal grandfather was a lawyer by qualification. He started his career as a clerk in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and went on to become the Secretary to the Government, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. Enroute he dabbled in the Judiciary & served for sometime as District Munsiff, District Magistrate & changed tracks to Executive branch - back to the Assembly. Though he was erudite in English he was a scholar in Tamil and authored many books like translations & commentaries on Legislative procedures, protocols, practices as well as commentaries on religious texts. Being a senior & experienced bureacrat he was looked upon for his wisdom & advice by politicians & bureacrats alike. Sauve, power-savvy, well-connected, he used to help people who approached him for jobs, transfers, promotions, college admissions and other such mundane demands. He had a colorful tenure hobnobbing with the high & mighty of the State Government. Post-retirement, he was appointed the Chairman of the Official Languages Commission, Govt of Tamil Nadu and remained so until his death.

My maternal grandfather's job career was an unusual one in our family. He chose to go by the road less traveled. He graduated from Forest Training College, Berhampur, Orissa and took up a career with the Department of Forests, Govt of Tamil Nadu. Being on the rolls of the State Govt, he was transferred frequently (more than two dozen places) all over the state to places so remote & backward that only jeeps could go. A victim of the excesses of the dark days of Emergency (he was dismissed on flimsy charges), he was reinstated post Emergency after it was found that he was a victim of false allegations and cleared off all the charges. He was out and out an outdoors man and loved going on long lonely walks in forests. He had encyclopedic knowledge about the geography, flora & fauna of various reserve forests & hills of Tamil Nadu. After an eventful & long tenure, he retired as Asst Conservator of Forests, Govt of Tamil Nadu.

I'm honored to have been born in this family and I'm very proud about my lineage, forefathers - their lives & legacies and wish to carry forward the family values & traditions which hitherto has been passed down from generations to generation from times immemorial.   

My Family  

My Dad

My Dad runs his own company - Globuz HR Solutions Pvt Ltd - a market-driven & customer-focused Executive Search & Contract Staffing company catering to top IT & non-IT companies. For more info, please check  www.globuzjobs.com  

Prior to this he was with a US-based biotech company - PHI Seeds Ltd - a subsidiary of E.I. DuPont of USA. He was heading the Compliance & Process Improvement department. After 10 years of service with Pioneer Seeds, he called it a day & has launched Globuzjobs.com based out of Bangalore.

He started his career with Southern Petrochemicals Industries Corporation Ltd (popularly known as SPIC) an agri-business major at Madras. Almost all his career he is with Finance & Accounts department and has rich & varied expereince in all aspects of Finance & Accounts - Internal Audit, Supply Chain Management, Taxation, Budgeting, Receivables Mgmt, Payroll, Sales Commercial, etc. However, he is a good administrator and he organises things very well.

Being interested in the welfare of the staff, he involved himself in the Staff Union activities of SPIC and was at the helm of affairs as Treasurer, Secretary and was elected Vice President for two consecutive years.

In the early 90s, he started his own business - stock broking, data entry processing (forerunner of today's BPO industry) and other miscellaneous ventures. He dabbled in the stock market and he had the opportunity to trade shares directly in the Madras Stock Exchange premises for sometime. Those were the days before online trading came into vogue. After the stock market crash of the mid-90s, his businesses incurred huge losses & folded up. And he went back to employment & that's how we moved to Hyderabad.

An avid chess & carroms player, he has many awards & prizes to his credit. He is an out of the box thinker with many of his ideas radical & novel.

My Mom

My Mom is a graduate in English literature. She was active in the social circuit in the early 80s - heading the Ladies Club, Chairperson of Jaycees and being a good chess player she won few prizes as well.

Way back in the late 80s she made herself computer literate by learning programming languages like BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN and packages like Lotus123, DBase, etc. She knew shorthand & typewriting too. For a few years she worked in some private companies but the pressure of balancing work & home became too much and hence gave up her career to look after our family full-time.

Later she became interested in religion & took up spiritual pursuits earnestly. She was deeply involved with Ramakrishna Math & was a great devotee of Sri Ramakrishna & follower of Swami Vivekananda. She considered herself to be fortunate & blessed to have received mantra initiation from the President Maharaj of the Math. She loved going on pilgramages and she has visited many temples in the Southern states and Maharashtra & Orissa.

I was Mom's boy and we had a special chemistry between us. She was my best friend, philospher and guide. During my school days, she used to vet my English essays and correct them to make it error-free. Later, when I wrote my first book Career Excellence, she read portions of the manuscript and offered advice on improvement. Ironically, she wasn't around to see the published book.

A gentle soul, she passed away in early 2005 due to an illness. She was just 50!

Not a day passes without us thinking & talking about her life and times. We miss her much & feel at times, feel that God has been very unjust to us. Perhaps He wanted her more than us. That's the way we keep consoling each other. Her memories live in our hearts and her values & thoughts continue to guide us in our lives. She is simply unforgettable!

My Sister

My sister holds a degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from Anna University, Chennai. She followed it up with a PG Diploma course in VLSI but changed tracks to Mainframes when she found it difficult, as a fresher, to get into the semiconductor industry.

After a 2 year stint with my ex-employer - Affiliated Computer Services, Inc at Bangalore with their Mainframes operations, she joined my Dad's company Globuz HR Solutions Pvt Ltd www.globuzjobs.com as Manager - Operations and takes care of recruitment and HR training .

And that's all about my family.