About Me — Mahesh S.
Curiosity is what keeps me alive
Hi there, my name is Mahesh S. The S in my name stands for “Swayamprakash”! I know, it may be hard to pronounce for some of you. I’ve had people from my own country mispronounce the first half of my surname as “Swamy” or “Saami” or even “Saayam”!
But curious to know what my name means? My first name Mahesh is short for “Maheshwara”, which itself can be broken down as (Maha+ Ishwar) meaning “Great Ruler”. Ishwar is also another name for the Hindu god Shiva. Swayamprakash is also made up of two words = (Swayam + Prakash). Swayam = Self, and Prakash = Bright Light or Sun Light. So my surname means “Self-enlightened” or someone who “shines by his own light” :)
I was born and raised in the city of Bangalore(or Bengaluru in the local language), and this is where I did all my schooling and college. My father hails from Mangalore, a costal town along the Arabian Sea ~300kms west. Mother‘s family hails from another Arabian Sea town called Kumta — a famous beach and tourist destination.
I first moved out of Bangalore when I got my first job which required me to head 500 kms north to Hyderabad, a vastly different city with a different language, food, climate, and a vastly different “style” or “vibe” compared to Bangalore. But as a result of staying in these two places, I can now speak Kannada and Telugu(the official languages of the two cities) in addition to English and Hindi, and a little bit of Tamil.
I first started writing on Medium from February 2021, and I write whatever I feel like I want to share with the world. It could be about a recent travel experience; my love for Hyderabad’s famous Irani Chai; how and why I chose to reduce my consumption of Sugar; or even what I feel are the weaknesses of Democracy!
So, how do I like to spend my time when I’m not doing my 9 to 5 job? Well, apart from writing an early draft of my next Medium article, I could be doing a number of things:-
I could be staring at a map of any city/country and tracing the path of a river, highway, railway line, or the border between two states or countries; reading aloud the names of the towns. I could be catching up on politics and international policy. I could be reading up about the Stock Market, Money and Finance. I could be listening to music(usually Heavy Metal!). I could be watching a movie from countries as diverse as Korea, Japan, Brazil, etc. apart from the usual Hollywood stuff, etc. I could be watching old photos/videos of various cities from decades ago. I could be watching old sports matches from sports like Basketball, Cricket, Football, etc. I could also be reading up about random stuff like motorcycling(although I don’t own one!), religion, culture, family trees of famous people, trivia facts, etc.
Mind you, this is just a small sample of things I’m interested in.
If there is one thing I am passionate about, it has to be curiosity. I try to be curious about anything I come across. If I look at some of my recent searches on Google and YouTube, I see things like: “How is Queen Elizabeth related to the Prophet Muhammad?”, “Why are doors in video games difficult to implement?”, “How is a Grade Separator(Overpass/Underpass) built?”, “How(and how much) does an Artist earn money when a user listens to their music on Spotify? What’s the business model and Cashflow of such subscription services like Spotify and Netflix?”, “Why can’t we just dump all our un-recyclable garbage into the sun?”, etc.
It is this curiosity that is the root from where all my other interests stem from. It is this curiosity that has helped me learn the things that I have. It is this curiosity to learn more about this universe that has led me to read a lot, be it newspapers, books, magazines, articles, etc. And it is this curiosity that eventually made me ask “Why not write? Since you like to read so much anyways!”. It is this curiosity that has led me to realise that I don’t know enough about any topic or matter to be able to have a fixed opinion on it. I’ve got a lot more to learn and prefer to have a “I don’t know enough” or “I’m not an expert on this” mindset that enables me to learn even more.
Why did I choose to write on Medium? I chose to experiment with writing on a platform like Medium, because I felt I had a lot of stuff to share with the world. As you might know from what I’ve written above, I like to read a lot. And I like to read about a lot of things in this world. There was a voice in me that I felt was telling me to start sharing some of it with the world. Maybe I felt the need to open up myself more instead of being like a “closed off wardrobe” who reads a lot but doesn’t do anything with what he’s learnt. Maybe I wanted a challenge in life, and become better at something I know I’m not that good in, and that challenge happened to be writing.
What will I write about? Like I said, there’s a lot of stuff in between my ears. There’s also experiences of overcoming a few challenges and difficult problems I’ve faced in the short(but eventful) 25 years I’ve been on this planet. Maybe I’d like to share some of them and what I learnt from each. Sometimes, I could write about mundane things in life. I’m still trying to figure this out, let’s see where this journey takes me, and you.
Please feel free to message me or leave a comment in my articles, sharing your opinions and thoughts. I want to become a better writer with every new article I write, and I cannot do it by just writing one article after the other, without listening to what you have to say about my work. If you’re putting in even 5 minutes of your day to read something I’ve written, it better be worth that time!
Feel free to Connect with, or Follow me on LinkedIn.
