Oh, you seem to be an inquisitive person interested in reading the entire Illiad of my life. That's fine with me. Go ahead! But I must warn you that you will encounter a lot of self-appreciation and boasting on this page (what else did you expect? This is my homepage).
Sorry for being so cliche, but I must start when it all started. I was born on the 8th of August in the year 1981 to Shafi Ahmed and Habeeb Fatima in the Fernandes Hospital, Hyderabad. My mother named me Zishaan Mohammed Hayath. Exactly 361 days later, my brother followed me into this world and he was named Sufyaan Ahmed Hayath.
School
When I was about three and a half, I was admitted in All Saints High
School, the oldest boys school of Hyderabad (however, it changed to a
co-ed when I passed out). Those twelve years (1985-97) will be remembered
for the simplicity and innocence of the carefree childhood days. Acads,
definitely, was one of my strong points in school. Apart from this I was
good at painting, quizzing, essay, debates; and bagged the Best All
Rounder several times. My most wonderful friend from the school days is
Rahul. I finished school in May 1997 with a 90% in SSC.
Junior College
After my 10th, I joined the Saint Marys Junior College for my
intermediate. St Marys too was a boys college when I studied there. But
changed to co-ed the year I passed out! It had a hep crowd and was very
lenient on the acads front. This was when I got my first bike - a Hero
Honda Splendor. My only two notable achievements at junior college were
the Essay Gold Medal from President and
the K Circle Quiz.
At college, I met Naseer who has been my best friend since. I left
college in May 1999 with an average 81% in Intermediate.
Ramaiah Classes
During my 12th standard, I joined the Ramaiah classes for JEE. This was a two year
program, which meant I was dropping an year in between junior college and
engineering. The Ramaiah institute had spartan standards of discipline. Absolutely! For
two whole years, I woke up at 3.00 am in the morning to attend classes.
I took JEE, and with a rank of 1878, came to IIT Bombay in July 2000.
IIT Bombay
Very luckily (although many would disagree) I landed up in Civil
Engineering Dual Degree, a five year program. Life took a turn after I
came here. IIT would be the first co-ed institute that I would attend in my
life. And the city was none other than Bombay! The hopes were high, expectations
huge and dreams endless. But most of them were shattered the moment we arrived
here (There were about 25 girls in a batch of 400).
From 0 to 100 in 5 years ... life at IIT was a roller-coaster ride. From Levis
and Reebok in junior college to shorts and chappals in IIT, the
transformation did not take much time. You get moulded into its culture
very fast. I picked up the IITianese slang, slept during the day and
worked during the nights etc etc. I would want to go endlessly about the 5 years
in IIT. But you can read about it on other pages.
I will just mention that my best achievements in IIT were two Techfests (Manager Lecture Series, 2003 and Overall Coordinator, 2004), a couple of Institute Colours (Cultural, 2002 and Organistaional, 2004), an Institute Citation (Organisational, 2000-05) and some nice articles in InsIghT. All said and done, there can be no other place like IIT. The campus life is addictive! As I graduated, I take a lot of things with me from IIT Bombay: A mediocre CPI of 8.1, two degrees in Civil Engineering, a job with ITC, the Techfest experience and some of my best friends.
Work
After IIT, I went to work with ITC Limited in Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai; Opera Solutions in Bangalore, New Delhi, New York and London; and Chaupaati Bazaar in Bombay.
Other Stuff
Favourites - Fountainhead, Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmen, Toblerone and Kwality Street, Black, Blue, Calvin and Hobbes,
Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna, Azharuddin, A R Rahman, Shahrukh Khan, Madhubala, sausages and rumaali roti,
winter morning, first rain, Adidas, Arrow, Nikon.
Hobbies - Painting, Photography and Reading. I also like long rides, Formula 1 and Chess.
Emails - zishaan [at] rediff.com, d0zmh [at] civil.iitb.ac.in, zishaan [at] iitb.ac.in, zishaan [at] gmail.com, zishaan.hayath [at] itc.in, zhayath [at] operasolutions.com, zishaan [at] chaupaati.in. Trying to tell a story here.
Philosophy - Matches with that of Ayn Rand - My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man being a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
Motto in life - Nothing less.
That brings us to the end of the long story about me. I don't believe you reached this point reading the entire stuff above!
