Dare to Dream- The Journey of Distinguished Prof. Bala V. Balachandran

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Everybody has dreams but not all have the means or opportunities to achieve them. The critical aspect is to go after them, hammer and tongs, without rest, till they are realized. I have had the good fortune of having accomplished some things in my life. Hard work and sacrifice have been a part of the deal. Several of these milestones were personal goals, even childhood dreams if you will. However, as I became older I realized that I wanted to accomplish something which w benefit others.

I met Shri Maalan and subsequently Shri Ramanan in January 2014 through a colleague of mine. They wanted to publish a series of short stories chronicling some of the significant achievements in my life. 1 preferred to keep my personal life personal. However, their objective was for the series to serve as motivational treatises for the readers of the Pudhiya Thalaimurai Tamil magazine which has a se subscriber base of the next generation youth population in Tamil Nadu. As a boy I have spent many a happy hour immersed in books reading about achievers and dreaming about how the life of a famous person would be. Many of my personal heroes and whose paths I wanted to emulate took form from such books. I told them that if they felt my memoirs would serve such a purpose, I would be happy to oblige.

Shri Ramanan was entrusted with the task of talking with me and gathering all manner of information. He has breathed life into my narrative and beautifully articulated the story of my life- an ordinary man with 'not-so-ordinary' dreams, possessing nothing but an iron will and USD 8 in his pocket making a life for himself as one of the most distinguished academicians and institution-builders of the country. No, I am not paying homage to myself here - I did warn you that Shri Ramanan has articulated the story of my life brilliantly and captured all the poignant moments rather well!

The short stories were published as a 8 part series in the Pudhiya Thalaimurai magazine early this year. We hoped for a good response. What we received was an unprecedented response- an outpouring of letters and emails from people from all walks of life. We were overwhelmed, humbled and grateful. All these people were able to relate themselves to some aspect or other of my life and identify with my struggles and objective and were singularly delighted and genuinely happy for me and lauded my success. What's more? They hoped the series would continue.

**Contents and Sample Pages**