My father (5.7.1948 — 8.23.2025)

My father, Panemangalore Madhavaraya Pai, was born in post-independence, pre-republic India in the sleepy village of Panemangalore (roughly 20 miles from Mangalore and across the river from the bigger town of Bantwal), the 10th of 13 siblings. My grandad had a shop in the village, and while they weren't poor, especially by Indian standards, they weren't particularly well off either. Elementary school was a kilometer or so away, high school further still, a distance to be traveled by foot, every day, rain or shine. My dad's path was moulded, as is so often the case, by a few chance meetings. 

The first was when a family friend dropped by right as my dad's older brother was about to graduate high school. He checked out my uncle's grades and said aah, you're doing well at math and science, you should do engineering. Engineering, what's that, my uncle apparently said. Dunno, but they need a lot in newly Independent India was the answer. And so it was that my uncle, who was apparently planning to be a school teacher or such, was shipped off with a few rupees to an engineering college a hundred miles away to figure out what engineering was and how to get admitted. He did, and got a nice job when he finished his degree. My uncle was a huge influence on my dad, so when my dad also did well, he was also guided into engineering. By then, India had opened new "regional engineering colleges" around the country, to go with the IITs. My dad got into the one in his state of Karnataka and started on his journey. My grandad gave him ~50$ for his first semester tuition and hostel fees and said, son, now you're on your own. So Dad got himself a scholarship, and frugally made his way thru college (two pants, one to wear and the other drying on the clothesline, he always told us, though he probably exaggerated). He followed his undergrad with a master's at the then IIT Madras (now Chennai), and then moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) for his first job. Two older brothers (including the one above) had settled there and helped him get set up. 

As he settled into his career, my grandpa decided it was time for him to get married. An old friend of my grandad's in Mangalore had a lovely daughter (my mom to be!) who had done a master's in math, was working in a bank, and after a quick meeting, as was the custom in those days, that was that. I was born not too long after, and for the first few years of my life we lived in an apartment in Bombay. My kid brother joined us. So far, this was the "normal" path for folks from smaller cities or villages. You went to the nearest big city if you wanted a better job. For my people, Bangalore, maybe Bombay, never much further. 

But my dad had more interesting paths ahead. He got offered a job at a new greenfield plant in a small town called Rampur (yes, the same Rampur of the now famous whiskey) that was going to be the Indian manufacturing base of Xerox, as a joint venture with the Modis. We spent a few years there, until Mr Modi saw something in my dad. In order to train him for more management responsibility,  they sent him (us) to England for a few years to learn more from the larger Rank Xerox. A couple of charming years in Cheltenham and it was time to go to Delhi to the head office. We settled in, got an apartment in South Delhi, and most of my memories together are from this period. It was really just the 4 of us: the rest of our family and most of "our community", like I said earlier, lived either back around Mangalore, or Bombay/ Bangalore. My brother and I didn't speak the mother tongue, had curious half-British accents, and lived, by the perspective of those times, very far away from my parents' place of birth. Flights were expensive (and very few), and a train journey to Mangalore took 2 days, so we didn't go back too often. 

Those years in Delhi were good years. He worked hard climbing the corporate ladder, but was there in the evening for dinner on most nights. Social life was about finding friends with similarly-aged kids and hanging out. He'd work on weekends but also have time to spend with us. My brother and I had ridiculously sheltered upbringings in hindsight, yet my parents somehow also managed to keep us from becoming the kind of South Delhi brat that many of our neighbors and friends in the same socioeconomic strata became (maybe more credit for that should go to my mom, but that's a story for another day, one I hope not to tell for years to come).

The interesting parts of his career started around the time I was in college, at the turn of the millennium. Dad was mid 50s then, doing well at the top of Modi Xerox. Xerox in turn was doing well, but by that time photocopiers and printers weren't exactly a growth industry. Many people would be on a glide path to retirement. But not Dad. He got contacted by a head-hunter who asked if he wanted to switch jobs to a small company that had aggressive growth plans in a new industry (manufacturing CDs). He jumped in and in a few years this was the third biggest facility in the world, with only Taiwanese companies ahead. Somehow he'd taken the skills he'd learned on clean room manufacturing and put them to use at a scale India wasn't used to back then. 

Ok, so that's it right? 5 years there, now nearing 60, surely there's no more big adventures. But it was time for another weird coincidence. He was taking a flight, and the guy next to him started chatting with him about solar: how it had been a science experiment so far but very quickly was reaching the point where it could scale. He was intrigued and did some research. At the same time, Sunpower, then a small solar start-up, came asking if he'd help them scale. They had a plant in the Philippines and thought the tech was ready for mass adoption. It was all his favorite challenges: clean room manufacturing, supply chain wrangling, growth. He jumped again. My parents moved (both my brother and I had moved out by then) and my dad took on this challenge. You can see the growth in the charts, the company successfully IPO'd and he was ready to ride into the sunset. 

But not quite yet. A Menlo Park VC firm (NEA) called and asked him to help on their cleantech vertical. He agreed on the condition he could stay in South East Asia, and so he did that for a few more years, shuttling back and forth between Singapore where they now lived, California, and various companies he served on the board of around the world. He loved every part of the game: working with people, making deals, helping companies grow, traveling, all while most of his friends were retiring and working on their golf. To be fair, he was definitely working on his golf too. 

Things started to change in 2015 with the birth of my son, his first grandkid. Suddenly, he started transitioning into a whole new role: grandpa. He was never the most patient before (my brother and I joke that while he was always there for us, he never had time to play catch or board games or stuff when we were kids). But now he had endless patience and energy to keep playing the same repetitive little games with my kid. As COVID struck he wound down all his work travel, consulting and board roles. He had grandkids on both sides now, and spent all his time gardening or playing. So that's 5 or 6 different modes in the span of just two decades.

Of course, I knew that our time with him was finite, but he was healthy, energetic, and I guess I thought we had at least a few more years. It wasn't to be. A sudden heart attack with no prior warning, and it was all over. 

I'd love to call him one more time and just say thank you for everything. My brother and I both have very winding career paths where we've jumped into major changes, and he supported, cheerlead and consiglieried us through all of it. Maybe we get some of this willingness to jump when we see an opportunity that excites us from him. But this little biography into the void is my only way to communicate. Hindu last rites are beautiful in many ways but don't have the equivalent of a eulogy. So, thanks for everything Dad. Go in peace and we'll see you when our work here is done.