Srinivas C

The years in HPS Begumpet will always be an integral part of my Life. You can leave HPS after you finish,

but HPS never leaves you. In many ways it remains a part of you. It instils pride in you that you belonged to it. And that makes HPS singularly unique. Even if you did not excel or do anything to get your name up on the Boards in its stately Dining Hall.

For those who knew me, Life in HPS was just fun, games, mischief and hardly any studies. Managing to barely scrape through in the ISC exams, my dear mother who believed her son would come out in flying colours refused to speak to me in sheer disappointment. I had let my parents down. Being an only child made it worse for them. And with marks like that I decided to join a College in Bangalore for reasons far from academic. Getting a seat in a Hyderabad College would have been a Miracle. I applied to the famed St. Joseph's College and in quick time got the ‘Red Card’ of Rejection. I found out the date of the interview and went on the day to the college. Here was I, in a long queue of boys and girls with shiny green cards stating ’Admit’ and me the only one with the Red Card. The ones in the line gave me the ‘What are you doing here with that card‘ look. It hardly bothered me. When I went in, the Revered Padre was in shock. He had never in his life seen a Reject Card Boy enter the Interview Room. My pleas were met with words of encouragement that I should do well and take my chance, next time. It was when we decided to drive back to Hyderabad that we met my Uncle a Chief Engineer in HAL. He made a feeble mention of a new college on the outskirts of Bangalore in Whitefield had just commenced. Sri Sathya Sai College is a rural college envisioned and built by Sri Sathya Sai Baba, but you would not fit in, he warned. I took the offer, not knowing Life had its own plans. I only joined hoping to get a transfer to St Joseph's during the course of my B. Com. The transfer did not happen but the transformation did. The HPS boy refused admission, stood First in the Bangalore University. HPS and Sri Sathya Sai Baba brought out a new Sreenivas.

Am currently Hon. Chairman, Sri Sathya Sai Health & Education Trust, which runs the largest Totally Free of Cost Child Heart Hospitals in several states of India and many countries.