Leadership: Accountability, the ability to have a vision, develop and empower the team, enjoy the achievements of individuals in the team.
Food: Staunch vegetarian food. I'm the sambhar-rasam types, though I can live with any vegetarian food. But given a choice I'd go for South Indian vegetarian food, or else Italian or Mexican.
Cooking: I'm a pretty good cook and can make a full meal. I actually like cooking, but don't cook!
Reading: Of four flights taken in a week, one is devoted to reading The Economist , TheNew York Times , Time and other key magazines; earlier in print, now on my iPad. I'm a very eclectic reader and read all kinds of books. At present I'm reading two books — Steve Jobs's biography and China by Henry Kissinger. But I also read John Grisham, and am a big fan of old Tamil novels. I have read Ponniyin Selvan , Kalki and the whole group.
Music: All kinds; I listen to a lot of Carnatic music, and love old Hindi film songs, particularly Kishore Kumar!
Tech-savvy: I have all kinds of gadgets…up to the ones which were released last week!
Relax: I am always relaxed. I am intense, but I relax.
Favourite holiday destination: Anything related to mountains. I am a big trekker and have trekked in the Himalayas, a little bit in Japan and the Swiss Alps.
BlackBerry & iPhone: I have both; I use BlackBerry for mail and iPhone for everything else. I have all Mac products, and think the new Samsung Galaxy Note — have you seen the ads? — is a beautiful device.
Religion: I'm quite religious, but don't believe any one religion is superior to another.
India's communal divide: By and large we are a peaceful country. I wouldn't exaggerate this issue; I don't believe this is a threat to us, because India has exhibited enormous maturity over decades. We can coexist. All religions are important.
India's future: I am a big, big optimist on India. India has everything going for it. We are a young country, the opportunities are enormous and we have a huge talent pool.
Managing young India's aspirations: We'll manage it well. Of course there are challenges. Whatever lingo you use — inclusion or any kind of divide from financial, digital, social status or communal point of view has to be bridged. To some extent, circumstances will force it to happen, primarily because the future will hold many opportunities and we won't be able to capture those unless we work as one. So we have to get our act together, but I am an optimist and am sure we'll do it.
Policy paralysis: Yes, currently we have a policy paralysis; this is true and it is a worry.
Dream for TCS: It has a huge opportunity; it is already doing well, but has the potential to be a world leader in technology, whether in terms of financial performance or mindshare, or brand or recall… whatever parameter you apply. My dream is to have TCS really up there.
Next marvel in technology: Really difficult to say; but I can tell you a lot of marvels will be coming from technology. Two years ago people wouldn't have believed that the Tablet concept will take off the way it has! And two years hence we'll have another phenomenon taking off in a significant way, but we don't know what it will be.
Hacking: It's a major issue. One thing that will push back the adoption of technology is security concerns. We need to, as technology companies, come up with more sophistication. It's a challenge. A lot of work is going on, but every time a company comes out with a superior security, another set of people figure out a way to break it.
Social media: I am on the silent mode on Twitter, where I follow a few people, but am not on Facebook. I watch what is going on in the social media but don't participate. To be very frank, I don't have much to say and it takes a lot of time.