Every year during Ganesh Chaturti family members of Mr Suresh Kamath, chairman and managing director of Laser Soft Infosystems Ltd, assemble for a reunion at Mysore. "We take our children to our old schools, college and other places that hold memories. I think this will help our kids find their roots, and inculcate a sense of humility in them," he says. Born into a large, lower middle class family, Mr Kamath’s was a clerk in the Mangalore Ganesh Beedi Works; he also sold LIC's policies to make ends meet. Humility and compassion was a family tradition, Mr. B Siddiah, childhood friend recalls, "After my mother passed away, Kamath's mother treated me as one of her sons and used to feed me along with her children."

The Avila Convent and the Shardha Vilas High School, where Mr Kamath did his schooling, played a key role in moulding his personality. "It was Rengasamy Iyengar and A S Lakshmana Rao who influenced me during my formative years. The religious discourses at Shivananda Dandalaya in Mysore taught me the importance of human values and simple living at an early age," he says. Mr.Kamath, an alumnus (1980) of the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, recalls. scholarships and college library books made his college life chug past smoothly.

His company, Laser Soft (turnover Rs20 crore) is an acclaimed equal-opportunity employer. Out of its 500 employees about 100 are physically challenged.

(Source: domain-b.com )