Know your Member - CS Suresh Balakrishnan- A Multi faceted personality

 1. Please tell us about your graduation and your student days with CS Institute.

 I am a Mylaporian and spent all my life in Madras (Chennai). I graduated (B.Com) from A.M. Jain College, Meenambakkam. I completed ACMA and ACS. I joined CS institute after I completed my B.Com (as back in those days minimum qualification was graduation). The Institute was at Eldams Road. I used to go for morning classes. Legends such Anantha Raman used to take classes. Then the Institute shifted to Wheat Croft Road. The Institute library had only few (cyclostyled) copies of past year’s question paper with suggested answers. Students were not allowed to take them out of the library. There used to be so much demand for those books. There were no private publications of the past papers and this was the only source.

 I was working in Sterling Holiday Resorts when I completed my CS and had to undergo 2 weeks of training at the Institute

in addition to 2 weeks training at ROC. Those days ROC was not online and all filings were by physical hard copy. I was fortunate to get holiday to attend the aforesaid trainings.    

 2. What are the Companies that you had worked.  Kindly share your corporate experience

 I had a very short stint with ITC Agro Tech Limited at a place called Adoni in Andhra and was incharge of purchase accounting. I was with Sterling Holiday Resorts incharge of Projects and banking and later became Company Secretary of one of its Group Companies. Then moved on to Blue Dart Aviation Limited as its Company Secretary and also handled Finance and Legal and continued for almost ten years. Then moved on to Scope International (Subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank) as Company Secretary and handled risk compliance and Business Continuity for six years. Also worked with CSS Corp and Sify Technologies as Company Secretary for two years each. Currently working with Thryve Digital Health (subsidiary of Highmark Health (Insurance Company), USA, taking care of Legal & Compliance for the past three years.  

3.  You are known among CS members in Chennai for your photography. How did you get this interest? Tell us what you do in photography.

My interest in photography grew when I was in school days. My father used to a Yashika Camera which was quite costly and it used to be black and white. When it became colour, I had a Nikon (fully manual) camera which gave me an opportunity to learn the details of photography. Those days we will not know the result of the snap until the film roll is developed and a print (hard copy) is made. It used to be a tense moment when you wait at the film studio to get your prints. I still preserve colour negatives taken by me some 35 years back. I also have more than 350 transparencies (slides) on various subjects shot by me which can be projected via a slide projector. With the digital age the complications of printing, sharing has been obviated. 

 4.  We have also seen doing videos and shared some music albums.

 Video was also been my passion right from my college days. I used to have a video camera back then which used to record on a video tape (VHS Cassette). We had a camera which was bulky and also a small Video recorder to record the scenes. The camera and the recorder used to be bulky and would weigh anywhere around 5 to 6 kilos. It used to record only for a maximum time of 3 hours. With the advent of digital camera, I started making version songs of some popular songs with my friends daughter who sings and I do the camera and editing. We uploaded the videos in YouTube one of which has crossed 1.1 million views. I do this during weekends and it’s a very satisfying  passion. 

5.  We understand that you have a passion towards collection of music records.

Having exposed to listening different genre of music and different music media formats  from childhood, I have developed an immense interest in collecting and preserving varied formats of audio media.

My collection include a vintage His Masters Voice (HMV) hand winding Gramophone player dating back to 60 years. This format is becoming extinct with very few records available for collection.

I bought a “Sansui” second hand LP turntable, a Vintage Philips turntable, a brand new “Audio Technica” Turntable with advanced features including reverse playback.

I currently have a collection of around 500 LP records and it still grows day by day. My collection includes few rare LPs such as “20 Greatest hits of Beatles”, “Thrilling Thematic Tunes – A non-film instrumental album by M S Viswanathan”,  “Fabulous Notes And Beats Of The Indian Carnatic-Jazz“  by T. K. Ramamoorthy, How to Name it – Ilaiyaraaja”, “ABBA”, “Boney-M”, “Ananda Shankar”, “Police”,  “Paul Mauriat”, “Led zeplin” etc.

My recent addition is a Photophone vintage 16 mm film projector. Also a TASCAM reel to reel professional studio tape recorder

6.Is there any article that has been published about you and your passion

An Article titled “On Record” was published in “New Indian Express” on in 2018 on World Music Day. Another article named “A Record Love Story” was published in the quarterly in-house magazine of Ramanujan IT City “Infinity”.

7. You were a convener in Chennai West Study Circle few years ago. Chennai West study circle owes a lot to your photos, which is one of the reason for its popularity. Tell us about your association with Chennai West Study Circle

I was associated with Chennai West Study Circle right from its inception. I feel proud and It gives me great satisfaction that I was also a part of its growth. I had the honour of taking the lead of acting as its Convener for one year and currently serving as a Core member. The team is an energetic bunch of guys who know the importance of the topics and choose which are current and relevant for the audience. I have the pleasure of taking photos during the sessions which are uploaded in social media and being viewed by several others.   

8. Can you please tell us about your Family; about your wife and son.

My wife is Priya, housewife. She loves cycling and an ardent cyclist and Gym enthusiast. She is a great support to me which enables me to carry on my passion. My son Siddharth is B.Tech graduate from SRM University currently works with Google for the past one and a half years in Bangalore.  

9. What are your future plans?

With all my Corporate experience in varied fields, I have plans of starting my practice to provide variety of services including secretarial, regulatory compliance, risk analysis, Business Continuity etc.  

10. What would you advise to youngsters on how to manage their work and also their passion

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Not only Jack, it makes everyone dull. Hence choose a passion of yours, be it in any field and it will make your life satisfying.