NSE2ZOOM: Cognizant vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan pursuing his hobby of making toy trains

Monday, November 18, 2013

Cognizant vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan pursuing his hobby of making toy trains

Since making his first model train in 1977, Narayanan has made 30 such sets, spending over Rs 10 lakh, and not even his close colleagues know about it.

Since making his first model train in 1977, Narayanan has made 30 such sets, spending over Rs 10 lakh, and not even his close colleagues know about it.

Lakshmi Narayanan, 60, the former CEO and the current vice-chairman of one of the fastest-growing top-tier IT companies, Cognizant Technology Solutions, is learning to code again these days. Not because he wants to be hands-on with the latest in the area of his company's expertise. In fact, it has nothing to do with work. Narayanan is at it just to be able to keep up with his hobby of 36 years--making toy trains.

Since making his first model train in 1977, Narayanan has made 30 such sets, spending over Rs 10 lakh, and not even his close colleagues know about it. In recent months, he has started learning to use a software called 'Anytrack' through a mass open online course. He's also using a program called Bachmann.

"In the future, in a connected world, every device can be programmed. Hence this skill is important," says Narayanan. The idea started in his schooldays, when he used to watch with awe the small model trains that used to be exhibited during science fests.

"Train is something that I was always fascinated by. Watching trains go over bridges excited me." His dream hobby began taking shape in Boston in 1977, where he was working for TCS at that time. It cost him $150. Santa Fe and North West, two trains which ran in the US around that time, were the first two models he made. He wasn't even sure if the customs department would allow him to carry the models back; so he left them with his landlord there. He didn't leave the hobby behind, though.

Every week, Lakshmi spends three hours pursuing it, doing everything from using balsa wood to build the bridges on which his trains would run to oiling the wheels. This is the time he's entirely cut off from the rest of the world, locked up in the glassdoored room on the first floor of his house, dedicated to toy train-making, without even a cellphone.

"Once I am in that room, my wife will always complain because no phone calls, no shouting, nothing will reach me," he says. He's has a lot to think about - tracks, engines, carriages, bridges and even stations. "I have one theme-based model, where you have a station, a village, trees, houses and roads. It's a village station."

Toy trains don't constitute a simple world anymore. There are different scales such as O, N and HO. Narayanan prefers the HO scale. There are different standards as well, one followed by the European manufacturers and another by the Americans. There are "some compatibility issues between the two." He needs to keep his research on this going. Narayanan's interest takes him to junk shops as well as to sites such as trainworldonline, the web site of a Brooklyn store.

"Four or five visits to a shop, (and) you are down by Rs 2-3 lakh. I know this is a hobby without any end. You can make it as complicated, as big as you possibly can." The coding idea came from US-based Mark Anderson, another enthusiast, whom Narayanan has never met in person. But they keep exchanging ideas over mails on how to build these trains.

"I know him for the last six months and he is a crazy man like me who has been building model trains." Mark introduced Narayanan to software for designing tracks. So, after some initial difficultly in grappling with it, Narayanan is back to coding, which he first tackled as a student. (He did is MSc in electronics from Bangalore University before getting an MBA from the Indian Institute of Science, Department of Industrial Management).

Narayanan says while his work has taught him how to plan for attaining a goal, his hobby has taught him how to be patient. But there's one aspect of his work, he says, he isn't able to implement while making toy trains. "At work, I am able to trust and leave it to others. But while making trains I can't."

Does his wife share his interest in toy trains? Narayanan laughs and says, "She has given me a separate room, which is isolated. The only thing she says is take your cellphone so that I can call you if someone comes home." His next goal is to build a toy metro rail system.