I was born on Tuesday, October 6th, 1970 at 13:30 GMT+5˝, in a city in India called Kanpur. My parents and I emigrated to the United States in 1976 and settled in the Los Angeles area in September of that year. I entered the first grade at the local elementary school, John Foster Dulles School. I "graduated" from elementary school after completing the 7th grade in June of 1983.
In the spring of 1977, my mother decided to have me start taking piano lessons. My mother had been the organist at her home church in India, and she thought it might be a good idea for me to take piano lessons, just in case I might have some potential musical talent that was waiting to be unleashed. Well, as the saying goes, the rest is history. I still play the piano today, and my favourite composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. From time to time, whenever I feel inspired to do so, I also compose some of my own music. My masterpiece so far is something that I wrote between 1993 and 1994, a 28-minute-long concerto for piano and orchestra.
The Teen Years
I went to La Mirada High School, a school with about 1,500 students. During my junior and senior years, I was very active in the speech and debate team. In both of those years, I made it to the state finals, and in my senior year, I also made it to the national finals in Nashville, Tennessee. I graduated in June of 1988.
College
Biola University logo
I attended Biola University in La Mirada, California. Biola is a private, Christian college and has an undergraduate enrolment of about 2,000 students (See www.biola.edu). I majored in Accounting, with the goal of becoming a CPA.
My favourite extracurricular activity in college was being involved with the Student Orientation Staff. This is a group of 40 students who work in small groups with new freshmen at the start of the school year and help them to become familiar with their new college environment. I worked as a student leader both in my sophomore and junior years. Then in my senior year, I worked as the student director who trained the student leaders. That was a great experience for me!
The most memorable activity from my college days was my trip to Israel. Biola has a one-month study programme to Israel that they conduct in the month of January, between the autumn and spring semesters. I actually went on this trip twice. The first time, we went in 1991. We left on January 2nd and arrived on the 3rd, and we had planned to stay for 28 days. We had been in Israel for just 9 days when our college administration called our professor and said, "We have been informed that President Bush has designs on Saddam Hussein, so the US State Department has ordered that all Americans leave Israel immediately." So, on the morning of the 13th, after we watched a sunrise over the Sea of Galilee, we boarded a bus and drove 100 miles to Tel Aviv International Airport, where a chartered TWA flight was waiting to take us home. We left Israel three days before the first bombs began to fall on Baghdad!
Because our trip had been cut short, I decided to go again the following year. This time, we were able to stay for the full 28 days, but something else interesting happened. On the flight from London to Cairo, one of our members came down with chicken pox! Alas, there were three others among us who had never had chicken pox (including me!), so during those 24 days, each of us came down with the disease one by one! Thankfully, I didn’t come down with it until around Day 21, so I was able to enjoy most of the trip as a healthy young lad.
The Roaring Twenties
University of Chicago logo
After I graduated from college in 1992, I achieved my goal of becoming a CPA and spent five years working in that capacity. Then, in 1997, I decided to go on for a master’s degree, so I entered the Graduate School of Business at world-famous University of Chicago, one of the top five business schools in the nation (see http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu). The main highlight of my MBA career was that I spent four months in 1999 as an exchange student at Melbourne Business School in Australia. Since I had never been "down under" before, this was an absolutely thrilling opportunity for me. I was even able to attend two days of matches at the 1999 Australian Open Tennis Tournament. I got to see such big-name players as Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Patrick Rafter, and my namesake, Mark PHILIPpoussis. Unfortunately, Pete Sampras decided not to compete at the 1999 Australian Open, otherwise I could have seen him too.
Interests
Well, that’s enough biographical information. Now, how about some information on what my interests are? Let’s start with music. As I mentioned previously, I enjoy classical music a lot, but I also enjoy some contemporary styles and performers. Here are some of my favourite CDs:
CLASSICAL:
- In the piano solo category: Alfred Brendel plays Schubert (Pantheon Records D24800, 1989); Van Cliburn Piano Favourites (Time Life Music TCD-152/R105-32, 1992)
- In the piano concerto category: Beethoven—The Six Piano Concerti: Felicja Blumental, piano, Vienna Symphony Orchestra (Bescol Records BSCD 8/3, 1989). Wait a minute. Six? I thought Beethoven only wrote five piano concerti! Technically, you would be correct. There are five "numbered" concerti that were published during his lifetime: #1 in C Major, Opus 15, composed in 1798; #2 in B-Flat Major, Opus 19, composed in 1794; #3 in C Minor, Opus 37, composed in 1800; #4 in G Major, Opus 58, composed in 1805; and #5 in E-Flat Major, "Emperor" Opus 73, composed in 1809. However, in 1890, someone discovered a "lost" concerto that Beethoven wrote in 1784 when he was but a lad of 14. So this lost concerto is really Concerto #1, Concerto #1 is really Concerto #3, Concerto #2 is still Concerto #2, and the other three should have their number augmented by one. Got it? Good!
- In the violin solo category: Rachel Barton, violin—Homage to Sarasate (Dorian Records DOR-90183, 1994). See www.rachelbarton.com.
- In the violin concerto category: Mendelssohn and Bruch—Violin Concerti: Sir Yehudi Menuhin, violin, London Symphony Orchestra (EMI/Encore Records CDE 7 67767 2, 1993)
- In the trumpet category: Wynton Marsalis—Carnaval (especially track #5, "Perpetual Motion," CBS Records Masterworks MK 42137, 1987)
- In the symphonic category: Beethoven—The Nine Symphonies: Josef Krips and the London Symphony Orchestra (Bescol Records BSCD-9, no year given)
- In the choral category: Vivaldi and Bach—"Gloria" and "Magnificat in D": Schola Cantorum of Oxford and the Northern Chamber Orchestra (Naxos Records 8.554056, 1997)
CONTEMPORARY:
Soundtracks:
- Les Miserables—The Complete Symphonic Recording (Relativity/First Night Records, 1990)
- Evita (Warner Brothers Motion Picture Soundtracks, 1996)
- The King and I: Julie Andrews and Ben Kingsley Re-recording (Philips Records 438 007-2, 1992)
Other:
- All albums by Michael W. Smith, but especially "I’ll Lead You Home" (Reunion Records 701 0106 72x, 1995). See www.michaelwsmith.com.
- Ray A. Stokes—"Keyboard Kaleidoscopes" (RAS Music Company RAS CD-001, 1993)
FAVOURITE MOVIES:
- My top 3 by Rodgers and Hammerstein: The King and I, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific.
- My top 3 Walt Disney: Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Beauty & the Beast.
- I also enjoy the first two "Karate Kid" movies, The Prince of Egypt, and Amistad. And last, but not least, there is The Princess Bride ("Give us the gate key." "I don’t have the gate key." "Fezik, tear off his arms." "Oh, you mean this gate key.")
FAVOURITE BOOKS:
- The 7-volume "Chronicles of Narnia" by C. S. Lewis. I especially marvel at what he did in the 7th book, "The Last Battle." Anyone who can take the major themes of the Biblical book of Revelation (not the easiest book to understand!) and weave them into a children’s story that a 10-year-old could understand must be a genius! So, if any of you have avoided reading Revelation because you thought it was too complicated, read "The Last Battle," and then it will all make sense!
- The complete "Adventures of Tintin" comic books. I have all 22 of them, and have read each one at least ten times!
FAVOURITE FOOD:
Anything Indian! I have a fairly good tolerance for spiciness, but I do have my limits!
FAVOURITE DESSERT:
Sticky Date Pudding, a treat that I was introduced to during my time in Australia. I enjoyed it so much, I asked the chef to give me the recipe. Recently, I made it for the first time, and it turned out quite well.