My colleagues and I were engineers who worked for DCM's calculator division. These electronic calculators used digital integrated circuits, and then they started using chips. The advanced versions of those chips were used for programmable calculators, which were the forerunners of PCs.

The 1980s were fantastic. This was a time when we were at the peak of our creative work. The question of whether we would exist or not - something which everybody used to ask, including ourselves - stopped. Profits kept pace with growth requirements. HCL had credibility - that was the biggest barrier we had to break.

Each quarter, Indian IT firms publish their results, and these are broadcast on CNBC. From the comfort of their boardrooms, executives say how many new employees have been added, how many more Fortune 500 companies have been signed up as clients, how many million-dollar companies were added, and so on.

Shiv Nadar Quotes