down he says to sunny his labrador as he opens the door to his jaisim house house in rmv extension sunny disappears after some cajoling and s g hegde settles down on the sofain a matter of days hegde will have no time to breathe leave alone sit as nearly 6 lakh students take the ii pu exams in the state in march and another 1 lakh plus slog it out at the common entrance test cet a little later this is one man who will be busy directing the mammoth machinery overseeing systems on the alert for malpractices plugging rumours on paper leaks keeping tabs on the entire network to ensure a smooth process quick on its heels will be the equally demanding cet counsellingbut if you thought the huge responsibility makes hegde tense or impatient daughter gayatri devi studying architecture at m s ramaiah institute of technology msrit sets the record straight hes the coolest she says totally unflappableperhaps his early years toughened him for just about anything born in an agriculturist family in doddamane village siddapura near sirsi uttara kannada hegde walked 4 km to school every day i attended the government primary school in kannada medium it was an adventure specially when it rained and he had to cross makeshift bamboo bridges slung across torrents swinging madly in the gusty winds we made it by sheer practice he says sometimes they missed school because of floods high school was at siddapura staying at an uncles house he sailed through high school with distinctioncontinuing college at siddapura this time on his own he began cooking for himself simple food rice sambar and curd sometimes friends got together and rustled up a meal however he doesnt cook anymore doesnt even make a cup of tea laughs wife bhagyalakshmii chose ba i was very very poor in maths confesses hegde college was a huge difference i had come from the kannada medium sometimes there were no lecturers or the same lecturer taught science subjects and languages but hegde managed a iii rank in baa voracious reader he spent hours at the libraries around adds his wife novels biographies literature he devoured them all k shivarama karanth and s l byrappa were his favourites karanth because he was close to life i could relate to him byrappas works were thoughtprovoking intellectualadd to literature a love of history and its no surprise hes named his sons amoghavarsha and harshavardhana both after engineering at msrit are now studying in the uk his daughter is named after the gayatri mantra and after rani gayatri devi adds hegdeafter ba it was law at karnataka law college dharwad alongside he took the karnataka administrative services kas he topped both he got a ugc scholarship for an llm but preferred to join the kas he moved to the ias in 1990and he loves it hes been posted to raichur hospet dharwad shimoga hes worked as md of land development bank additional secretary housing