Ravi Vedula presents 'Hyderabad Days: The Code We Lived By Before We Coded'

Third Place Books welcomes Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ravi Vedula to our Ravenna store to discuss his memoir , the story of his upbringing in '80s-'90s India and of the unwritten code of community that became a foundation for a life of software engineering and leadership.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

Please note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.

We are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at [email protected] or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.

A nostalgic, big-hearted memoir of a Hyderabad colony in the 80s–90s—and the unwritten code of community that became a foundation for a life of software engineering and leadership.
Hyderabad Days is a tender, humorous, and deeply nostalgic memoir of childhood in 1980s–90s middle-class India, told through the eyes of a boy growing up in a Panjagutta colony. With vivid storytelling and a cast of unforgettable characters — from cricketing legends of the lane to sari-clad sisters who led in silence — this collection of slice-of-life chapters paints a world of shared TVs, Gold Spot bottles, kirana-store diplomacy, and friendships that defied caste, class, and religion.
But this is more than just a return to dusty lanes and colony cricket. It is also the story of how those chaotic, joy-soaked years forged the instincts of an engineer and, later, the perspective of a leader. The resourcefulness of stretching ten rupees for a cricket ball became the foundation for innovation. The diplomacy of settling gully cricket disputes became a lesson in mediation. The solidarity of colony life became the bedrock of resilience and humanity that guided a career spanning global teams and glass-walled conference rooms.
Written by a senior technology executive looking back on the roots that shaped both his childhood and his leadership, Hyderabad Days is a heartfelt tribute to a way of life that has all but vanished — a time when childhood was local, laughter was communal, and every setback or success carried the quiet lessons of character.
For fans of: R.K. Narayan, Ruskin Bond, Sudha Murty — and, in its own way, The Soul of a New Machine — blending nostalgia with the blueprint of how engineers and leaders are made.

Ravi Vedula is a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft and a lifelong engineer who has spent his career building large-scale systems and leading teams through major technology shifts—from the move of Exchange and Office to the cloud to today’s generative AI era. He leads Microsoft’s unified data and insights organization that supports experimentation, personalization, and product growth across key Microsoft experiences. His debut book, Hyderabad Days, revisits his childhood in 1980s–90s Panjagutta, Hyderabad through vivid vignettes of colony life, showing how community and constraint shaped the instincts of an engineer and later a leader. A heart-transplant survivor, Ravi lives in Seattle with his wife.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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