Ms. Asha Sundararajan
Joy and I were members of Peter Franaszek’s Systems Analysis group at IBM’s Yorktown Heights Research Center, and had adjacent offices. Even though we overlapped for only a year
– I moved to the IBM Pension Fund in 1991, while he stayed on at Yorktown – we quicklybecame friends and stayed in touch even after he moved to California.
In 2019, I moved to Bangalore to take care of my parents. My mother and I celebrated our adjacent birthdays on September 26th and 27th , 2020 with much happiness, but the very next
day, I received heartbreaking news that was completely expected – Joy had passed at the tender age of 57. He was unaware that I was in Bangalore, mere walking distance from his oldschool, just as I was unaware of the tragedy that had befallen him.
Abe Mathew told me about the newly formed Joy Thomas Foundation and put me in touch with Shyam Pillalamarri and Asha Sundararajan, who welcomed me with open arms. While my parents slept in the afternoon, I walked over to St. Joseph’s, worked with students on a variety of problems, and met an ever-expanding circle of Joy’s classmates, all of whom consistently remembered his brilliance, modesty, and generosity.
Every time I solve a problem with the students at St. Joseph’s, I find myself quietly asking the same question that I have asked myself many times in the years since we first met – How would
Joy have framed this problem, and how would he have solved it? I can think of no better way to honor his memory than to work with students under the auspices of the foundation that bears his name.
