Pichai ducks Google locators, visits alma mater on surprise trip to city

CHENNAI: Sundar Pichai successfully evaded reporters, much like the Google CEO was getting under the radar of his ubiquitous and all-seeing company, on a surprise trip to Chennai over the weekend.
There was something of a frenzy at Vana Vani Matriculation Higher Secondary School, 43-year-old Pichai's alma mater, after the tech executive and Chennai native made an unannounced visit and met a swarm of excited schoolchildren.
"Hey GooglePlus, do you know who I took a picture with? Your CEO!" a Class 12 student posted on her account soon after Pichai made a brief stop at the school in the IIT-M campus on his way to the airport to catch a return flight to the US.
The last thing that the bunch of Class 12 students - who had gathered at the school on Sunday for a combined study session ahead of the exams - expected was to have the Google chief drop by and chat them up.
Aishwarya Priya, the first student to see Pichai enter the building with a friend, says she failed to recognise him immediately. "He just waved and said, 'Hi!' I assumed someone had come to see the school," she said. "How could I help you?" were she asked, before Pichai introduced himself, causing general astonishment.
"I was jumping up and down with excitement!" she said. "I called out to my friends and introduced them to Pichai," Aishwarya said. Her classmate Alekhya spread the word to the others.
Dhipthi Dona says she was frustrated to learn that she did not even look up even though Pichai walked past her three times. "I was reading theories of evolution and about a giraffe's neck, when I look up and see this tall man in front of me," Dhipthi said.
Pichai, who tried locating the classrooms that he went to, recalled how a teacher once dragged him to the principal's chamber, the students said.
"He didn't talk very much but was smiling all the time. He recalled that his chemistry teacher wore big spectacles. We asked him to give a talk at school and he said he would on his next visit," another student said.
Pichai's visit turned the planned combined study meet into a mass selfie session. The girls said Pichai distracted them. "If we fail in our biology exam, Pichai is to blame," Dhipthi said with a smile. "This is the one special class that turned out to be really special."