There was a flurry of activities yesterday. In the morning, at about 10 a.m. came to know that a Bengali daily has given a lot of space (A4 size) to our invention in day's edition. My student Su.. had a talk with the reporter. They want to know more about other activities being pursued currently by our group to report them in future. We circulated copy of the newspaper article to many Prof.s, Lab. technicians in the Dept. Some came to us to collect a copy. It was a proud moment for all of us. Even De..(SR..) also wanted to have a copy. And of course, my family members too were very happy. As I mentioned in a previous post that my mother always dreamt that his son's name would appear in the newspaper. I was delighted to present the newspaper to her.
As I was sharing the news with HOD and others, came a phone call. AajTak/HeadlinesToday, a national TV news channel is coming to IIT Khargpur in the second half to exclusively cover the invention. WOW! That's something! They came at 1:30 p.m. and stayed upto 4 p.m.. My first experience to talk to a microphone like that with news channel logo etc. My student, Su.. also told few things after some fumbling and cut, rewind on one occassion. We asked them to put our Lab. technicians too in the frame. They were very cordial, professionals with positive attitude. Then they came to my office, did some recording there and also the front of our dept. etc. After necessary editing, they may show it today in the TV. They too asked us to contact whenever we crack something new. I asked them if they would like to talk to any other person, say De.., HO.. or any senior people in the administration. They said that is not necessary. Today their Kolkata editor rang and said that the edited material is sent to Delhi for broadcasting, expected to be some time in the evening.
Got lot of congratulatory phone calls, emails. The cardiology dept. Head of one very renowned Hospital rang (got input from Aaj Tak reporters), congratulated and inquired more about the product. My thanks to all our well wishers. We sincerely belive that by God's grace and your kind support we'll overcome many more innovation related challenges in future too.
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One for my Master
Yesterday will be remebered for few other reasons too. It was a last day as HO.. for Prof. D... and he is leaving IITkgp in a few months. In the morning, he came to my room and when he announced that we felt very nostalgic. A man with a heart of 24 carat gold, he worked hard for the department in a very passionate but unselfish way. Always aprroachable, a cool headed person, he led by examples. True, that I had many differences with him but I am happy to say that I was wrong in most of the occassions. But he was kind enough to allow others argue or place their views without inhibition and then explain why he did what he did.
We moved out of the room and headed for Bha.. 's tea shop. Then he took me and R.. (another as.. pr..) to the courtyard at the back, the one he painstakingly built into a garden. Asked us to take care a few Bakul trees which he planted. It was very moving! In time to come, he expects the trees to provide natural shade in the form of a canopy. He expressed happiness that all the toilets are renovated. Then he took us to the new parking lot where some more things still need to be done. Called Pra.. (another as.. pr.. ) who is looking after that.
He invited us to his Kolkata residence. I am sure he'll like our presence. And with Boudi present there one will always feel at home, pampered. He has some bright idea of certain future projects. Asked for our support. It will be an honour to be associated.
In between, in his usual style he presnted us few words of wisdom. He equated life like climbing a hill. Though at a global scale the slope is positive, occassionally the climber need to climb down to overcome a ditch or so. Without that he cannot advance. One should not judge a person only by what he is at t=t and look for an average over some length of time. Similarly, positive slope at t=t does not necessarily mean that it is a uphill journey. Going downhill, one may come across a rock which he climbs not to maintain that positive slope throughout his journey. He gave an interesting example. There are 1000 families in a locality. 1000 TV, washing machine, house maid etc. Now each family had a divorce. It became 2000 families. So 2000 TV, washing machine, maids. The local economy boomed. But what is the overall picture? What happens to the kid? No wonder that Prof. is taking early retirement for her daughter who is now studying in Kolkata. And it is true that except the IIT in Kharagpur there are no options available for quality higher education. And almost no one from the campus makes into IIT!!! Why so? It may be discussed in some other posts.
He also said - "One cannot be both happy and great. A happy life is a set of few good compromises". On another occassion he said that betweem 'dictatorship' and 'democracy' he prefers the later. Because though democracy makes more mistakes but it does not make big mistakes. Regarding IIT students' single point objective of having a better career he said that one does not learn till he experiences it himself. Very, very few can learn from observing others or analyzing things objectively. He gave example of Vivekananda. How could he do so much by the time he reached 39. He received great shocks from the world which can become unbelievably cruel. The rest Vivekananda learnt observing and analyzing.
He went on saying. If you think of ten people around you, those ten people will think of you and you will have a great support system. How could one miss that? We'll really miss you, an elder brother in you, De..da in IITkgp. But definitely we'll remain in touch as Kolkata is not very far.
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And one for the ...... outgoing students
The farewell function started late, past 7:30 p.m., may be due to lack of audience and as expected many things were cut short, the students' feedback etc. The skit was scrapped. However, we had synthesizer play from Prof. M... (piecewise continuous), Prof. S.. rendered a soulful Rabindrasangeet, Prof D.., H.. surprised everybody by singing a song. We never knew that he could also sing. And the student presentations though few, were of course qualitatively better than us. Ku.. spoke for a while about their social initiative. Few of the Prof.s gave inpiring speech. P..., the UG f.a. appeared not to enjoy much of the interactions he had with students. The high note with which he started fizzled out somewhere because the students did not reciprocate. The students however aprreciated his effort, project supervision etc. Then there was usual presentation of memento for all the outgoing students. Some students felt that the MTech students are missed out somewhere.
The dinner was good. Found that the juniors (2nd year mostly) took the outgoing seniors' suggestion to 'enjoy life' in the right perspective. Then we had few photo sessions. I circulated two reminder pads to the outgoing students to write their next destination, email id, personal webpage and blogspace. Few filled up there itself. The rest, I expect will complete before they leave the campus.
As people started leaving and it was past 11 p.m., like every other farewell evening of past few years I got engaged in some 'heart to heart' talk with some of the outgoing students. I raised two issues. One is about their social responsibility - how few tubewells in a village can make a huge difference. I wish they read my earlier post of 27th March http://gskgp.blogspot.com/2008/03/social-initiative-iitkgp.html and the discussion we had with Vinayak and Chiranjeev Maharaj http://gskgp.blogspot.com/2008/03/afternoon-with-vinayak-our-alumnus-and.html
The second issue was about removing peer pressure on the juniors by which they are driven in one direction only. This is not allowing the juniors to look beyond only a few options making invaluable loss to them as more promising opportunities remain unutilized. This is also keeping some of the research groups unfavourably positioned. I said few things from my Feb. post http://gskgp.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html The students argued that though there are better research opportunities available with other research groups but students folk one area as all the 'high' paying (They were missing the qualifier) jobs are from one area. Many of them do not take a job and go for higher studies but they want to play safe first by securing a position in a highly paid job. Fair enough! Indian Companies, Government or PSU jobs cannot match offers available at foreign shores or made by foriegn companies having foot prints in India. The scenario thus is pessimistic so far. May be an US recession can bring back few here. Or the new reservation policy may help in giving better access to the premier institutions like IITs to more students who will be rooted in India or serving Govt., PSUs, Indian Co.s . (It may not be out of place to mention that I, myself do not enjoy any reservation.) Also why no IIT BTech (even MTechs) opts for higher studies in IITs itself? There are many internationally known faculty members or research groups. We have a sizeable community of PhD scholars getting PhD degree from approx. 4 years of research through international journal (IEEE, Elseveir etc.) publications and one foreign expert examining the thesis. If without IIT BTech and MTech IIT research labs can do so much, how much more is expected if they chose to stay back? And there is no dearth of vacancies or anything like that. Some pass out students were complaining about the quality of research in IITs. That is grossly unfair. In spite of the best (IIT BTech), the second best (IIT MTech), the 3rd best (NIT BTechs), the fourth best (the best of pvt. engg. colleges getting good job offer) deserting us I believe we are putting reasonably good show with those research students who join us. Compare that with the manpower input of US university research labs. Let us swap the students and see who delivers what! I must also say that I am proud of my research students who in spite of their limitations work very hard and raise themselves so much in four years that their work get recognized. I salute their indomitable spirit. I salute their contribution to IIT research labs.
I believe all is not bad with brain drain. It cannot be. In this world all of us are different shades of grey. No issue can be portrayed fully black or fully white (Image Processing people may differ). May be our country cannot house so many graduates. That IITians are leaving, there are rooms available for engineering graduates from other institutions; there is increasing requirement in Indian Industries to think global in terms of compensation, opportunities. Even Government made its intention clear in 6th pay commission. Also our alumni have brought many laurels for the country and paid back in uncertain terms. They helped in developing positive world opinion about India which benefits the country in some way. And today the global boundaries are more notional than anything else. My best wishes to the would be alumni. Have a very very successful and meaningful life ahead. Be courageous. Remember 'I' for India. If you find some additional space, say time/energy, please spend it for the less privileged section of our country. It will give you lots of satisfaction. And you will enjoy your life in true colour and spirit.
Please keep in touch. Always feel free to drop a line or two, if not more. Wherever you feel like, contradict me and prove me wrong. Now onwards treat me not as a faculty member but simply a senior or your colleague in building the resurgent India.
My best wishes to you all, our brand ambassador. Let you all understand the value of life and live to its fullest.
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