Milestone

Yesterday was the one to reach an important milestone. It is interesting that another one coincided with that.

Sandipan Chakroborty, my first PhD student completed his PhD defence viva yesterday. Congratulations! Sandipan. In the afternoon get-together, arranged by Dept. Society, HOD rightly pointed out how important and signficant is the experience to guide one's first PhD student. It was a challenge for both me and Sandipan to delve into a completely new area with a zero balance in the account i.e. withtout inheriting anything. We started from the scratch, struggled, made mistakes but never gave up. The journey took 4.5 years. Today it is all the more satisfying to have comment from Dean(PGS) like 'in recent times I have not seen such good comments on thesis from examiners'. The foreign examiner termed it as 'best thesis read'. Indian examiner, the Professor from IIT Madras said that the thesis would be preserved in their lab so that the research students learn from it how to work systematically.

I was told to say a few words in the get together about Sandipan. I talked about a few things like his hard work, perseverence etc. What I didn't say that even after 9 months of leaving our lab I often find it more convenient to ask Sandipan clarifications of many silly things e.g. how to open files sent by our foreign collaborator in a new file format etc. This is because the green light in google had always been lit between us. And that has not changed even when he joined industry for a highly paid job in Feb. He continued to spend his spare time for research. How nice it would be to complete the cycle, to have him as faculty colleague here! Let's see what's in store for the futre.

The other one to be considered as milestone may appear ridiculous to many. But it is really one for someone like me coming from a lower middle class background. Few days back, one senior Professor and Head was lamenting "Given your background, contribution and effort you put in for the Dept.,Inst., you have not got a good deal as regard promotion". I assured him that I have got too many great things in life to complain about a few things which I might not have yet got. I never thought I would be studying in IIT or become its faculty member. Given the financial hardship we went through since my family came from Bangladesh during partition of India, the survival was the only goal - to get a job and earn a square meal. And thus it becomes a milestone to book a Rs. 2.5 lakh Maruti 800 AC Uniq Limited Edition car in their Diwali offer. It happened yesterday, just after Sandipan's defence viva (in fact the dealer's agent was waiting for the seminar to be over and receive the cheque). Everybody in the family is excited. Ma, (now in Bandel, to return after brother's day) too appeared very happy on telephone. She had went through those trying times, the major part of her life. We always saw her face lighting up whenever there was any discussion regarding the purchase of a car. True that I always postponed it considering car is a luxury. But the 6th pay commission, arrear payment and the necessity to have a vehicle that can make four of us move together led to the decision, that the time has come.

Pray that we all scale newer heights, reach many more milestones and make the most of our potential. Remember Vivekananda saying "Each soul is potentially divine" and "Be Good and Do Good, that is the whole of religion."