Inspiring Words

I was a part of the audience this weekend where Padma Vibhushan, Dr. M. S. Valiathan (Link) was delivering his keynote speech. The occasion was PULMOCON - 2013, 11th All India Update in Pulmonary Medicine organized by Institute of Pulmocare & Research (IPCR), Kolkata. We have active research collaboration with IPCR. The invitation card quoted Vivekananda, "The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself. " The conference hall had two large sized Vivekananda pictures in between multimedia projection screens.


Dr. Valiathan took us through the history of medicine and medical research in India. It was really 'mesmerizing' as described by one of the two vice-chancellors present there. He talked about lacuna, the disconnect that exist in medical research space. But he did not sound criticizing as such but telling the audience to feel inspired, contribute and be a part of India's growth story. The speech many times referred to Dr. Sambhu Nath De, the discoverer of Cholera toxin, who had nomination for Nobel prize several times but his work remained 'unsung and unnoticed' in India (link).

Dr. Valiathan was at ease to quote Upanishad and making his point across. He narrated the story of Nachiketa, the importance and meaning of Shraddha for which 'there is no equivalent word in English dictionary.' He stressed on the need of firm determination, single minded devotion and obligation of privileged community like us to all, that includes future generation.

I was sweetly surprized when his speech referred to our work on 'lung acoustics' and he said that such type of work is needed. The development of lung sound analyzer is a collaborative research between our lab. at IIT Kharagpur and IPCR. Felt so, so much proud and inspired! Thank you, Sir. We shall keep trying to the best of our ability.

The function felicitated vice chancellor of one university for his contribution to medical research related to medical image processing. Felt proud because he is our Dept. colleague at IIT Kharagpur and is on deputation now. I was overwhelmed to find several medical workers working in remote villages, promoting health and awareness as foot-soldiers, getting felicitated at the function. This is very inspiring. The organizer, IPCR deserves kudos for this.