From the Director’s desk: Episode 3

“I was born and brought up in a farmer’s family in a village. I remember going to school with a sack, 4 km away from my house. There were no classrooms, toilets or electricity. We had classes in a garden. In fact, up until my Bachelor’s, I only knew Bhojpuri. Despite the environmental limitations, deep down I knew I wanted to study chemistry. It was my dream to go to BHU for my Master’s. Initially, my teachers didn’t like me because I couldn’t speak English. But once they found out that I was one of the only three students to have qualified CSIR that year, they told me, ‘we didn’t know you were a good student!’

Among the many professors I wrote letters to asking for a PhD position, only one of them, Dr. Sukh Dev, Director of R&D laboratory in Malti-Chem Research Center, Nandesari, replied back. That’s how I, a man of unassuming personality, ended up doing a PhD under him. I wanted to work with Nobel Laureate, EJ Corey at Harvard for my PostDoc. However, that year he didn’t have a position. He asked me to work somewhere else before re-applying to him. So I went to Canada for my first postdoctoral stint.

Two years later, when I went to Harvard, I started doing basic chemistry courses there and I can assure you if I hadn’t taken those classes, I don’t think I would be where I am today. I learnt a lot from Corey as well, including the kind of research problems…