Reaching for the stars

“I remember watching this lunar eclipse for the first time, which absolutely enthralled me. The sky fascinated me in general and I was drawn to the field of astronomy from a very young age. To nurture my interest, I even became a part of an amateur astronomy association at the newly built Nehru Planetarium (Delhi) when I was in school.

But the resources to pursue a full-fledged career in astrophysics in those times were very limited. My biggest motivation to embark on this less traveled road came from attending my first summer school organized by IUCAA and NCRA-TIFR in 1990 during my Bachelor’s. Later during post-graduation, I also got internship offers from TIFR and JNC, neither of which I could pursue because of delay in examinations owing to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination around the same time.

I was terrible at writing examinations and although I was a good student, it did not reflect on my grades. This affected my chances of being shortlisted for PhD interviews. It was because of my professors at DU who persuaded Dr. Varun Sahani, a professor at IUCAA who visited DU while I was in the fourth semester of MSc, to invite me for PhD selection interviews in spite of low marks.

The PhD course in IUCAA spanned four years and was designed to be fast paced. I was initially interested in working on multiple topics, one related to experiments on gravitation. I…