Letters & Blogs

Dear Kiran,

I can still recollect Gokul's last day when I was feeling dejected & you took notice of me. For cheering me up, the next day you asked me to attend a Kerala wedding function. Our friendship started with a road trip and your last day at office was also concluded by a road trip. Although, given your seniority level, I should be addressing you as a boss but you have always been so cordial and approachable that I always considered you as a close friend and hope that it remains the same in the future also.

During our conversations on the road trip, you told me one interesting thing that your father was able to tell a height of a tree even just by looking at it. I contemplated for few minutes and figured out the way to do it by myself. I was surprised when, at home, I used the same method and was able to tell the number of bricks in the wall just by glancing at it. The trick was to imagine a grid on the wall, find visible clues nearby to readjust the positioning of it, and then just calculate the bricks in one block. To find the absolute dimension of the building imagine yourself (5'4") standing in one of the blocks or you can guess it by door size. Subsequently, our conversations drifted into aircraft, rockets, satellites. For the first time, I marveled at the fact that rockets are pure mechanical giants. Unlike us, the people in the old-time, when electronics was in its infancy, had to rely on their creativity to find mechanical solutions for all problems.

Later on, our frequent lunch trip to adjacent Dhaba started, where you have to eat North Indian just to keep my company. But, on those trips, we had a lot of conducive brainstorming discussions which culminated in the proposal of some of the most advanced projects in the center. Gokul was the most apt person in discerning talents among individuals and you were one of the selected few he used to respect. After working for more than two years with you, I know the reasons. ISRO is blessed with a lot of outstanding scientists but a good scientist may not be a good manager also. The combination of these two qualities is very rare in this world. Yet, you had been the epitome of both. You would always meticulously analyze any information that goes to your mind. You could distill down any sophisticated information into basic fundamentals. This in fact makes your thought process very coherent and incisive. On the contrary, my ideas have always been crazy, ambitious, far-fetched, and imaginative. You always worked as the filter by critically evaluating them. Somehow, you always knew the right questions to ask which used to help me break my fixations towards my solutions. It also helped me expand the horizons of my thought process and to be able to evaluate an idea from different angles. All these efforts had beautifully culminated in our patent and papers.

In any country, scientific progress is the result of the culture rather than the capability of individuals. In earlier days, scientists were venerated as these were the people who enabled the transport to facilitated the trade among the continent, and later on, they enabled a handful of people to rule over large masses very efficiently. All this resulted in immense economic success. This attracted scholars from all over the world & this exchange of knowledge led to the emergence of the great Royal Society of London & Paris. Everyone in the world hailed the Royal Society. During the industrial revolution, things were changing at an unprecedented rate which opened up possibilities for many. During this time when the Wizard of Menlo Park had mastered the ability to light up the world, Americans proudly started to call themselves the inventors. The startup spirit since the 'current war' is still imbued in their heart. Unfortunately, In India, the scientists are still unappreciated. People are so complacent with the progress of the so-called 'Indian born' that they forget to encourage their own. The irony is sometimes the media will even try to dig up the century-old connections, just to get a bite of the glory. We are our own self-imposed limitations. Nevertheless, we had come a long way in the last three years and still have to go long way. Since the beginning itself, we had kept the bar very high, so that the next generation gets a head-start. We have always been ambitious and intrepid in our vision and plannings. Our doughty spirit had garnered the attention of others which is evident by the influx of many crucial projects. The younger people in our group may take it for granted but I have personally witnessed this meteoric rise.

You have done your fair share in setting up the culture of aspiring for greatness. Leave the rest to us to carry the torch. I bid you farewell.

"Fly and Fly high !"

Vishal