Letters & Blogs

The invention of the transistor in the Bell Labs gave birth to silicon valley. In Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar sir's class, I was introduced to the transistor for the first time. I got acquainted with the fascinating world of silicon and its intricacies. I found it very surprising that a simple water-bubble analogy can help us to analyze and to design the most sophisticated semiconductor devices. But when I looked at the evolution of technology I could see the similar use of analogies in many diverse fields. Artificial Neural Networks, inspired by the human brain, is one such example of it which enabled computers to see the world (Google Lens). Another example is Feynman diagrams which explain the interaction between the light and the matter is inspired by a rotating plate on a table-top.

I have always been fascinated by science to such an extent that even my early childhood memories contain an element of science. I used to ruminate for hours about any phenomena & try to come up with a scientific hypothesis. But I was very bad at holding multiple pieces of the information in my mind especially if I am not able to imagine them vividly. This caused a lot of problems in my college. The courses in IITD were too turgid, every professor wanted to infuse us with a huge amount of information in order to make us fail-proof engineers. Their incessant monologues would have a soporific effect. Consequently, after a while, I would lose interest in the lecture. Moreover, I started to sink myself into the corner in order to dodge any surprise questions by the Professors. Here comes, one of the most influential people in my life, Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, who change my attitude towards the courses significantly.

8.00 O'clock in the morning, 2nd semester, first-class, Prof. MJK sir commenced the class with his famous question —" What is the worst thing that can happen to a man ?". Sitting in the corner I was heedless until I observed the pin-drop silence. He added—"The worst thing that can happen to a man is that he never realize his potential." He added further—" You know what is the worse - that he realizes his potential but never ever achieves it." Few years after graduating from the college we can realize the depth of this question. It may come as a shock that most of the IITians fit into these two categories. What makes us sad is that some of our friends with incredible potential starts to feel complacent. This first-class acted as a catalyst for my personal growth. I started to ask myself-"what is my potential ?, How do I define it ? are the grades in the course is a good metric? ". To make things simple I came to a conclusion, which I religiously follow even today, - "If I asked myself today that whether I am better than last week, and the answer is yes then I am in the right direction. My motto is to always keep the delta change positive". As a first task to figure out my potential, I decided to study 'Semiconductor Physics' sincerely.

MJK sir is one of the very few professors revered by all the students for his genuine efforts and passion in teachings. He posses a positive aura, always encouraging all the students alike. I started to sit in the front row and started to proactivity participate in the class. I observed that his lectures were always meticulously planned. He had a highly refined teaching style befitting for the class with diverse intellectual capacity. All the students were able to comprehend the ideas being discussed. Even his papers used to be well crafted comprising of few objective questions, subjective questions, mathematical derivations, band diagrams,s, and visual graphs. Some questions you can solve by using a simple analogy. One of the clever things he used to do is to instruct the student to solve some questions on the paper itself so that he can recollect the paper. This is pretty much required to maintain to quality of the exam papers. It is strictly followed by some good quality exams, one example is GRE.

If we discuss with students about the scientific progress of India, they will start criticizing the education system, scarcity of resources but no one lionize the efforts of scientists in our country. In his class, MJK sir will always come up with the Indian scientists' names and used them to extol their contribution in the semiconductor industry. One such example was JC Bose who invented the first radio wave receiver which laid the foundation of wireless communication. When I joined ISRO I read learned about many other Indian scientists like Dr. Vikram Sarabhai who convinced the government to put money in space tech during those times when India was struggling with the repercussions of the British exploitations & built the best team that made India self-reliant in the space tech.; Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, father of the nuclear program which provides the energy to the common man as well as strengthens our national security, Prof. S Dawan, the director of the IISc, who made ISRO an organization, during those time he was a visiting professor at CalTech, the collaboration between CalTech and ISRO is still extant. We also had & still have a remarkable scientific community & Prof. MJK, in his class, would always encourage us to revivify that spirit.

One conspicuous thing about his classes was that they always started at exactly 8.00 AM. There was military-like punctuality. Initially, I couldn't comprehend the importance of this strict routine but after being in professional life for three years, I know the importance. In today's world, we are constantly distracted and the attention span is getting shorter and shorter, we are no longer able to perform the deep work. One way to tackle this problem is to have a routine and religiously follow it. The strict biological cycle helps us to switch instantaneously into a deep work state. Some of the great authors follow this strategy. Now I appreciate the idea that the more we are disciplined the more freedom we have. we can even take care of our health, excel in our profession, do the things we enjoy, and spend quality time with our family.

Personally, If things become more chaotic in life, I build some cornerstone habits. Something that I will do every day regardless of good or bad things happens in my day. The first cornerstone habit that I had was playing football in the evening. Because of the football, my routine never went out of the spiral. Another cornerstone habit was to attend the MJK sir's classes. Unlike many other courses, his lectures would feel like meditation. I thoroughly enjoyed the lectures to an extent that I ended up completing his three courses. MJK sir follows a strict routine to stay productive and handle the stress especially after he became JNU Vice-Chancellor. Even after joining the JNU, he continued taking the 8.00 AM classes. After every course, he would hold an informal dinner at his house where he would interact with the students.

He would always end the class with a question. On my way back to the hostel I used to visualize the working of the semiconductor devices & in my free time I used to ruminate on the question of the day. I remember one time when I was taking one of his advanced courses, he left one difficult question to solve. I couldn't solve it. The next day in the morning when I woke up, I could visualize the answer. To my surprise, apart from me, no one was able to come up with an answer. He asked me to come upon the stage and solve it on the whiteboard. Most of my classmates were pursuing Ph.D. or M.Tech, It was a very big thing for me to explain my answer to them. After the class, I found myself explaining animatedly about my thought process to come up with the answer. In his classes, I was able to refine my thought process and now I was confident enough to defend as well as critically evaluate my ideas and answers.

MJK sir is one the most diligent professor I've met, who has been inspiring the generations and molding them into better engineers.

I was fortunate enough to meet him.