Bioography

As the only son, I was admitted to an ordinary school, known as Gautam Junior High School, which was quite nearby to our house, in the mohalla of Bhadaini. My father was a scholarly person, always immersed in his literary works in Prakrit and Sanskrit, also the source of family sustenance. I passed out from the Gautam school in class 8th, where I got a First division and also stood first, something very unusual for that school. I think I was quite ignorant and innocent about the ways of the world. I did not know what a First division is and my only concern was if I will pass the examination or not. When the results were announced, I enquired with my classmate and friend Ghure Lal, the son of a boatman (a Mallah) and laggard in the class, if I have passed or failed! When he told me that I have passed in First Division, I was quite perplexed. I asked him to clarify if that is a pass or a fail!

On getting the news, my father’s acquaintances prodded him to think about my future as I seem to be good in studies and told him to get me admitted to one of the good schools for further studies. I was eventually taken to the Children’s School on the campus of the Banaras Hindu University (now known as a Central School). The principal of the school flatly refused to admit me; the school was full of children from the families of university professors and other big people in the city. He did not consider me fit to sit with them, being the son of a dhoti clad Pandit. My father then decided to approach his friend in the university, Pandit Vasudev Sharan Agrawal, who lived next to the school and was a well-known Sanskrit scholar and senior professor at the university. He immediately wrote a recommendation letter for me and sent it to the principal. Eventually, I was given admission in this prestigious school, where we were always in our science class that Dr. Jayant Narlikar passed out from here only. Dr. Narlikar actually visited us once when he was in England and a big celebration was held. I was very keen to study science and physics like him. But there was nobody to guide me and I had to guide myself in this totally unknown terrain. The science teacher in the school did not like me and refused to give me the science stream in class X. The story of my getting the science stream is a long one and I reserve it for a future post.

Since Children’s School belonged to the BHU, it gave me certain advantages in admission to BHU. After passing my high school board examination (Class X), I could easily get admitted to the Science College for a Pre-University Course, equivalent to Grade 11. My university exposure thus started quite early with a big problem. All the science education in the university was in English language, and I barely knew to speak or, write English. I could read it but mostly without understanding it. I remember my first exposure to university teaching in a class taken by Dr. V.S. Mathur of the Physics Department. He was very young and smart at that time and spoke fluent English having returned recently from England. I sat numbed without grasping anything. I felt like a dumb person. My learning of English was a self- learning and long drawn process and is a long story in itself.

Eventually I learned English, did my B.Sc., and M.Sc. from BHU. I then enrolled for a Ph.D., choosing to work with the well-known nuclear physicist (Padma Shri) Prof. P.C. Sood. After my Ph.D., and a brief stint as a Research Associate at BHU, I joined University of Roorkee as a Lecturer in 1979. I remained at Roorkee for whole of my career, which became the Indian Institute of Technology in 2001 (an institution of national importance). I retired in 2015 and remained there as an Emeritus until 2018. I have been working at the Amity University, Noida as a part-time Advisor to the Amity Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, visiting it off and on. Besides this, I also held a position at Akal University, Punjab as a Distinguished Professor of Physics.