reflections

something i got in a mail (abt iitm)
A SIGNPOST FROM HOME: INSTITUTE CORNERA Journey from IITM to IITMA nostalgic and sensitively drawn portrayal ofalumnus-faculty Prof V Kalyanaraman's journey to theSource.My life at IITM has spanned more than 50 percent of mytotal life of which 5 years were as a B.Tech. student,one semester as an M. Tech student and over 25 yearsas faculty. Hence it goes without saying that IIT hasplayed a major role in shaping and supporting methrough life.As the son of an engineer it seemed natural to take toengineering. Even before I reached IIT I used to fixup electrical gadgets and wiring around the house andenjoyed opening up mechanical devices. Having donewell in school it seemed that a seat in an engineeringcollege was assured. I had not heard of IIT havingdone all my elementary and high school education innon-urban Tamil medium schools, moving with my father,an engineer in the State Electricity Board, who wastransferred around the towns of Tamil Nadu. Schoolingin those days was relaxed. I studied, played, made agreat many friends and enemies (as most young boysdid) and learnt more about our culture than languagesfrom my English and Tamil teachers. The independencestruggle was something that was still fresh ineveryone's mind with most leaders who participated init still alive, and the day was celebrated in schoolswith great fanfare, fervour and joy. Summers weretimes spent playing and relaxing with a large numberof cousins who congregated in the villages of thegrandparents. Life was frugal but rich with experienceas one among seven children. A bread-winner wasconsidered successful in life if he held a job toprovide food clothing and shelter for the family.Refrigerator, car, motorcycle and other such articleswere things that you saw in someone else's house.Television, calculator, computer, cell-phone and spacevoyage were unheard of. Overall schooling prepared mefor a life in the society which was to undergo greatchanges in my life time.Only in the pre-university course at Loyola CollegeMadras, I came to know about IIT Madras. There were nocoaching classes. There was no pressure to join IITsince the Guindy Engineering College (today part ofAnna University), where my father studied, was as wellknown and was an even more established institution.Two weeks after the PUC examination, I wrote the JEEroutinely along with many friends from Loyola. Therank in JEE qualified me for a seat in the CivilEngineering branch. My uncle thought that CivilEngineering was great since the Indian Railway Serviceprovided provided Civil Engineers with good life withair conditioned coaches to travel by. On theinsistence of my elder brother who was two yearssenior at IITM, my father admitted me to IITM.BLOOMING IN ACADEMELike most students during my time at IIT doing B.Tech,I can say without any hesitation that both theacademic and hostel life at IITM was great. Here Iwas, barely able to communicate in English, havinglittle experience of urban life with time having beenmostly spent amongst parents and relatives, suddenlypresented with an opportunity to live in a hostelamong students from all over India, speaking a varietyof languages (the student population was a morerepresentative sample of the country then) fromdifferent walks of life bringing with them verydiverse life experiences. I had class-mates who werevery westernized, others very orthodox, some who hadcars, others who could not afford even a bicycle, somewho wore tights pants and others who wore the dhoti,some who went horse-back riding in the Guindy RaceClub and rowing in the Yacht Club in their spare timeand others who played kabaddi at the hostel when theyhad time to spare.I learnt that all of us have ambitions, outlooks,prejudices, feelings of insecurity and values varyingover a wide range. It helped me to accept and livewith such diversity. Within a few months of joining wemade a close and thick circle of friends, usually inthe wing that we occupied in the first semester andthe branch we studied in but outside this there was abroad and loose network of IITans. Only BSB and HSBwere the buildings in the academic zone and Cauverythrough Tapti in the hostel zones. The then DirectorProf. Sen Gupta was meticulously planning the growthof the Institute with winding roads to avoid thefelling of trees and the introduction of the famousSen Gupta gap between hostel rooms and the wash-rooms.Academic life was hectic with surprise periodicals,then Saturday exams on subjects announced on Fridayevenings, annual examination in thirteen subjects,loads of assignments and labs. But we felt we ownedthe place. The postgraduate program was very small.The extracurriculars, the demanding NCC program, thework on building the swimming pool, Saturday night OATmovies, the Civil Engineering Association meetings,the Inter IIT Meets, the great debates, the greatquizzes, the BTECHS band group, the puris and thepotatoes for Saturday lunch, the masal-dosai forSunday breakfast were the punctuations in the academiclife at IITM. Encouraged by seeing the talent aroundme, I tried my skills in sketching, playing footer forthe hostels, body-building in the gym and jogging inthe stadium. I learnt team work while maintainingvalues (not allowing copying but retaining friendshipnevertheless). I noticed that a teacher can earn therespect and affection of students. I revelled in theexcitement of learning from good teachers. I learntthe art of self-instruction even when teaching was notso good. During the summer of the 5th year, a friendof mine at Madras gave me the sweet news that I hadended up with the first rank in Civil Engineering forall the sweat over the five years.TRIPPING OUT OF IITM AND TRIPPING INTO THE USJust like getting into IITM, travel to the US forfurther studies was another casual step. Oneafternoon, as I was returning from a class, a fewfriends caught me at the Gajendra Circle and we wentto the USIS to get information about education in theUS. Then followed the preparation for the GRE andTOEFL with friends, comparing notes about various USuniversities ( I did not have the files of all thesenior applicants nor the question bank). Still Icould not get a financial assistance, only a feewaiver from the University of Buffalo. I continued onin M. Tech. for one semester at IITM. This was adifficult period as all the friends of the previous 5years were no longer in the campus. Encouraged andsupported by friends in the US and India, I took aplunge into MS at Buffalo with only an education loanfrom Syndicate Bank.Leaving Madras in January 1969 at 30 degree Celsius, Ilanded in Buffalo to encounter freezing temperaturesand ground covered with 4 feet of snow. On the way toBuffalo I visited a few friends at Detroit, and learntthat the US was not only a land of milk and honey butnothing is safe except the news-paper and milk on thefront door steps. The changes were so drastic,experiences so scary, the climate so forbidding, theland so alien that but for the loan, I probably wouldhave returned to India. The foreign students'association helped me with used clothes to keep mewarm and the American room-mates helped me to get usedto the culture and society. I learnt skiing toovercome the winter drudgery driving a friend's car toget around town. Late night work helped me to keeppace with academic demands. A summer job and apart-time job during the academic year in a StructuralEngineering Consulting company helped meet educationaland living expenses. Training at IITM gave me theconfidence to design, without any assistance, my firstseven-span steel-concrete composite bridge, my firstfirehall-cum-nuclear fallout shelter and my firstastronomical survey analysis. I had not been taughtany of these formally.Although I was interested in an academic career inIndia, I felt that I was becoming a "professional"student after the B. Tech. followed by MS. I thereforediscontinued the Ph.D program at Stanford and workedin a number of design offices for two years as aconsulting engineer. These experiences convinced meeven more that an academic career was where I wantedto hang my coat. I visited India in 1972 to find outwhat I should specialize in and went back to completePh.D at Cornell, a beautiful campus and excitingresearch environment. Towards the end of my Ph.D Ilearnt that while individual Americans were friendly,the system did not provide a level playing field to"alien immigrants". My fellow American graduatestudent friends would get all the calls for academicjobs and would tell me that they learnt that allforeign applications went into a 'Circular File'. Ihad no complaint as I was after all an alien in thecountry and realized that I will be always asecond-class citizen, a proposition that I could notlive with forever. I finally landed a job as anAssistant Professor at the University of Kentucky. Iagain received great support from colleagues in theacademic career for four years. The itch to return toIndia was becoming unbearable. Although I got an offerfrom an American concern with an office in India and afew other Indian companies, the attractive call was anoffer of a faculty position at IITM.RESETTLEMENT IN INDIAIt took me nearly a year to wind up my life in the US,which I spent as a consulting engineer in anorganization at Houston before returning in April1980. I had spent nearly 11 years in the US whereas Ihad planned to spend only four years to complete my MSand Ph.D when I proceeded to the US in 1969. Theseyears saw me get married in 1973 as a graduate studentand I was blessed with a son in 1976. The experiencesduring these years opened my eyes for the richpossibilities in India, taught me to accept MotherIndia as she was, taught me a work ethic of service,taught me love for ecology, environment and theoutdoors. I learnt to accept a half-empty cup andenjoy the half-full cup of life.The return to India and the subsequent settling downwas neither as trying nor as tumultuous as friends inthe US had warned me. My family was ready for it andthat was important. Expectations of royal treatmentfor the US-returned are unrealistic. Many colleagueshad slogged it out in India to reach the academicstature that they had. The academic life at IITM hasbeen great. I was willing to follow all thebureaucratic procedures of a government institutionand was prepared to work in order to make whateverchanges that I could. I had a sense of belonging and asense of ownership in respect of the Institute. Thesystem gave me the freedom to speak my mind even as anyoung Assistant Professor. It facilitated me to growup to my potential and offered an exciting academicenvironment that India can afford in terms of studentsand infrastructure. I have been able to exercise agood mix of Institute funded and externally fundedresearch. I have been able to participate inprofessional and other national technical committeesand contribute to the development of the profession byworking with others. If I had a good R&D idea I havenot had difficulty in finding funding. My experienceis that a good Indian researcher's batting average isaround 4 successes out of every 5 proposals submittedwhich compares very favourably with the Americanexperience of 1 or at most 2 successes out of every 5proposals submitted. During these years I have guidedthe theses of 13 Ph.D and 15 MS scholars, a largenumber of B. Tech. and M. Tech. projects, worked asWarden of a hostel, Chairman of the Centre forContinuing Education, Head of the Department and DeanIndustrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research. Livingin this serene campus has been an added perk.IN THE FINAL ANALYSISI have had an interesting ride at IITM, working withthe best students that the country has had to offer ina completely free academic environment with the bestacademic infrastructure the country can endow. Overthese years I have seen the Institute grow from oneoffering a very good undergraduate education to onevying for a place among the leading R&D Institutionsof the world. I see dedicated youngsters joining handswith me in this exciting journey. Hence I am confidentthat the Institute will succeed in its endeavours.Prof. V. Kalyanaraman1968 BTCVProfessor, Department of Civil Engineering