Birth, growth, collapse and renewal

Professor Nirmala Jain is a retired professor of Hindi literature from Delhi University, and a well-known literary critic.  A few days ago, after reading her commentary on some well-known Hindi writers (such as Krishna Sobti, Usha Priyamvada and Mannu Bhandari), I was curious to learn more about her own literary journey.  Her autobiography, "Zamane Mein Hum" is a detailed memoir of her life, covering her childhood (she was born in the early 1930s), her long academic career at Delhi University, and her literary associations. I started reading the book in earnest during recent travel, and it gave me an opportunity to reflect on personal resilience in the midst of unrelenting family struggles, the twists and turns of an academic journey, and the joy of being part of an academic ecosystem abundant with talented, purpose-driven scholars. Her journey also provides a glimpse into academically vibrant institutions with great potential devolving into uninspiring workspaces that no longer fulfill that potential. This is the story of many universities in India.

Professor Jain was among the cohort of lecturers who started teaching at Lady Shriram College in the year of its inception, 1956. She spent 14 years at the college. Her interview for the position was chaired by its founder, Lala Shriram, the owner of Delhi Cloth Mills, who also carefully mentored the institution in its early years. She witnessed the change of campus from a small school in Darya Ganj to its current location in Lajpat Nagar with its iconic red building and 55 pillars. She describes the efforts that the faculty members put into the academic training of their students (who came from diverse socio-economic backgrounds) and in creating an atmosphere that fostered wholesome growth encompassing the arts and culture. 

This part of her memoir was fascinating to me for two reasons.  My undergraduate education was completed at Lady Shriram College (LSR).  The college provided a safe, nurturing space for three years to study and reflect on the way forward.  As I entered the college gate every morning after a long, tiring commute from Noida, the red building and its 55 pillars represented a welcoming space that manifested everything positive in my life at that point [0].  A couple of years after graduating, I read the novel "Pachpan Khambein Laal Deewarein" (translation: 55 pillars and red walls) by Usha Priyamvada [1], who was also among the new faculty members who had joined the college. In the world of this novel, however, these pillars and walls symbolized the emotional suffocation of the protagonist. "How could the author not see this space as the intellectually stimulating space that I experienced", my younger self wondered [2]. On the other hand, Professor Jain's narrative was closer to how I viewed the institution, a space that provided its members the resources and opportunities to grow and find their way forward. 

The other reason why I enjoyed reading this part of her story is because it resonated with my experience of starting a faculty position at a new institution.  I joined IISER Kolkata (and later, IISER Pune) in their early years, and saw many transitions of the kind that she describes at LSR.  At a new institution, faculty members have to work with limited resources and often have to take up roles well beyond the purview of the classroom in order to contribute to institution-building [3]. Just as the young Nirmala Jain and her colleagues benefited from mentoring and encouragement by Lala Shriram and other institution builders, we were fortunate to be mentored by inspiring academic leaders such as Professor Ganesh and Professor Shashidhara through tough academic phases (individual as well as institutional). The birth and growth pangs of a new institution intermingled with our personal quest for scientific and intellectual growth.  Reading this part of the memoir revived memories of the journey of the IISERs in the early years. 

The later part of the memoir starts to get sombre. We now start reading stories about the downslide of institutions when a handful of people acquire disproportionate power and start putting themselves above the institution. We read about bureaucratic shenanigans by academics to hurt colleagues who have demonstrated higher scholarly merit, and situations where students try to acquire academic benefits through "extracurricular" means, overlooking the importance of individual, focused effort at the study table. Professor Jain lived through an era which saw the degeneration of many Indian universities into living nightmares. The early phases of this degeneration were also observed by Harivansh Rai Bachchan (a distinguished poet and a professor at Allahabad University who later quit academia) in the third volume of his autobiography. Professor Jain saw institutions in various phases: birth, growth, collapse and renewal. Her memoir presents the story of Delhi University from her point of view. Thanks to her own academic preparation, intellectual curiosity and association with the leading litterateurs of the day, she worked to keep the academic culture of her department alive and thriving. For example, dedicated teachers organized regular conferences and seminars to ensure that students and department members were exposed to distinguished poets and writers who were leading significant literary movements in their times.

The coming up of institutions such as the IISERs, new Central Universities, new IITs and NITs represents a promising phase in science and education in our country (similar to what the older universities represented in the earlier part of the 20th century). The later part of Jain's memoir makes us reflect on what keeps an academic culture flowing and growing versus the attitudes/actions that have the opposite effect. Can we continue with the resolution and clarity of vision to put academic excellence above all else? Can we support and nurture academic potential in ourselves, our colleagues and students? Can we show up every morning to our work with a sense of wonder, and a commitment to give it our best? 

[0] It's a different matter that I had to walk across this part of the building into a darker, less inspiring section where the mathematics classes were conducted.

[1] The pen-name of Professor Usha Saxena-Nilsson, who later worked at Allahabad University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

[2] I learnt to appreciate that no author is obliged to represent something exactly as I view it, even if the topic is close to my heart :-)

[3] For example, folklore has it that Professor Ambika, one of our earliest faculty members at IISER Pune who also served as dean (academics), personally intervened to wake up students who slept late and were at the risk of missing their exams.

Ten years at IISER Pune

It's a day for celebration and reflection. I officially complete a decade at IISER Pune. This marks another interesting milestone: this is the longest that I have ever lived anywhere. The previous record was spending 5 years at Queen's University in Kingston where I got my Master's and PhD. Other than that, I have never lived at any place for more than three years. 

The move to IISER Pune was an adventure, and happened in a rather sudden and unexpected manner. I have written about it here. Nonetheless, it turned out to be one of my best decisions, even though restarting a faculty position here was not without struggles and anxieties. 

1. 2013 - 2016. 

As I look back, I feel that the first three years, 2013-2016 were the most difficult: this was the phase when all sorts of challenges presented themselves in rapid succession, personal as well as professional. I experimented with new projects and many of them failed one after the other (or perhaps, I did not spend enough time on them due to an inherently anxious nature). As I now understand, this is an essential part of academic growth and happens to many early career scientists. But, at that time, it caused a good amount of grief and with every successive failure, I had recurring thoughts of self doubt. The healthy, non judgmental, non competitive peer support available during graduate school and postdoctoral training days had disappeared: I could no longer talk openly about my struggles with peers.  I felt stressed out and disempowered. There just did not seem to be any respite, and at one time I even wondered if I would always be unhappy, and left alone at the sidelines. [1]

2. 2016 - early 2020.

2016 was when things took a positive turn. This is the time that support systems around me (which I had only been vaguely aware of) kicked in through multiple channels. The first support system was at the level of mentorship at my institute. I spoke to a senior colleague who encouraged me to keep trying and not give up. Simply put, there is no denying these challenges: they are real and one has to put up a strong fight. I received some extremely helpful and empowering career advice at this stage: this was not a time to doubt one's abilities, but a time to put in concerted efforts. 

The second support system was at the level of my larger research community. I started writing to an expert in the topics that I was interested in: although he did not know me personally, he took time out to respond to my queries and generously shared his knowledge and ideas in great detail. His suggestions proved extremely valuable and helped take my work forward. This was also the phase when a project with my then PhD student, Neha Prabhu worked out beautifully. We had struck the surface of a beautiful theme at the interface of number theory and probability, namely central limit theorems in number theory, and received feedback from the reviewers and other experts that pointed to a bigger picture. It presented a wide variety of new questions to explore. This and other related questions that connect probability and number theory are now my main research interests. 2016 - 2019, therefore, was the phase when I gained clarity and confidence in my core research programme, and looked forward with hope. Nevertheless, some anxieties still simmered within, and I could not celebrate important milestones with much joy. 

3. March, 2020 - present.

In 2020, I feel that I entered a far more self-aware phase in my academic journey.  When the pandemic struck in early 2020, the solitude imposed by the lockdown forced many of us to look within with a keen eye. I noticed that I was vacillating between two contradictory feelings: the excitement presented by future research possibilities versus despondency and overwhelm that came with questions such as, "Is this it? Will I go further?" Why did I feel so low on energy and enthusiasm, I wondered. Thanks to self-reflection and efforts, 2020 - 2022 has turned into THE most important and fulfilling phase in my academic journey at IISER Pune. 

I learnt to focus on a few chosen research projects related to my core interests, and to grow consistently through these projects, step by step. I gained control over my time and energy: a few hours of writing each day brings a lot of self-assurance, generates energy and gives me the motivation and time to serve the academic community in ways that I am equipped to, such as teaching, mentoring, editorial work and science communication. At the same time, I have to consciously work on bringing about a balance in all these activities. One of the most important skills I've learnt is to set healthy boundaries in professional life as well as in personal interactions. I've learnt to recognize and say no to tasks which I know I would not be able to handle. In the pandemic times, I prioritised providing a listening ear to those who reached out for conversations and support. But, I also learnt to back off when the other party crossed boundaries without any thought about how their words and actions can affect other people. I've learnt to deal with anxieties. I've learnt to value feedback from experts and mentors, but I've also learnt not to seek validation from anyone other than myself. I've learnt to recognize the strong "inner critic" as one among many voices in my head, and not the sole voice to debilitating effect. While learning all of this has happened over a period of 10 years at IISER (or even longer), I do feel that most of it happened at the proverbial "last moment", that is, in the last couple of years.

I do not claim anything special in any of the above. Most of us learn these lessons at some point in our journeys: some, a little sooner than others. The reason I am mentioning all of this in a post on 10 years at IISER Pune is because I am grateful that my work place has provided me the space to learn these lessons, experiment, make mistakes and grow under its watchful (but not intrusive) gaze. The efficient administrative systems and the infrastructural framework at this institute act as enablers in every good way, and do their best to help people focus on science. As a glaring example, this was most evident in the pandemic phase when the institute administration kept us safe, healthy, and well-provided for in a city that remained a Covid hotspot for a long time.

What I am most grateful for is that over the last 10 years, IISER Pune has helped me become academically, professionally and personally independent in many ways, while also providing support networks at times when I needed them the most. From taking tottering steps in the beginning, I've learnt to take ownership of my journey. 

During evening walks, I often take the circular route in front of the main building. Sometimes, I simply stand and gaze at the building, and it seems to smile and say, "Keep going. I got you."

[1] I think I was the academic version of the protagonist in this famous Bollywood song in those days, forever searching for the elusive theorems.  The words "... another year later.." keep flashing on the screen as she looks increasingly morose.

Keeping the head down

Several years ago, I started my first faculty position. Like many others in this position, I faced a wide variety of situations for the first time: developing an independent research programme on my own, balancing research and teaching with service duties, being responsible for students as their advisor, juggling administrative committee work and learning to interact with colleagues (the nice ones as well as the not-so-nice ones). While navigating this new territory, I learnt a lot of things, made progress, but also slipped, faltered, took wrong turns, not infrequently. In sore need of an outlet to express and make sense of it all, I started writing this blog pseudonymously.  The blog found a handful of readers [mostly young postdocs in North America], who engaged regularly.  For a year or so, I don't think that anyone outside of this small group knew about it. My colleagues certainly had no idea.

Then, thanks to a rather kind post by Professor Abinandanan from IISc (the author of Nanopolitan, one of the most popular academic blogs in India), this blog suddenly saw an exponential increase in engagement by an Indian audience who could more easily relate to what I was writing about.  Blogging became an enjoyable activity amidst the isolation imposed by being at a temporary campus of a new institute in rural West Bengal.  I continued to document several experiences, including the move to IISER Pune and starting all over again.  By then, it no longer made sense to keep the blog "anonymous".   

The blog was updated for a few more years, but I started falling short of generating genuinely new posts. As I grappled with professional challenges that I was no longer comfortable talking about, this blog started turning into a repository for posts written for other portals as well as guest posts or links to posts by other academics on topics such as science communication, outreach etc. Occasionally, I resorted to writing Scoopwhoop type of posts as well. This was also a time when many people were gravitating towards Twitter for social media interaction and this seemed sufficient for my "self-expression" needs as well.  So, sometime in 2017, this blog was taken offline without much ado. This time seemed appropriate to simply "keep my head down" and focus completely (and silently) on professional goals and challenges.  

Keeping one's head down has many advantages: there is an entire category of Yoga asanas called "Inversions" that emphasize on keeping your head down (more technically, keeping your head below the heart).  The "harder" inversions include shoulder stand, head stand, elbow stand and the hand stand.  Our Yoga instructor ensures that we perform some inversions in every class and also encourages us to incorporate them in our daily practice.  Apart from physical benefits such as improving balance and core strength, learning and practising these asanas also helps to strengthen concentration and mental stability (for obvious reasons: doing a head stand with a distracted mind is not recommended and an inversion can only be held as along as the mind is stable). When she started introducing these asanas in our classes, my first reaction was that of fear. But, we were taught to build our strength step by step. We started off by taking support from props (eg, for the head stand, one learns to position oneself in a door space or between two walls in a narrow corridor).  Then, as core stability improved and the fear reduced, we started requiring fewer and fewer props. Some of us can now do a complete head stand without any wall support, while some require a wall to position their heels. Each member of the class has had a unique learning curve and learning pace in this regard.  Some of us, who would feel dizzy at the very thought of placing the head down, can now hold a head stand for several minutes.  We got here by not giving up and by staying regular with our practice.  In moments of weakness, our instructor ensured that we did not give up. What's more, in this class of responsible adults, we learnt to focus on our individual asana practice without the need to diminish that of the others or comparing ourselves to others.

This has so many analogies with an academic journey.  An academic career (any career, really) is impossible without learning to "keep one's head down".  We build up our "core" research programmes by focusing on our own work and by pushing ourselves forward, one step at a time.  Proper administrative structures and peer support at the workplace provide us with the "props" to do so.  In moments of weakness, some of our colleagues inspire us to continue the journey by providing mentorship or in some cases, by simply lending an ear . With these in place, we just need to stick to our programmes quietly and for long enough without comparing ourselves to anyone else.  Then, we realize one day how far we have come and how much strength we have to move further ahead.  We learn to appreciate our own expertise without diminishing that of our colleagues. Anxieties and fears get replaced by a sense of balance. 

These are some lessons I have learnt in the last four years.  So, the blog is ready to go up again. What occasion better than our 75th Independence Day to do so?

It takes a village ...

 “Young, very enthusiastic, naïve, slightly tense students arrived when it was pouring [rain] in 2006 ….  It was a tough task as a warden for me to think about their well being, to think about their welfare.  At the same time, the students had lots of expectations, lots of aspirations.  We had to meet their demands, their expectations, their standards.”

This is how my colleague Dr. Ramakrishna G. Bhat describes the incoming students of the very first batch at IISER Pune.

Students are the heart of our campus.  The image of the proverbial ``ivory tower” professor, fashionably buried in their own work with little time or concern for students is largely down-voted by faculty at IISER Pune.  It is a different matter that students can be a handful, meeting their expectations (especially non-academic!) can be a rough ride and we don’t always succeed, but then, who wants easy?

Ramakrishna Bhat was the first faculty member to join IISER Pune after the director, Professor K.N. Ganesh.  On joining, he was allotted the enormous task of setting up a hostel for the incoming 2006 batch.  This (temporary) hostel was to be created in a 30-year old abandoned building near NCL.  It was renovated at a feverish pace in about 15 days [1] and the first batch of our MS students walked into their residence in August 2006.  Ramakrishna and Professor G. Ambika (currently, dean of graduate studies) wholeheartedly threw themselves into the job of making these students feel at home.  They both stayed in the hostel for the first three and a half years. Be it holding tutorials in the dining hall (drawing chemical chain reactions on the menu board), handling frantic midnight requests to investigate stolen buckets or even waking up sleepy students for morning exams, they have done it all. 

Everything was all set to get even more chaotic with the admission of the 2007 and 2008 batches.  Sutirth Dey and Shouvik Datta joined the team of wardens and were responsible for the 2007 and 2008 batches respectively.  In order to accommodate the growing community of students, the institute was left with no option but to hire bungalows or apartments in the Baner and Pashan areas.  2008 was particularly tricky.   When Shouvik joined the Physics group in July 2008, he also took charge of the 2008 batch.  One of his earliest experiences was a crisis created by a last minute cancelation of living arrangements that had been planned for students.  A frenzied search yielded a bungalow (owned by Nana Patekar no less!) on Sus Road and some apartments in a building on the Baner Pashan Link Road.  Just a day or so before the students arrived, Shouvik went to check out these dwellings and found himself arranging beds in one of them along with the director! 

More colourful experiences were to follow. On Day 1, Shouvik had to go to all the buildings where students were staying and hire autorickshaws to get them to the dining hall located at NCL.  Gradually, he got used to regular phone calls at 1 am from security guards at these apartment complexes regarding noisy students.  Sometimes, he would personally have to visit to get stubborn students to climb off water tanks on the terrace (didn’t I say that our students are a handful?)  Another regular problem he would have to handle was when the other residents of these buildings would get annoyed and turn off water connections to the student apartments [2]. 

Soon, the chaos subsided.  A serious problem was about commuting between their apartments, academic buildings and dining hall.  This was resolved by hiring/purchasing an adequate number of buses.  The IISER bus network has served the community very well.  In an institute where the hostel(s), dining hall, classrooms and labs were far apart, these buses served as a lifeline.  They also provided a safe and convenient commute to our students if they wished to spend an evening in Pune main city. Until we became a fully residential campus, almost at any time of the day, two kinds of buses would be seen regularly on Dr. Homi Bhabha Road: buses from the National Defence Academy and from IISER.

Even after the most important logistical issues were taken care of, the “lighter” complaints were treated with utmost seriousness.  Once, when students complained that the chapatis in the dining hall were not as soft and round as what they had at home, the wardens held an emergency meeting with the purchase section to order roti makers!

In those years, a lot of energy also had to be expended towards “parenting the parents,” that is, allaying the apprehensions and fears of parents.  Their children were walking into uncharted territory: until 2011, it was not clear what they would be able to do with an IISER education.  Moreover, they had to drop their children off at buildings scattered all over Baner instead of a proper hostel.  In those days, the director and other leaders would regularly have long meetings with parents to assure them that their children were in safe hands.  Occasionally, there would be comical situations with the “don’t-you-know-who-I- am-my-kid-will-not-stay-here-one-more-minute” parents, but even they were tackled with tact and grace. 

Taking care of students is no joke.  On one hand, one has to implement hostel rules and oversee discipline issues.  On the other hand, one needs to be friends with them and guide them.  In the early years, the job got compounded because very few people had to take care of a large number of issues.  Two or three wardens would oversee a lot of things including hostel life, meals, transport, sports, recreation, discipline, health and mental wellbeing of students.  Loss of personal space, occasional frustration and overwhelm come with this territory.  Our leadership and the wardens took it in their stride, bade goodbye to personal egos and did their best.  It also helped that the administration was friendly, supportive and ready to work well beyond office hours [3].

This reminds me of an incident a few years ago: I was at a different institute then and had never visited IISER Pune.  One day, I wrote a somewhat helpless, somewhat miffed post about my wardenship duties there, whether I was any good at it and whether this job was of any use whatsoever.  A student from the 2007 batch at IISER Pune (who had graduated by the time my blog post appeared) wrote back a gentle rebuke and mentioned how hard his warden, Sutirth Dey, had worked for these students and how much of a lasting impact he had made on them!

As of today, our student hostels tower over the IISER campus.  When guardians arrive to drop off their freshmen wards, they encounter an elaborately built residential area with two tall buildings right next to a dining hall, a medical clinic with an ambulance on standby, a helpful hostel administration and decent security arrangements, not to mention a unified campus.  After students check in, they head towards our auditorium in the academic area for a welcome meeting with the dean of graduate studies, COSA (Committee of Student Activities: a team of seven faculty members who take care of student issues outside of the classroom), the dining committee members and our team of counselors.  We take great pride in conveying to these freshmen (and their parents) that there is a proper system to take care of every aspect of their life on campus.  The task of running this system is shared by a large number of people.  It is a reasonably decentralized, efficient system that gets better each year [4].  There are separate teams of people to look after different requirements so that no one person gets overwhelmed.  But, it took a lot of sweat and tears to raise this village that now raises the child!

On their part, the students have done every bit to deserve this and more [5].  There will be a future post on how proud they have made us.  Meanwhile, you may enjoy this blog with some awesome IISER alumni stories.




[1] The story of how the IISERs were visualized and started in a couple of months is a fascinating story (with enough thriller effect) narrated in this video by the planners themselves.  Important decisions were taken just days before the first session started and this meant that a lot of things were done at the last moment. 

[2] The tolerance of “housing societies” of Pune is world-famous. 

[3] After having visited or stayed at multiple institutes in India and after interacting with colleagues at many others, I realize that this is something to be truly grateful for!

[4] and many people in the admin office still work beyond office hours!

[5] though they are still a handful :)

Movers and Shapers - II

[The first past of the following post can be found here.]

Starting a new faculty position is no joke.  Books have been written on it, it is a hot topic on multiple blogs/websites (for example, see here and here) and many institutions conduct orientation programmes for new faculty.  You have become a PI with complete responsibility for your research group, you are on the other side of the class for the first time and you are performing a lot of laborious administrative tasks.  Joining a new institute where you will move labs/offices at least three or four times (either move from one building to another or readjust within the same building as new members join at high frequency) adds further layers of complications.  Even with the best of planning, things can go wrong.

For example, at IISER, through the “moving and shaping,” all sorts of difficulties came up.  There were delays in ordering material and in clearing customs.  Sometimes, enzymes thawed and were refrozen during transport: this caused unexpected results in experiments!  There were sudden pressures, for example, preparing a lab (practically overnight) for a new batch of students.  Sometimes, after a move, people would realize that the power requirements were much higher than anticipated.  Sometimes, there would be water shortage.  In a new building, there could be unforeseen damages due to heavy rainfall.  With many members sharing limited space, there would occasionally be differences and vocal exchange of views. 

All colleagues I spoke to acknowledged setbacks.  But, every single one of them also insisted that they do not retain any bitterness about it.  Many felt that their efforts towards meeting personal research goals created positive energy and this helped them to see difficult experiences as enriching.

M. Jayakannan from Chemistry (joined. 2007) mentions that by the summer of 2009, labs were sufficiently equipped for active research work at IISER.  The first few publications from work done at these labs started coming out by 2010 and since then, all the research groups in chemistry have been productive.  The early faculty hires were very active in publishing, averaging about 4 papers per group every year.  This gave confidence and healthy peer pressure to those who joined later.

My colleague Thomas Pucadyil joined the Biology group in 2010.  As of today, Thomas has a thriving research lab that includes 8 student members. Recently, a publication from his lab, “A high-throughput platform for real-time analysis of membrane fission reactions reveals dynamin function,” authored by Srishti Dar, Sukrut Kamerkar and Thomas Pucadyil has appeared in Nature Cell Biology. 

During a fun conversation over a cup of coffee, Srishti (the first author of this paper and one of Thomas’s earliest PhD students) and Thomas described how they set up the lab and the “assay system” leading to this publication.  For Thomas, the experience of starting his lab with students was full of surprises.  It  required multiple managerial skill sets, which he acquired on-the-go.  Early preparations for this work were started in Sai Trinity Building in 2011: this included visiting a goat market and slaughter house one early morning to acquire the brain of a goat.  They started off with an attempt to extract and isolate a specific protein from the goat brain.  While at Sai, they succeeded in it and knew that their project had passed the litmus test.  This motivated them to develop assays that would help to better streamline the role of this protein in facilitating cellular processes.  A detailed explanation of their work can be found here.

Thomas feels that the composition of his graduate-student-heavy lab played a crucial role in choosing and persisting with this project.  With postdocs, one tends to get results sooner, but postdocs are only present for a short stint.  On the other hand, graduate students are present for a much longer time and this gives you more room to experiment and set something up. In this case, their project took more than three years to develop and the results finally started coming together in 2014.  By this time, they had gone through two relocations, first to G1, a prefabricated lab building in the permanent campus in 2012 and the second, to the main building in 2014.  Their lab is now well settled with its core facilities in place and work done by his group has exceeded the expectations of the institute.

Thomas feels the strong camaraderie among the biologists helped him to move beyond the challenges and establish himself at IISER Pune.  Similar sentiments were expressed by others.  Girish Ratnaparkhi, one of the master planners behind the multiple relocations of the Biology group, mentions that when he joined, he felt energetic and very happy to help.  He remained very involved with the functionality of the department.  Be it preparing indents, supervising the packing and moving, receiving/hosting institute guests or organizing a conference, no work was shunned.  Everything was done in the spirit of service to the institute.

Talking to these colleagues made me wonder: can such an attitude of positivity and service to the institute be developed superficially? Or is it something that stems naturally from a deeper feeling of personal empowerment, which in turn comes from research productivity?

Movers and shapers - I

Last week, I got an opportunity to talk to some of my colleagues from Biology and Chemistry who joined between 2006 and 2008, that is, within the first two years of IISER.  The people I spoke to are H.N. Gopi, M. Jayakannan, Mayurika Lahiri and Girish Ratnaparkhi.  They shared some fascinating stories from these early days: stories of adjustment, setting things up, moving, expansion and readjustment.  This post and the next are based on their inputs. 

IISER started functioning from one floor of NCL Innovation Park in 2006.  Due to limited space, several faculty members shared what they call “hot desks” in the same office.  From 9 am to 6 pm, they designed curricula, taught classes (many for the first time), cleaned and prepared teaching labs themselves as there were no lab attendants, made purchase indents for lab equipment and held regular meetings to design their future labs/offices.  After dinner, many returned for a “second shift”, during which they corresponded with their collaborators or students from former work places, wrote papers and made grant applications [1].  The second shift could continue into the wee hours of the morning.

People could walk into our director Professor Ganesh’s office anytime they needed to [2].  Many a times, they would enter feeling worried, but would come out of the office with a big smile sharing his dreams about the future of IISER.

Professor Shashidhara (Shashi) walked from his place of residence in Panchwati to the permanent campus, Innovation Park and Sai Trinity Building every single day to oversee the progress at each point (and give things a good push whenever needed).  He patiently taught new faculty members from scratch how to work through administrative rules and regulations for acquiring equipment and setting up labs as many were fresh out of postdocs and were doing it all for the first time. 

When a potential faculty candidate visited for a job interview in those days, it was easy to get discouraged at the state of affairs: no research labs, no offices and no PhD students.  Apart from generous start-up grants, some of the things that attracted the early people to join were clear communication from the leadership about future plans, love of teaching and personal ambition.  The sense that they were building the institute and were equal contributors to every stage of development gave them a feeling of personal empowerment.  My colleague Mayurika mentions, “When I first visited for my job interview in 2007, I only saw the floor at Innovation Park and empty spaces in Sai Trinity building [3].   Shashi told me that things would be ready before I joined and I instinctively believed him.  Sure enough, things were ready by the time I joined in March 2008.  I did not feel any negativity around me. ” 

The central wing of the Sai Trinity building was inaugurated in January 2008 and was adequately ready for the biologists within a couple of months.

That was the time when experimental faculty had to spend maximum time in acquiring equipment for the labs. While doing this and allocating lab spaces, they decided upon a few healthy practices, which continue till date: first was the practice of shared labs.  Except a handful of cases where the nature of research is highly specialized, spacious common labs were to be shared by multiple members.  This not only reduced wastage of resources, but also taught faculty to treat resources as shared facilities rather than individual possessions.  As a colleague puts it jokingly, the tendency to act as “estate builder” was cut off right at the beginning.  Second was the practice of looking ahead: in any lab, some extra space was kept aside for future faculty.  When people ordered equipment and material for themselves, they ordered in extra quantities so that a new faculty would have enough workspace and resources to get started immediately upon joining.  This was very crucial because the Sai Trinity years witnessed a burst in hiring. 

In the meanwhile, the right side of the Sai Trinity building was acquired for chemistry and the chemists started moving there.  At one point of time, 11 faculty members and 40 students shared a lab space of 1800 square feet.

Around that time, Biology and Chemistry started looking for suitable PhD students.  The first advertisement for PhD went out from Chemistry in January 2008.  There would be at least three more rounds of advertisement and selection procedures before 4 students were selected in July 2008.  Biology also got their first few PhD students in August 2008.  These students took course work for a year and also actively helped with setting up the labs in Sai Trinity building.  By summer of 2009, the labs were well equipped and ready for active research.  Publications based on work done at IISER started coming out by 2010.

One of the reasons my early colleagues did not cave in to disappointment or exhaustion from frequent moves is that from the very beginning, no one lost sight of the final product, the permanent campus.  Gopi describes the happiness they felt while they witnessed the official land transfer of the permanent campus land to IISER in a ceremony at Pride Hotel in 2008: “We knew this informally, but were really thrilled when we saw it happening officially.”  Jayakannan mentions that even before all the moves across temporary locations happened, they started planning for the permanent campus.  Sometimes, they would wear construction hats and spend time at the construction sites.  “We adjusted to what was available with belief and sense of involvement in what was to come.  The institute always came first.”

But, Girish has a simpler explanation for the (more or less) high spirits: “Nothing big broke during the moves.  This kept everyone happy.”

[Stories of further moves and other groups coming up in future posts.  The second part of this post is here.]

[1] It would be a while before publications started coming out from work done at IISER. 

[2] We still can: it’s just that we don’t need to do so all that much anymore.  I only discovered the location of the director’s office last month, when a group met there to plan our 10 year celebrations.

[3] An office complex in the heart of Pashan, which was to remain our temporary campus for a long time.

Life begins at 10

Today morning, while working through some calculations done by a PhD student towards her project, I rewound 10 years ago to the end of 2005, when I was in the final year of PhD.  I had my task cut out that winter: start writing the first draft of thesis, prepare CV and research statement and apply to about a 100 places for postdoctoral positions.  As I carried package after package to the post office in the dreary winter (many places were still not accepting online applications), I speculated about where I would go next, next after the next and where in India could one apply.  I liked my grad school very much and hoped to eventually work at such an institution, one that is not just a (research) institute or a (teaching) university, but a combination of both [1].

At around the same time, the scientific advisory committee to the Prime Minister of India and the Ministry of Human Resource Development in India were taking concrete steps to lay the foundations of five such science institutes in India, namely the IISERs.  Two among these IISERs, IISER Kolkata and IISER Pune, started their academic programmes in August 2006 and are now in their tenth year.  Thanks, therefore, to a perfect combination of right opportunities and right timing, I am now based at IISER Pune, an institute that has given me everything I hoped for in a faculty position [2].

For a young institute, a decade is a good time to celebrate its accomplishments, reflect on future directions and engage with the larger public about its values, purposes, science and education.  My colleagues (especially the ones who joined in the very early years) have seen the development of our campus from a desolate, unused piece of land into a beautiful, fully residential campus, whose view they can enjoy every morning from their balconies with a cup of coffee.   

In a series of upcoming blog posts, I hope to document various important milestones in the growth of IISER Pune, memories of colleagues, alumni and current students from earlier years as well as  perspectives on where we are headed.  I will also update you about various programmes that we are organizing in the coming year to celebrate our tenth birthday.  Stay tuned.

[Update: the first post in the 10 year series can be found here]


[1] A place with mild winters would be an added bonus.
[2] This includes life in a city with not just mild winters, but also mild summers.

Home is where the office is

I am now a resident member of IISER Pune.  I’ve been longing for this day ever since I first stepped into IISER Pune and saw the construction site of the faculty housing.  For the last two and a half years, I have looked at it wistfully while driving into campus every day and imagined the good life post-moving-in.

Just imagine the possibilities: I can walk to my office every day, work as late as I like without any safety concerns about returning at night, my father will worry about me a little less, I will not have to navigate painful Pune traffic every evening and my building residents will not ask me if I can tutor their children (!!) in Mathematics.  I can now enjoy life in two of India’s best campuses and so can Abhishek (although something tells me that his enjoyment will be mostly centered around the milk shakes at Shiv Sagar, our on-campus food joint).  Oh yes, one more thing: I will not have trouble receiving Amazon packages.

I have already written before about the smooth manner in which house allocation was done.

The move today went off without any major glitches.  The movers were polite and sincere: but the supervisor tried to fool me in many ways.  He had asked for a certain sum (higher than what he quoted to my colleagues) with the assurance that he will bring good packing material: but that did not happen. The electronic items were wrapped in bubble wrap and the kitchen utensils, including coffee maker and other fragile stuff were wrapped in newspaper (which I provided!) and brought in open plastic crates.  His justification: “the quality lies not in the packing material, but in the handling.” Later, the household luggage did not fit into the vehicle brought by him and the supervisor stayed back with the remaining stuff while I followed the vehicle to IISER.  The vehicle then returned for a second trip and the guy very cleverly extracted some extra money saying that local labourers had demanded “Mathadi.”  I knew he was lying (since this has not happened to anyone in my former residential society), but I was alone and completely dependent on these people for unpacking and unloading.

After unloading at IISER Pune, he told me that his boys would be unpacking only major items like furniture and I would have to do the rest myself.  I requested him to empty all the boxes and put the things in the appropriate rooms, and I can take care of the arrangement later.  He argued a little, but gave in.  Finally, he demanded an extra two thousand rupees as tax.  Since this was not in the original quotation, I refused to pay.  Another little argument, but he gave in.

This happens to me a lot: people assume that I am nice and can be fooled easily. (They are right occasionally:  I can’t believe I paid an extra three thousand rupees for a handful of bubble wrap.)

Nonetheless, by the end of the day, everything was in the apartment and in its proper place.  No glass items are broken, but I will only know in the next two days if there has been any damage to the electronic items.  His boys were certainly very sincere and did all the packing and unpacking as per my instructions.   They also did not damage any furniture. 

 My lesson from this is that if one really wants to be free of worries and wants finesse in the handling of items, it is safest to go with a reliable, big name mover (the movers who brought my items from Canada to Mohanpur and later to Pune gave me no cause at all to worry).  With local movers, one has to be really watchful as they will try to cut corners.  But, they do the job eventually and the end product is not much different from what a big mover would have done, at least for an intra city move!

During the unpacking, an agile, middle aged lady rang the doorbell and before I could respond, walked right into the house, unpacked some of the boxes and arranged many items in the kitchen and store room.  She is now my cook and domestic help, my very own Mrs Doubtfire.

Anyways, the reality is that I am on campus, tired, but very happy.   I wanted to take a long walk on my first evening here, but could not do so as my feet are hurting a lot from standing and carrying things all day (may be I need to make my strength training routine a little more intensive!)  I hope to enjoy a nice walk tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, here’s how I celebrated … on campus of course!

Finally, a picture of faculty housing as it looked at dinner time:

New office

My stay at IISER Pune has been going very well. Last week in particular was very exciting.  Members of the Mathematics group moved to the permanent campus.
IISER P is building an integrated academic building, which will house all the sciences in different but connected wings.  The construction of this building is well underway.  However, for the time being, we have been moved to another building in the permanent campus, which has the guest house and conference facilities.  The management has very generously converted some rooms into single-occupant offices and provided them to us until the academic building is ready.

I am happy about this move for various reasons.  To start with, for the first time in my life, I have my own office.  It is very spacious - the kind of office in which groups of students can drop by and sit comfortably while I show them something on the board.  We can have animated discussions without disturbing any office mate!  The cafeteria is on the ground floor of the same building - so, no more commutes to have lunch.  I teach my course in a classroom on the same floor.  So, all in all, the management has made a very comfortable arrangement for us, even though it is temporary.

I also like being in the permanent campus of my institute for some emotional reasons.  Somehow, it gives me the uninhibited feeling of being in my own space.  I enjoy being able to walk around the gardens adjoining the building.  I can also enjoy the excitement of observing the progress in the construction of the academic building right next door.  Recently, our registrar and the co-ordinator of Mathematics took some of us for a short trip to this upcoming building.  We went to the floor designated for our group.  My colleagues and I were so happy that we even started self-allocating our offices-to-be (although I am sure we will have forgotten this by the time the building is ready to be occupied).

Happy one month!

I have now completed a month at IISERP.  Apart from some delays in arrival of my household luggage from IISERK and acquiring internet connection at home, the transition has been very smooth.  Well equipped office space was alloted to me on Day 1, administrative joining-in formalities were done promptly, I found a suitable apartment [1] and got a new car on Day 2 and started driving practice immediately thereafter [2].  While I waited for my luggage etc to arrive from N1, I enjoyed the warm hospitality at my favourite guest house.

My colleague, Prof. Sunil Mukhi, who joined a couple of months ago, summarizes his impressions of IISERP very well in this post and I couldn't agree more.

Here are some things that I like most about my new workplace:

1) The Mathematics group, of which I am a member, is fairly well staffed.  Other than a comfortable teaching load, this ensures that committee work and other responsibilities get evenly distributed among all members.  So, while a couple of colleagues can focus on, say, building the course curriculum, some others can take care of student counseling etc.  One group takes care of seminars etc and another takes care of library matters pertaining to Mathematics.  We even have a Happiness Committee which organizes regular get-togethers to facilitate interaction between faculty and students.  I will write later about the responsibilities given to me.

2) We have a separate course structure for PhD students.  Mathematics graduate students need more course preparation than other STEM fields and we have the requisite courses to offer to our students.  My student seems to be benefiting from this a lot.  While he has started work on his PhD project, he is taking some core foundational courses that he had missed out before.

3) My colleagues, including the senior ones, across all STEM fields, are in general, very friendly and approachable.  This is totally not meant as a complaint, but it took me a lot of time to make friends in my former workplace.  For months, I went to the office, did my work and came back home without talking to anyone.  It was more common there for people from the same grad school to hang out together.
By contrast, over here, it is impossible to be left alone in a corner while having lunch at the faculty lounge.  Even if people come in groups, they reach out and talk to others on the table.  I like that very much.







[1] "Suitable" is an understatement!  This apartment is a dream.  The kitchen itself is bigger than the biggest room of my previous dwelling!

The worst kept secret ever?

This blog is no longer anonymous.  Well, frankly speaking, it never was, really! The Indian science community is very small and the things that I like to write about (or can write about) also make it very easy for people to search me if they want to!
In fact, I just realized that anyone who figures out that I am at an IISER (super-obvious) and do Mathematics (easy to see because I don't talk about setting up labs etc) can put the search words "IISER Mathematics blog" on google and be directed to my webpage!

So, N1 = IISER Kolkata

New1 = IISER Pune

My STEM field: Mathematics

I never really cared about people discovering my identity, but an anonymous blog stylistically made it easier to write about certain people and incidents without revealing their names.  Hence, the reluctance to go public!

But, I am aware that many people at IISER Pune read this blog (I don't think this was the case at IISER K). [1]

So, it is a little awkward to pretend to be anonymous!

Going public also gives me more freedom to write about Mathematics-based issues and about life in Pune, which I am enjoying very much [2].

IISER Pune, my new academic garden, is a lovely place.  I am very happy to be here and will be writing more about it shortly.  Stay tuned!



[1] A few days ago, Professor VS Rao, the registrar at IISERP, mentioned that he appreciated a certain post I wrote about the guest house at IISERP.  When I asked him how he figured out that I was writing the blog, he thought I was joking! :-)

[2] One of the things, for example, which is very Pune-specific, is that the National Defence Academy is located here.  It is my father's alma mater.  I visited it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was an extremely profound experience, about which I would like to write one of these days.

Thoughts on moving

My stay at N1 is coming to an end.  Packers and movers will move my household tomorrow.  I plan to leave the day after, spend an evening with a very dear friend and colleague and fly out to New1-city after that.

Planning and coordinating the move has been very smooth this time.  After a couple more signatures on my no dues form, I will be good to go!

I was going through some of the initial posts on this blog about my excitement at joining N1.  I have spent a little more than two years here and have learnt a lot. At the time of joining, I did not anticipate that I will move.  I imagined that I will live "happily ever after" at N1, but now realize that one cannot predict the future in such certain terms.  My experience here has been mostly very positive.  I feel privileged for getting a chance to teach motivated and sincere students,  work with talented and energetic colleagues and serve the institute.

I hope that my experience at N1 can enable me to do a much better job at New1.  The three most crucial lessons I have learnt during my stay here are

1) the importance of time management  to balance both research and teaching activities

2) to serve the institute wholeheartedly, but not to take any unpleasant interaction with colleagues personally

3) to always remember that while an institute needs the employee, the employee needs the institute more [this is something I learnt from my colleague, Prince Calming]

But, I have to admit - I have developed a serious aversion to attending meetings!  See the contrast in what I felt about attending meetings here (last year) and here (this year). [1]

Recently, when I was talking to a relative [who thinks I am too starry eyed for my own good] about the upcoming move, he remarked, "It's nice to see you excited to move to New1. But, weren't you as excited two years ago when you were moving to N1?"

Yes, I was, and I don't see why I should not be so all over again.  

I am now moving to a place where I will be a much better fit.  There are many reasons to be happy about - the presence of an active group in my research area, the efforts made by the leadership to encourage and facilitate the growth of my future department and of course, the interest they have shown in my application.  It is always great to join a place where one feels welcomed and an integral part of the system. 






[1] During my interview at New1, members of the selection team remarked about the high number of committees that I was a member of at N1 (this was mentioned in my CV).  When one of them mentioned that I might find myself without a lot of these jobs on joining New1, I wanted to stand up and dance in joy.