The Man who showed me the path...
This time let me write about the learning experience that I had and still having here(IIT Delhi). I consider the life here as one of my most valuable possession professionally as well as personally. Interacting with erudite minds is really wonderful. I would like to write about the person, whom I admire and adore most because of his sheer class and professionalism. He is my supervisor. I am not having any false pretensions that I am in a position to apprise him; but I am writing this because of the pure admiration and love for him and to share the wonderful experiences that I am having with him.
I have seen many professors lost in abstractions and too much of generalizations without considering the practical applications of it. If we ask why we are doing this theory? Only probable answer he may have is we have been doing this for many years and you should also try to assimilate the things as it is. There is another class who only knows the practical aspects of it, but don’t know the underlying theory in its full implications. This severely hampers the quality of research they are doing and also the depth of understanding. But I have seen one professor, who is a perfect blend of these two. In cricketing language he has the class of Dravid as well as run making skill, academic Sachin!
I will say he is perfection personified. He is the one who knows what he is saying with full implications of each and every word. You cannot pick even a redundant word from his lecture. He never loose track of application while dealing with a theory. He motivates a theory by its application. He started the signal theory (probability theory) class, “while tossing a coin, if we know all the physical forces acting on it, we can perfectly solve the equations of motion and why we study statistics at all, which says that the probability of getting a head is .5?”
Also let me share some his mannerisms. While taking classes I have never seen a more perfect body language, straight body postures and giving eye contact. The way in which he structures his class and pacing is really wonderful. He invites discussions and encourages doubts and even if we ask most stupid question he will answer it gracefully. And the way he answers doubts, if you are a cricketing fan you would surely appreciate the way Sachin follows up after a perfect straight drive or a cracking cover drive, it is just great, no cross bats!!
When I go to him without sufficient preparations and talk in general terms like “sir, this scheme is giving good performance” He will say “Hareesh, talk in specific terms, how much SNR improvement in db you are getting ?quantitatively how much ?”And that is what an engineer is interested in.
What bothers an engineer is feasibility; he is not interested in any speculations or idealizations. Putting in simpler words anything workable is fine to an engineer. All the technological developments that we see are the result of the engineering mind, by saying this I am not playing down the importance of theoreticians. But to say that engineer is more interested in pragmatism rather than unachievable idealizations. Couched in a philosopher’s word he is the one who believe in God, but remember to lock the door.
Although my course work is over last semester itself, I took the course of him this time for the sheer pleasure of seeing him in action. Today while I was thoroughly enjoying the class I was thinking “I love you sir for the qualities you have, I thank God for giving you” completely lost in my thoughts, I missed some steps, suddenly the soft voice came “aise kyom dek raha hai? Any doubts???!!” “No sir”. I said in my mind “now everything is clear to me, it can’t be better!!!”