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It is difficult to present oneself in a way likable to everyone and I am no exception. Perhaps it is best if I briefly narrate to you how I have spent the past 28 years of my life. You can then decide for yourself what kind of a person I am.

I was born on July 19, 1978 in Durgapur, West Bengal as the elder son of Dr. Nirmalendu Bhaumik and Mrs. Chandana Bhaumik, who are my beloved parents. Durgapur is the place of my mother’s side where I have spent many a good times in my childhood with my grandparents and relatives. On the other hand, from my father’s side I belong to a remote village named Nabin Manua in West Bengal where I have several good memories with my cousins. My initial years of schooling until Std-III was at Balurghat in the district of West Dinajpur (now South Dinajpur) in West Bengal. I studied at a local English medium school named “The Atreyee English medium school” in the beautiful town of Balurghat on the bank of the river Atreyee. There was a wonderful park in the school and a large playground which I used to like very much. I was good in academics and so used to often top my class and I had a reasonably good hand at arts as well. Unfortunately I wasn’t so good in sports or debate, but I used to play cricket and football with my friends a lot, whose loving memories are with me always. And, it was here that I first became a fan of Amitabh Bachchan :-), the all-time Bollywood hero.

It was in December, 1985 when my younger brother (Somraj) was born and soon after in the end of 1987, my father got transferred to Tamluk near Haldia (also in West Bengal), and both me and my brother got admitted in the Assembly of God Church School, Haldia. I made new friends here and within a few months I established myself in class both as the academic topper and the school captain (we were the first batch of the new school). Also, I was given the responsibility to lead the Greenaway House (there were four houses or teams the school was divided into— Greisen (red), Hogan (blue), Buntain (gold) and Greenaway (green) house ). I remember it was the year 1990 when I first watched the World Cup Soccer on TV and inspired by some of the contemporary great players like Maradona :-) at that time, I scored a goal in each of the three matches at my school for my team and guess what, we won all three matches! We finished last in hockey and third in cricket but in football, we were the champions at school, definitely a thing I could boast of!!! (But do not be misled :-), that was some sixteen years ago, some weeks back I played in just one University Intramural Indoor Soccer game and found that I could barely manage to run on the field for even fifteen minutes at a stretch!). There was one other memorable incident. A red-Indian tribal drama in the school winter fest in which I played the role of an interpreter … it had received a lot of applause in the end, but I don’t want to boast too much :-)

It was not long after in 1991 when my fate brought me to The Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Purulia, West Bengal. The admission test was one of the toughest and only 3 students were selected after written and oral examinations. And by jove, I was one of them! So this was going to be my new school until my Std-X board exams. This was a residential school and so I had to start my hostel life away from home at a mere age of thirteen. Here I met some of the big fishes of my state and it took me more than a year and a half to establish myself and rise to the top section of the class in academics. The quality of sports, cultural events and everything else was of the highest class here and so excelling in both curricular and extra-curricular activities called for a level of caliber which I did not possess. Nevertheless, I found that I could play quite well and more importantly, enjoy football and cricket in my later years. Also, fortunately I had found myself a place in the school band group and played the kettle drum with two real experts in the school parade. I had done nothing else remarkable except making a lot of good friends, who still continue to be as good as they were then. In a way, life at RKMV gave a broader dimension to my life because here I had to follow a very healthy routine—everything was time-bound and compulsory like studying, playing, eating, chanting prayers, social service etc, so even with certain unavoidable shortcomings it was altogether a very constructive lifestyle. Finally, I graduated from this school in 1995 with reasonably good results and the highest marks in science group so that my name and photo was published in the local newspapers for ranking among the top 50 students in the state, which again was an honorable and memorable incident in my life. In this respect, I am indebted to my mother who had helped me throughout in my first language Bengali, in which I was relatively weak compared to some of the other boys and luckily for me, my mom happens to have a very high command in Bengali, who I am sure anyone who has known her would agree. In all, this helped me to get a direct admission to Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur for my higher secondary career which always has been a very nice and reputed college where any student would like to study.

My studies at RKMRC Narendrapur was crucial because here I received the basic groundwork to prepare myself for the extremely competitive entrance examinations for engineering—both at state and at national level. So I had to sacrifice a lot of my outdoor game activities leaving only lawn cricket, watching movies and sports, and playing cards sometimes as well. I remember the enthusiasm which all of us used to share in going out for the week-end movies and watching the game of cricket together and yelling for India to win. We were all heart-broken when India lost to Sri Lanka in 1996 World Cup semifinals. Otherwise, all the time it was either solving problem sets for correspondence courses for IIT-JEE or attending mock tests, but nevertheless it was a fun time. Eventually, after a hectic 2 year period, I graduated in higher secondary ranking among the top 100 students in the state in 1997 and also ranked 417 in WBJEE and 1979 in IITJEE (top 2% among all examinees). I chose to study Mechanical Engineering in Bengal Engineering College, Shibpore for the first year. However, I had a dream of becoming an IIT-ian and so was preparing again for IITJEE in parallel with my first-year studies in order to improve my rank and get admission. The following year in 1998, my AIR improved marginally to 1790 in IIT-JEE and this time I decided to join IIT Kharagpur in the department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture (even though I stood first in department and third in whole class in the first year exams at BEC, which was kind of a surprise to me!). I left BEC, but took with me some of the great memories of the nice college life I had there and the sweet relationship with so many good friends whom I had crossed paths with that year.

Life at IIT started with a lot of enthusiasm among freshmen. In the first year at IIT, everyone had the hope that he or she could move to a so-called elite department like Computer Science or Electronics which had all the lucrative jobs in India because of the IT craze. So except for a lucky few, everyone including me was a bit down after the first semester results were out signalling the end of such a false hope. Needless to mention, the sophomore year of 1999 was one of utter frustration. However, gradually I regained pace and learnt about the strengths of my field and started to excel, thanks to my professors whose lectures gave me all the motivation I needed. Around the end of 2000, in the middle of my third (Junior) year I finished second in the Ocean Engg department which boosted my spirits even higher. Followed by this came a paid summer training offer at the Indian Register of Shipping for 2 months in 2001 at Mumbai. I stayed at the IIT Mumbai campus with other trainees and it was a really very nice time out there in Mumbai. I even visited the lovely scenaries of Goa with two of my friends and had a lovely time. When I came back from summer training, at the start of my final year (Senior), I first ensured myself a job through campus interview at DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization). However, I was more interested in pursuing higher education at one of the finest colleges of the world in the hope of a more rewarding career in future and therefore started preparing for GRE, the entrance exam for applying to American Universities. I took GRE in March 2002, and ended with a score of 2130 out of 2400 which was decent enough to give me an admission with full scholarship at Texas A&M University starting from the Fall of 2003, which was confirmed a year later. In between, I worked as a scientist with DRDO for 1 year and made some very good friends there who were mostly toppers from IITs or RECs across the nation. Life at DRDO was wonderful amidst the sylvan surroundings and plentiful food and we made some wonderful trips to Goa and Munnar with friends from here. Also, my tour of South India with my parents, brother and grandpa was awesome! However, I found that in spite of the apparently stable and sound career which DRDO had to offer, the best among the selected lot were all preparing for either GRE or CAT or IAS and the like, and the reasons were obvious— pursuit of a still better job in terms of more money and greater fame, to be able to work with the best people in the world in those regards as either engineers or researchers or managers. For the first 6 months in DRDO, I was posted at Pune and the next (and last) 6 months at Cochin. I resigned from service in July 2003 after getting my student US visa. However, at that juncture, all of a sudden I was struck with severe dehydration at Cochin and had to be hospitalized. For about two weeks I was under acute medication and was released by the end of the month after careful diagnosis of every symptom. I am indebted to all DRDO scientists who were all by my side at that time and finally to my grandfather and father who came all the way to take me back home. In just 10 days after I reached home on 11th August 2003, I had to board the flight from Kolkata for my journey to United States at the age of 25, which was the beginning of a new phase of my career.

Life in United states has been much more easy and smooth, compared to that in India. I made trips to several places in the US and to some in Canada, and it is amazing that owning cars and traveling by airplanes even at this era of high oil prices are no big deals, which contrastingly in India is still considered a luxury. Also, the services at the grocery stores, banks and post-offices and the facilities at even the cheapest apartment complexes are wonderful and the reliability of internet and credit cards for making everyday transactions is unthinkable. However what is lacking is the homeliness and non-monetary joys of India! Also, people here are very much diet-conscious and that is understandable, because inevitably you will put on weight if you do not tune up your body according to the easy life here. Coming to academics, here at the US universities I found that the emphasis was more on project work compared to coursework, and that Indians are respected for their skill in mathematics and also their good command of English compared to most countries in the world. The professors here are among the best in the world in my field, so taking their courses was anyways an honor. I finished my Master of Science in Ocean Engineering in August 2005 and had enrolled myself for PhD, working for an NSF funded project but in just the second semester, I got a good offer for a full-time job in a major offshore design and consulting firm named Technip in Houston, who is renowned for the production of SPARs, TLPs, FPSOs and LNG terminals which are different varieties of floating oil platforms serving oil industries in the pursuit of petroleum in the deep seas to meet the ever-increasing energy needs of the human race. Now I feel that as an engineer, my life would be incomplete without working for some real-life projects and so, have decided to come out of academics and explore this area of life which I feel, will be no less exciting. If time, interest, motivation and finance permits in future, striving for a higher degree would definitely be an interesting idea.

So that’s my story so far. I had to cut short so many other good experiences but sometimes, when I am alone in some sunny week-end post-lunch afternoon , they come across my mind. Also, I wrote down whatever came to my mind and I apologize if I have made you feel bored or weird or sleepy :-), but I hope that now you have a somewhat better idea about me.