I can’t believe I’m completing nine years of service at IISc. It feels like I joined the other day, sitting at the Institute ‘tower building’ with Supradeepa (who joined on the same day) to complete the paperwork and some formalities of joining. The nine years have been quite a learning, fascinating and humbling journey for me so far, professionally speaking. I’m continuously learning, unlearning and re-learning about how to interface with people, how to supervise students, how to network, how to plan and what not to do, but most importantly how to manage time. My wife will have a laugh for sure if she reads this, for, she knows I’m terrible and pathetic in managing time even now; however, compared to the ‘me’ of 2014, I know that I manage time better now 😊 So, it’s relative, you see. I wasted the first 2 to 3 years of my life at IISc without any meaningful planning, for, I was not sure of what research directions to adopt, and I procrastinated the process of ‘thinking, reading,
Four days ago, I completed eight years at IISc, or, in the Indian academic system. Time does fly rather fast, and I’m sure, it’ll not be long before I stand on the last working day of my career in 2050 (if I’m not dead due to an accident or a disease by then), looking back at my life on the day of my retirement. That would be the day I can look back and realize whether or not, as a researcher I made any positive impact - howsoever incremental, on the society over the 36 years of my career. Of these 36 years, 8 years have gone by, just like that, in the blink of an eye! I’ve been wanting to write something for the past several days on my 8 years at IISc but I must play the same old, boring gramophone record again, which is – there isn’t just enough time to sit and write! I am sitting on a journal rebuttal/response letter of a student who needs to graduate soon; I am also piling up stuff on at least two manuscripts written by two other PhD students (they’ll all chew my head if they f