1970-1985: In Search of a Dream

-- Contributed by Prof. RVK

At Gettysburg

I returned to India after my post doctoral fellowship in Spectroscopy, at the Johns Hopkins physics lab in Baltimore.  On a holiday trip with my wife Kameswari to the Hill Station of Ootacamund in South India, I stopped by for an interview at the PSG Institutions located in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

I joined the PSG College of Technology as the head of the Physics department.  In the blink of an eye, 15 years had passed.  My wife and I raised two children.  I started a research lab from scratch in a brand new subject matter for the country.

By the time we left back for the US, I had made great friends, formed amazing memories and hopefully provided a good foundation of values and learning for our children that they carry on in their lives with their respective families.

Included here are are ten short episodes from this 1970-1985 chapter of my biography that I am currently working on titled, 'In Search of a Dream.'

A few more than thirty years had passed before I arrived in Coimbatore in 1970 and nearly thirty years have passed since 1985, when we left Coimbatore.  But this fifteen year period from 1970-1985 stands out in my mind as quite seminal for me and my family.

I have written these anecdotes primarily with my grandchildren in mind.  I do fondly hope that you find them entertaining.


I. The General Manekshaw Story

Prof. RVK facing Gen. Manekshaw in the dark suit

Among my students, I remember a student by name Kariappa. He was an extraordinarily intelligent person. When he passed out of B.Sc Applied Science, he applied for admission to the Indian Air Force. Among the many tests they conduct for recruiting the students, Psychological test was one of them.

In that test, Mr. Kariappa was asked this question. ‘Imagine that you are in an open space in a jungle, where there are no trees, you also do not have a gun. Suddenly a lion appears in front of you. What will you do then?’

Mr. Kariappa thought for a second and answered that ‘Under those circumstances, it is for the lion to do something, not me!’

He was eventually selected to the Air Force. He told me this story when he came much later to see me.

When one meets a truly great person, in the first few minutes, it will be evident why he he/she is a great person.

This happened to me when I met General Manekshaw, the five star general of India. He was the general in charge when India liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan. After retirement, he had built a house in Connoor in the Nilagiri Mountains, close to Coimbatore.

As secretary of the Rotary club, I had invited him to address our club. He accepted and came one evening to our club. Our assistant secretary was a young man and I had entrusted the job of introducing the guest to the audience. He went overboard and read all the positions the General had have occupied.  It was a long and embarrassing introduction. When his turn came to speak, the General started by saying ‘

The young man has almost all the material for my biography except that I have one wife and zero bank balance!’ The audience roared with laughter. He gave a short speech and ended by saying ‘A true leader is one who knows when to shut up!’

Later, in the dinner time I have asked him a question. ‘In that war, the Indian troops went right up to the canal which is on the border with Lahore. Why did we not cross the river and occupy the capital?’

He said ‘It is easy to occupy a country. But to govern it without the cooperation of the people of the country is impossible’.

Then I knew why he was truly a great man.

(About General Manekshaw: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/30/india)


II. The IEEE Journal Story

The year was 1976. Dr. Ganti Prasad Rao joined PSG Tech as an Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering.

During his stay, we developed a great friendship. He was a short man with a big mustache and easily recognizable. He was a very intelligent man and very strong in his subject. He was particularly strong in theoretical work. His research topic was Theory of Small Oscillations.

During his work, he found a major mistake in the work of Prof. Minarsky who was considered as an authority on the theory of small oscillations and wrote a book on that subject.

Dr. Ganti Prasad Rao

Dr. Rao wrote a paper on the subject pointing out the flaw and provided his own construct.  He then sent it for publication in Journal of IEEE. The publication sent the paper to referees, who turned out to be students of Prof. Minarsky.  They made remarks that the paper was incorrect. An IEEE returned the paper to Dr. Rao with the referee’s comments.

Dr. Rao was extremely disappointed and asked for my advice. I asked him how sure he was about his calculations. He said that he was 100% sure.

I then remembered my own experience.  I also once had a similar fight I had with Dr. R.S. Krishnan on the subject of Spectroscopy.

I told Dr. Rao that the only way to fight big scientists or engineers was to confront them. I advised him to publish the same in an Indian Journal.  The Journal of Institute of Engineers, India was the publication he chose to publish. They published it without too much criticism.

Then, I suggested to Dr. Rao to send the published article to IEEE and request for a written reply from the referees to show what was wrong with his work.

Now that it was a published work, they were obliged to state what was wrong with the paper. IEEE accepted his request and sent it to the referees for comment. They had no comment to offer!

IEEE apologized to Dr. Rao and informed him that the referees were disqualified to do any further refereeing work.  They then proceeded to republish his work.  Dr. Rao later became the joint editor of the Journal of IEEE.

In a few years time, Dr. Rao was offered a full professorship at IIT Kharagpur and he went to join their faculty.
.
(About Dr. Ganti Prasad Rao:  http://www.rgukt.in/stu-lecprofgprao.html )


III. The Rameswaram Priest Story

My parents Sri. Suryaprakasa Rao  and Mrs. Venkata Lakshmi, visited us only once during my fifteen years of stay in Coimbatore. My parents were becoming old and I wanted to take them on a pilgrimage in South India.  They lived in Rajamundhry and had raised eight children there, seven boys and a girl.  Everyone was married and settled around the world - different parts of India, Africa, the Gulf and North America.  My father was a well established lawyer in his town.  My mother raised the eight children and ran a huge household that always had relatives, family friends and even my father's client families coming and going all the time.

My Parents

When they came to Coimbatore to visit us, I was just turning 40.  I had a car, a small British made one. My colleague Dr. Sundaram, a very good friend of mine, who will appear in other stories in my biography, was from the Mechanical Engineering Department.  He had agreed to accompany us. 

I took them to Madurai and Rameswaram. The deity at Madurai is Meenakshi and she is an incarnation of Aadishkti the supreme Goddess. The temple has beautiful architecture and it also has spectacular sculptures inside the temple. It is most famous for its four magnificent towers called Gopurams facing North, South, East and West. These are so large that they are visible from several kilometers from the city. My parents were ecstatic seeing this temple as they never had been to these places.

Our next stop was Rameswaram. This was the place where Rama, in the epic Ramayana waged a war to kill Ravana, who had abducted his wife Sita. The Ramayana carries immense psychological insight into the human condition which deserves its own special discussion.  Rameswaram, is one of the holiest place for pilgrimage for Hindus in India. The magnificent temple tower is carved with many mythological figures. The temple is also famous for the huge decorated corridors. 

While we were here, I have learned from my father an important lesson on being humble and charitable.  This was one among the many lessons I have learned over the years. 

My father wanted to pay homage to my grandparents and many other dear departed souls in our family.  In our tradition, a ceremony is conducted after taking the bath in the sea.   A priest is engaged for the ceremony.  And gifts are given to the priest at the end of the ceremony. 

It was normal practice but irritating at least to me, that the priests try to get as much money as possible from pilgrims. On this occasion also, the priest was asking for more and more as the ceremony was proceeding.  I was particularly bothered that we was asking for money as the ceremony progressed.

I finally got annoyed enough to shout at him to stop pestering us. Something about a priest asking for more money annoyed me.  However, my father simply raised his hand indicating that I should stop talking.  I obeyed and kept quiet. The ceremony was over and my father gave the priest a substantial amount of money, whatever he asked.  The priest went away happily. 

As we were walking back to the hotel, my father noticed that I was still annoyed. 

He asked me ‘How much money have you spent so far on the journey?’ 

I told him that we have spent several thousand rupees until this point. 

Then he said ‘Did you argue with the hotel manager or shouted at him for the price of the hotel room?’ 

I said ‘No’. 

He followed up  ‘Did you shout at the gas station attendant why he charged so much money for the gas?’ 

I again said ‘No’. 

‘Then why were you shouting at the priest for what he was asking’? 

I was going to give an answer about fair and standard and upfront pricing, but I knew he had a message, and so I stayed quiet.  

He then said. ‘We came such a long way for satisfying our own conscience and spend money in what we believe brings us happiness. The priest works here, living on what pilgrims gave him. Looking at us, he expected that we could afford to give more than the others that is why, he asked us. We should give happily whatever we can, but not shout at him for asking’. 

I paused, and then said that it was never too late to learn a lesson from him. ‘You have taught me all my life what is right and what is wrong. I am grateful that you are teaching me even now’. 

Then my father concluded the conversation by saying ‘All persons make mistakes. It is only the wise who have the ability and will to correct them.’  

(Rameswaram Images:  https://www.google.com/#q=rameswaram%20temple%20google%20images )


IV. The chicken and egg story

When I was hired by the Managing Trustee of the PSG Institutions Prof. G.R. Damodaran.  We used to call him GRD.  He invited me to join the Physics department in 1970, and I promised him that build a world class physics research lab.

It was a tall promise, since the Physics department when I arrived, only had teaching responsibilities, that too only at the undergraduate level. So I had to find an area to research, design a postgraduate curriculum, produce graduate students and doctorates.  That too not in a science college but in an engineering college, where the science generally supplements the core engineering programs.

The problem during the beginning was like the chicken and the egg. Unless we did some research, we could not get any grants. Unless we got some grants, we could not do research.

The problem needed a bold and innovative solution.

It was then I met Dr. M. Rama Krishna Rao, who was at that time the chairman of the Regional Research center at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

He was also my professor when I was a student at Osmania University.

​​​He suggested that I might consider conducting a seminar on Electro-Optics.  I asked him how I could do that since we were not doing any work on that subject.

He said that Dr. K.V.Rao, who was in my department who had done some work in that area, could write a review paper on what work was being done in electro optics.  I could then invite papers from all over the world. He said that he would help me in conducting the seminar. So, we conducted the seminar in 1976.

Dr. Rama Krishna Rao was instrumental in bringing senior scientists like Dr. Setna, the director of Bhabha Atomic Research center, Prof. U.R Rao, the director of Space research and Dr. B. Ramachandra Rao, he Vice Chairman of University Grants Commission to the seminar.

My mentor, Dr. Ramakrishna Rao with Dr. Ramachandra Rao

The seminar was a great success.

Dr. B. Ramachandra Rao encouraged me to apply for a grant from University Grants Commission.
We received our first research grant from UGC.

​​​I was still searching for areas in which we could do research. Dr. Rama Krishna Rao suggested that we may do work in thin films.

Dr. K.V.Rao who had knowledge of electro-optics left the job and went to IIT Kanpur.  Incidentally I arranged a marriage match between Dr KV Rao of my department and my Professor, Dr Ramakrishna Rao's daughter!

In any case, we decided that we would continue research in the area of liquid crystals.  I was fascinated by liquid crystals, which were substances already in use but not much theory was known about them. We simultaneously started research in all the three areas.

Mr. Sampath who was the senior most faculty member started working on thin films.

Mr. Shashidharan Nair, who was my first Master’s degree student started working on Liquid crystals and a research scholar

Vacuum Crystal Unit

Mr. K.B.R Varma joined and started working on crystal growth and electro optics.

As we were all new to these subjects, I used to read for several hours, day and night on these subjects so that we could find answers for the problems we faced in the research.

The same year, 1976, we published our first research paper in thin films.

I took the paper to GRD and told him that true to my promise I made during the interview, we have conducted research in the Physics department and published the first research paper within five years.

He smiled and said that he never had a doubt about it!

​Research work started going on smoothly.  I used to be too busy during the day time with administrative work. So my research scholars and I used to return to the lab after dinner and we used to discuss the projects. This used to be very nice as we were not disturbed by any one.

I solved the problem of teaching the newly started M.Sc courses in Materials Science by teaching most of the subjects myself. I made my senior colleagues to attend the same so that the following semester they could teach these courses.

This worked very well.  I still have the notes I wrote for those lectures!

One of the most exciting results we got in those days was the variation of the pitch of the cholestric liquid crystals with electric field. The result was very important since they could be used as tunable devices in the visible region.

We were very excited when the paper was accepted for publication in The International Journal of Materials Science.

Recently, in 2011, scientists have found a way to use these liquid crystals to make ‘liquid crystal tunable lasers’.

Things picked up later, and by the time I left the institution in 1985, we had eight grants in new and exciting areas of materials science.

One of my early students, Dr. Shankar Narayan is now a Electronics and Electrical Engineering Professor the University of Sheffield in the UK.

I continued to keep up my relationship with my professor, Dr. Ramakrishna Rao.  When he comes to the US he visits me and I visit him in Hyderabad.  He is the most indefatigable soul I know.

I repeated this whole experience of starting a lab when I arrived in the US over the next fifteen year as another chapter in my academic and research life. I will describe this in a later story.

When listening to people these days talk about startup business, I say to myself, that I may have been an academic; but building a research lab from scratch in a field that is brand new to the whole country, is a startup experience too!

(Dr. Varma is at IISC:  http://mrc.iisc.ernet.in/Faculty/Regular/Varma/Varma_Profile.htm )

V. The ANR Story

Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR) was arguably the one of the greatest actors in Telugu films. I had a chance to spend a day with him when he was in Coimbatore.

ANR's long time film producer's daughter was to be married to our Managing Trustee, GRD's son.  The wedding was  celebrated in a grand manner in Coimbatore, which many of us attended.

ANR stayed one additional day after the wedding in Coimbatore at the request of GRD. Someone who could converse fluent Telugu was needed to give ANR company.  I was asked if I could please spend the day with ANR.

I had a bit of an apprehension with this task.  Firstly because we had all as children grown up on his films.  And secondly he was now a legend, and my college leadership's  family.  Just a little pressure!

ANR was escorted to my office in the Physics lab.  There was a commotion as he walked through the lab towards my office which was at the very end of a rather large hallway.

I greeted him in Telugu and asked him to make himself comfortable and take a seat.
         
I was most surprised at the very first thing he said to me.

'It is a great honor for me to meet a professor like you. I have missed the opportunity to get education when I was young and it was too late by the time I realized it. I spent all my life regretting the same. What can I do? I am doing the best I can with my life by acting in movies"

For a moment, I thought he was making fun of me.  But as we continued talking I soon realized that indeed he was a big supporter of education and looked up to institutions of higher learning.  He insisted that his son go to the US to get a graduate degree in Engineering.

The whole day went off very nicely.  We talked about many things.  He had as many questions for me as I had for him.  I showed him  all around Coimbatore.

ANR narrated  his life experiences and how he had to struggle to get into film field and how he learned a lot from the great directors. One most interesting thing he told me was how his first role in acting was a female character. He said that in those days he was small and boyish looking and the only role he could get was that of a girl!

I had the same feeling when I met him as when I had met General Manekshaw. It appears to me that great persons are humble and do not proclaim their accomplishments.

VI. The Pesum Kili Story

We celebrated the silver jubilee of our college, PSG Tech, and it was decided that we would conduct college-wide science exhibition. Dr. Subbyyan, who was the Principal of the college at time, appointed made me the faculty in charge of organizing this exhibition.  I took on the challenge with great enthusiasm.  The whole planning to execution took three months.

My first step was that I went and met the chairman of each of the departments individually and requested their cooperation. They liked my approach of meeting them individually with respect than calling a grand meeting and everyone readily agreed to cooperate.

Next, I met with the student union chairman Mr. Shanta Kumar and requested his and the student’s cooperation. Mr. Shanta Kumar was a very dynamic and intelligent man and was a good cricketer as well. He was very popular among both male and female students and hence it was very easy for him to get a large number of students as volunteers.  Mr. Shanta Kumar later got his doctorate in Business management and is now the Chairman of the MBA program at Central Michigan University.  We became good friends and met many times at each other's place in the US.

Let's get this done!

For the exhibition planning, we used to meet almost every evening in the tea shop across the college and make plans.  Every department did something interesting.

I asked the members of my Physics department to come up with something very creative that would cause a stir.  I told them nothing would be too crazy and that I would back them up.  So they came up with this idea of creating a 10 foot tall giant, wing flapping, beak moving parrot in front of the department.  The idea was to create something original to attract more people to our department and then once they got there they could see the rest of the physics experiments. The entire Physics faculty were all enthusiastic!

I appointed Mr. Ganapati of the Physics department in charge of the project. We first made a ten foot parrot with iron mesh and covered it with colored feathers to look like a parrot with its beak moving. All this was done in the yard behind the college workshop and no one knew about it until the day before the exhibition. We transported it to the front lobby of the department.

The trick we played was the most effective. We took wires from speakers inside the parrot into the next room. Here we had a chair for Mr. Ganapati with a microphone and amplifier. From a small gap in the window of that room, Mr. Ganapati could see who was coming into the department. He would slightly pull the wire attached to the beak of the parrot and invite the guest by name.   Since Mr. Ganapati was sitting nowhere near the parrot, no one could understand how we did it. They were looking for video cameras. It became a sensational attraction.

Prof. Shantakumar

Parents, students, families came to the campus in the hundreds.  When the Managing Trustee of the institution Mr. Varadaraj brought his family, Mr. Ganapati said in a parrot’s voice ‘Oh ho, periavare vandare, vanakkam, vaanga vaango’ (oh senior person, welcome to you sir!).   Often the parrot would keep saying, "ippadan vandingala, vango vango'

The word spread like wild fire in the entire campus about the pesum kili and hundreds of people started gathering in front of the department. All the members of PSG Trustee families started arriving to see the talking parrot also.

Finally, the Principal seeing all this commotion came over too see what all this excitement was about.  He asked me what was really going on.  I took him quietly over to Mr. Ganapathi's office, and he saw Mr. Ganapathy leaning across a small opening to see who was coming and inviting that person.  The Principal got a big laugh out of it.

The exhibition was a terrific bonding exercise with faculty, administration and students alike.  While the objective was science and learning, the excitement of the pesum kili added a dimension of fun, that made this particular exhibition standout in my memory after all these years.

(Dr. Shantakumar passed away in 2012:  http://www.cm-life.com/2013/01/04/business-management-professor-shanthakumar-palaniswami-dies-at-61/ )


VII. Shri G. Varadaraj Story

I first met Mr. G. Varadaraj under interesting circumstances.  He was the managing trustee of all the PSG industries and institutions. He had just assumed the role of the Managing Trustee of the PSG Institutions.  I was one the faculty members within several institutions that were under his stewardship, and thus with little occasion to be on his radar.  He was a very busy executive and it was almost impossible for professors like me even to get an interview with him.  His predecessor GRD had hired me, and thus I had a terrific relationship with him.  In this transition to the new managing trustee, I felt like I had lost a valuable mentor.

Then early on, very soon after Mr. Varadaraj assumed his new responsibilities, Dr. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, who is one of the great South Indian classical musicians visited Coimbatore. Mr. Varadaraj who was a patron of Arts, hosted him at one of the clubs in Coimbatore.

Mr. Varadaraj and all his family members spoke Telugu at home. Mr. Varadaraj enquired through his secretary, whether there was any one in the college who could speak good Telugu to a visitor from Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Mani Iyer, who was his secretary, knew me very well and suggested my name.

I was summoned to the club and was introduced to Mr. Balamuralikrishna. The evening was a success.

Shri. G. Varadaraj

Mr. Varadaraj was very much impressed with me and invited me to see him in his office the next day. He asked all about me, my family and where I came from. He was the President of Coimbatore Rotary Club which used to meet at the College. He asked me to be his secretary and that I should join the club.  A few years later, he became Rotary Governor and I became his secretary there as well.

We used to meet often in a social setting as he was too busy during the day. Our friendship continued for fifteen years and many interesting things happened during that time. This is one of them.

Mr. Varadaraj had a busy social life and often entertained friends and visiting dignitaries. I was a constant fixture in these parties. One such partiy was given in a resort inn at Malampuzha Gardens near Coimbatore.  It is a beautiful garden built below a dam across the Cauveri river. It has a very impressive bungalow. This particular party was given in that place. We went in more than a dozen cars and arrived around six in the evening. Being who he was, all arrangements were made well in advance. The party started right away.

I was always careful not to drink whenever I joined his parties since, I knew I should not be saying about the college affairs and had to be mindful. The party went on well beyond midnight.

Suddenly he asked me whether I would join him for jogging in the morning!

I was stunned at this request, and I was sure that there was hardly any chance of his waking up early, let alone go jogging. I suppressed my thoughts and asked him at what time? Without batting an eye lid, he said ‘Will five be too early for you?’

I said alright, but still never believing that he would be able to really go jogging within the next four hours.

But one could never underestimate him. So, I did set my alarm for four in the morning and got ready before five in the morning. I was speechless when I heard a knock on my door exactly at five!

He simply said ‘shall we go’? I said that I was ready.

We came out of the bungalow only to find that the front gate was locked. The gate keeper knew that all the guests had been awake till almost one in the morning. He assumed that it was impossible for anyone to get up very early. So he had locked the front gate and went to sleep in the room outside the gate. He was supposed to be awake and be on guard.

I was wondering what we could do. Mr. Varadaraj said ‘Let us jump the fence’!  I was totally aghast. Here is the boss for all the PSG organizations and he says we would jump the fence at five in the morning! Further, the fence was an iron fence and pretty high. He said ‘I will bend, and you climb on top of my back and go to the top of the fence, and pull me up. We will jump to the other side’.

I could not keep quiet anymore and said ‘Do you really want to do it’? He said ‘Of course’.  After more than two tries, finally we jumped on to the other side of the fence. I was so exhausted by the climbing of the fence that I was hardly in a position to jog. But he to my greatest surprise, was just ready to go.  We did run for a short distance and I had to stop.

He said ‘Just stay here and we will both go back together’ and took off. It was almost six thirty by the time he returned. Meanwhile, I was wondering about this extraordinary man. How could he actually do this?

We came back to the gate and the gate was still locked. We went to the gate keeper’s room and woke him. He got up still half asleep and said ‘Who is it’?  Mr. Varadaraj said ‘I am a guest in the guest house, we need to get in.’

By this time the gate keeper was fully awake and saw who was in front of him, he appeared like one who saw a ghost!  His puzzlement was even more when he realized that we were trying to go ‘in to the’ guest house. He was totally puzzled as per how we were outside the gate.

He knew the gravity of the situation as he was almost certain to lose his job for sleeping when he was supposed to be awake and on duty. He started weeping asking for his forgiveness. Mr. Varadaraj smiled and said, ‘Just open the gate. This will be our secret. No one will know about this’. The gate keeper ran to the gate and opened and closed it behind us.

As we were going to our rooms, I could not control my curiosity and asked him how he could go jogging after such a late night.

He grinned mischeviously and said ‘I noticed you! I was exactly doing the same as you were doing – mostly acting as if I was drinking’!

And he walked away.  He was not only acting but he knew that I was doing the same. No wonder why of all people he asked only me to go jogging with him!

Many years later, when we moved to the US.  We were just getting our start and had taken a small apartment in the Bronx.  We had not yet furnished the place.

Mr. Varadaraj was in the US and asked to see me. He was staying at the Waldorf Astoria hotel and I went and saw him. He was very happy to see me and enquired about my family. He suddenly said ‘Why are you not inviting me to your apartment? I want to see your family and have dinner with you!’

I did not know what to say I murmured that my apartment was not suitable for visitors. He said ‘Nonsense. I am coming tomorrow evening. Give me your addresses’.

I had no choice but to tell him that we were not ready to receive visitors yet.

He said ‘so what? I do not care whether you eat in paper plates or sit on news papers. I know that you will soon be well off. I am coming. No Arguments’.

We had no choice but prepare the best meal we could afford. My wife was quite embarrassed. She had to stop tears from her eyes. He said to us. ‘Remember, you are my friends. I do not care how much money you have got or not. It is your friendship that I want. The rest has no meaning for me’!

After dinner, we recalled the PSG days and all the great moments we shared.

(In 2006, there was an Indian Postage Stamp Released in Shri Varadaraj's name: http://stampsinformation.blogspot.com/2006/11/g-varadaraj-1-nov-06.html )


VIII. On raising children

The most impact that my wife and I had as parents was during our stay in Coimbatore.  I thought it is appropriate to comment on our experience in raising children in this part of my biography.  

Here is my take on this extremely complex subject.  

I have learned that there is no magic formula for bringing up children. It is so complex that the best computer cannot give even a possible solution. This is because it involves at least four distinct components so hopelessly interwoven that it is impossible to know the separate effect of each of them. 

Family Portrait from the early 1970s

These factors are Parents, Peers, Environment and Luck. It is like solving four simultaneous equations with just one known variable.

Parents: It appears that every parent strongly believes that his/her child is a Genius and that he/she cannot do anything wrong and if there is anything wrong, it is due to the people he/she is associated with.  In fact, recent surveys show most parents think their children are above average. 

Parents do their very best to provide everything they can afford. Some times they may over do it to the down fall of the child. There are two components to the parents care of the child - Money and Time. 

Parents do their utmost to provide money for their children. But in these days, time is not that easily given as everyone is busy. This lack of time is more deterrent to the child's growth than the money. This leads to lack of motivation and direction to the children. This also leads to the increase of the influence of the other three factors 

Peers: What kind of friends the child has and how he/she interacts with them is extremely important. Whether the child is an introvert or an extrovert, whether he/she is bullied by the others or he/she does it to others is a factor. Whether he/she keeps the company of those who are keenly interested in studies or in other activities is another factor. 

If the parents are well to do, they can put their children in good schools and the child will have better chance of getting a good training than a child in a less well to do school district. 

Environment: This perhaps is the biggest factor that influences the child's development. The media, electronic gadgets and place where the child lives have great influence on the child. Imagine, a child to day in war torn country.. What kind of education or even life a child there can have? 

Even if the child is lucky to be in a very advanced country, the terribly bad environment surrounding them most of their day time cannot but influence them. The parents have very little control over this.  Unchecked freedom for teen agers leads to problems with no simple solutions. 

Luck: Even if the parents try their very best, if luck is not on their side, the child can become bad. During our stay in Coimbatore on campus, we knew that our children visited the students of this hostel. We also knew that alcohol use was prevalent in these dormitories. We, as parents were always worried and used to watch carefully that our children do not fall into any bad habits.  But we also knew that if they actually did, there was nothing we could really do to stop it. That is where luck came in.

Having given the four components individually, their combination is much more complex than they are individually. As a parent, one would like the best for his/her child. But there is no magic bullet to solve the problem. 

No matter how many books one reads, how many lectures one attends, it cannot give him/her the correct formula for raising the child. 

I have used the tools I have learned from my parents. May be my children will use different tools because they have grown up for most part in a different country and have learned different techniques. 


But, these basic ingredients do not change. Luck does play a significant role in the final outcome.

IX. The Hunting Story

Between Coimbatore and Mysore in Karnataka, there is the dense Mudumalai forest. There is abundant wild life in this protected forest. Abutting the forest, there used to be privately owned sugarcane fields. Often, wild animals such as elephants, deer, boar came into these fields. Elephants were not allowed to be shot, but deer and other smaller species could be shot if they encroached into the private farms. 

Mr. Veerabahu had a friend who owned a cane field next to the forest. Elephants and deer often came into the cane fields to eat the sugar cane. During the crop maturing season, someone had to be on guard to ward off these animals. This also gave chance to the farmers occasionally to shoot a deer and distribute the meat among the villagers.

                                       

Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary

One one occasion, four of us friends got into a Jeep and reached the farm of Mr. Veerabahu’s friend. They were very happy to see us.   To ward animals away from the fields, there were hired hands.  I must admit that I am against shooting animals in principle. But wanted to go along and see what they were doing so as not be a spoil sport. We waited in the shadow of a tree in the fields and also in thick grass so that the deer could not spot us. 

As time passed by, no deer was seen and I began dozing off. Mr. Veerabahu used to poke me saying ‘stop snoring. The whole forest is waking up!’ 

I would protest that I was not sleeping but still do the same. 

Some time later, he also dozed off. 

The next morning Mr. Veerabahu’s friend woke us and told us that they have the deer ready to cut and cook! 

Mr. Veerabahu was surprised and asked what happened. His friend said that when they came to see what we were doing, he saw all of us fast asleep in the grass. He had taken Veerabahu’s gun and went and shot the deer. 

Mr. Veerabahu was embarassed and covered it up by saying that was all because of my snoring! 

I laughed and asked his friend whether he slept without snoring. His friend had a great laugh and said ‘You were all snoring in unison and the whole forest was awake with your snoring!’

In the afternoon, the deer was cooked and all the villagers had a great feast. 

We had a great time over the next two days. We went into the forest and saw plenty of wild life including elephants, deer and boar.

X. The Kerala Tea Estate Story

While we socialized a lot on and off the PSG campus, I used to have a small circle of very good friends. We used to meet practically every weekend and sometimes even during the week. 

I cannot even remember how this diverse set of people became friends. Dr. Sundaram was a PhD from Glasgow University in Scotland and joined our college as Mechanical Engineering professor. He was perhaps the smartest guy in our group. We used to have arguments on all kinds of subjects ranging from quantum mechanics to wine making. Dr. Sree Ramulu was our college resident doctor.  Mr. Veerabahu was a former army officer and had started a castings factory. Mr. Ponnuswamy, was an instructor at another Polytechnic School in the city.

We always used to dream and plan on owning a business in which all of us could be partners. But I never thought seriously about it.

One evening, Veerabahu and Ponnuswamy brought a proposal which they said could not fail. We were curious to hear what it was. After a few minutes of tense silence, Ponnuswami declared ‘we are buying a tea garden!’

I said ‘what? We know nothing about tea gardens and selling tea. How could we make a profit?’

Veerabahu continued the narration ‘We need to know nothing! This is already a running set up and also coming cheap for almost one third of the price. The owner is selling it in a distress sale. Also I have investigated and now the raw tea leaves are selling at high prices and the market is a complete seller’s market. I have made arrangements for us to visit the same in the coming weekend.’ 

Too surprised, we said ok, let us first go and see it.

Kolahalamedu Tea Estates

I will never forget this  trip in my life. The tea garden was near a place called Eeratupetta in Kerala State, which is the nearest big town, about thirty kilometers from Kolahalamedu, where this tea estate was.. The journey between Eratupetta and the garden was all jungle. There was no transport facility. A local bus came once a day, if at all.

All the provisions have to be purchased in Eratupetta and taken to the garden. The garden was on the slopes of hills and the scenery was spectacular. Right on the top of one of the hills, there was a small guest house. There were facilities for six to eight people to stay and a separate kitchen. The view from the guest house was out of this world. Blue sky with puffs of white clouds rolling slowly and majestically, a small stream way down below and tea plants as far as the eye could see.                                     

This made the whole place look like a picture post card of a far away fantasy land. We arrived at Eratupetta, bought all the provisions and went in our jeep to the guest house.

On the way, as we were climbing the twisting and turning road, suddenly a wild fowl flew across our jeep and got caught in the mesh above the jeep. Veerabahu climbed to the top and brought it down and declared ‘Gentlemen, here is our dinner, courtesy, Eeratupettai!’

Everyone was very happy for the extra meat for the dinner. We had a great feast that night at the guest house and the very idea that we could own that paradise was thrilling.

The next morning, the seller came to the guest house and Veerabahu and Ponnuswami were in deep discussion with him. As we had no idea of what they were discussing, the rest of us went down to the stream below the tea garden. It was a long and steep walk and we worked up a great appetite by the time we returned back.

At the stream we saw locals fishing in a peculiar way. They put two bamboo traps with five to six meters of distance between them. They squeezed the juice from some leaves in the stream. In a few minutes we saw the fish acting as if they were drunk! They were circling slowly in the water and the fishermen quietly picked them up in their hands and put them in a basket. The fishermen explained to us that the juice does make the fish intoxicated for a short period. I asked one of them whether it has the same effect on humans. He smiled and said ‘Humans need a minimum of two beers to have that effect!’ 

It was settled that we would buy the garden. We four would chip in a share each and Veerabahu’s brother would put up the rest of the money.  It was a lot of money in those days on a professor’s salary. My share almost amounted to almost six months pay. It was a bold decision as we had no knowledge of what the tea business was. We were young and inexperienced. At least two in the group who have business experience were saying that we could not fail. Above all, we were in love with that place.

All of us agreed to put up the money in the following week. Mr. Veerabahu and his brother would manage the estate and we would be silent partners. I had given my portion of the money with great difficulty. Some money was borrowed from the bank for working expenditure.

We made several trips to our tea estate. Once, I took my family also and the our children had a great time. Mr. Veerabahu, being an ex-army officer, was an excellent shot with a rifle. He demonstrated that by shooting glass bottles at quite some distance. The children were very impressed by his skill. 

It was a full moon day and at night, the whole valley was much more beautiful. One of my children saw a wild fowl way up on a tree in front of our guest house. Veerabahu was asked whether he could shoot the bird in that light. Without a word, he went inside and got his rifle. He waited for the fowl to make a noise, and to our great surprise, he shot it with just one bullet.

The last trip to the estate proved how naive we were in purchasing that estate. We were already having troubles with the labor on the estate and suddenly, the price of the raw leaves started falling and the company which roasted our leaves started postponing the roasting of the leaves. If not roasted in time, the leaves would rot and become useless.

The second evening of our final visit, we had an invitation for dinner by the manager of the neighboring estate.

This was owned by a rival group, much much larger than ours.  Their estate was hundreds of times larger than our tiny estate. We were very excited that he chose to invite us and went in the evening for dinner. After pleasantries and dinner, his casually asked us how come all of us who are professors and intellectuals bought this estate. We looked at each other and Veerabahu said that we thought it was a good investment.

As we got into the conversation in the evening he explained to us that his company wanted to buy that estate and give the owner a reasonable price. But the previous owner demanded more money than the estate was worth.   He gave us an offer that he would make us whole with our orginal investment if we were willing to sell it to him, unlike the previous owner.

After discussing it overnight, thinking about the falling tea leaves prices, the prospect of managing labor unrest from far away (being academics no less), we decided that we had had enough ‘fun’. 

We sold the estate to the nieghbor at our purchase price plus operating expenses incurred and came back home.  We paid off all our bank loans, no loss no gain.  All we had remaining was a terrific experience and story to tell.

Dr. Sundaram, went on to start a company manufacturing turbines (his specialization was Fluid Mechanics), and ran a successful business consulting and supplying to major companies in India for many years.

Veerabahu, also went back to running his factory.

But my business career ended with this episode! 

(Erattapetta to Kolahalamedu:  https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&gl=us&daddr=Kolahalamedu,+Kerala,+India&saddr=Erattupetta,+Kerala,+India&panel=1&f=d&fb=1&geocode=KQOeGJpNygc7MaoXPPneFLY6%3BKTucXbVYswc7MZCQQB2W_eiq&ei=NCrdUruSH_LKsASe7YGoAg&ved=0CCwQ-A8wAA )

Summary

The most difficult thing in life is the ability to laugh at yourself and at events that have dictated your life.

Faculty - Students Cricket Match

Some events in life are happy, some sad, some funny and some difficult. It is their combination that makes life interesting.   My life at PSG College of technology had all the above ingredients

This is the reason why I consider that the most exciting part of my life was spent there, or in cricketing terms, one of my innings that I enjoyed a lot!

It is more satisfying to be able to share these stories with others.