Good morning, Mohan. Welcome to Heritage Centre.

Thank you, Nags.

So, we will mainly talk about your days here at IIT

even you are a student,

but before we do that just give us a little bit of a history of

how you got into IIT and then what you have been

doing since you left IIT. Ok.

Interestingly enough even though my

mom’s first cousin Professor V. Rama Murthy

was a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering.

Somehow I didn’t know about IIT until

I was about to apply for pre-university course

and then one of my high school best buddies said hey,

you should go join Loyola College because they have this

coaching for a month before the

JEE for IIT and I am like what is IIT?

So, anyway, that is how it started out and then of course,

my parents said why do you want to go to Chennai

and study there when we have set up shop in Vellore?

For purely the kids education.

So, then finally, my dad says ok whichever comes first

Voorhees College in Vellore or Loyola in Chennai

I should take it up

and luckily for me the Loyola College one came up

and so, at that time it was just one month, one hour

each day in the morning before regular classes

Math, Physics, Chemistry being covered in these things.

So, that is how I wound up getting

to become aware of IIT and then you know

get prepared in terms of the JEE.

And, it was like sheep mentality at the time right

based on what rank you got you know the

top choice was Electronics, next was Chemical.

So, my rank was such that

I went into that not because of any particular

interest in Chemical Engineering as supposed to

some other branch of Engineering.

But, then as many people know when I was

starting my second year, it is 1973 is when the

IBM mainframe came as a gift to IIT Madras,

from West Germany and I got hooked

and the rest is kind of history in the sense of

my spending all my spare time and more

hanging around in the Computer Centre

and I had the benefit of IIT letting even undergraduates

who had from a curriculum perspective

no business going anywhere near the computer. Right.

Unlimited access so.

And since I left IIT in ‘77 of course,

with all the 4 years of heavy duty learning about computers

and such I had made up my mind

especially starting from the third year

that I was going to do a Ph.D in Computer Science.

But between the beginning of the second year

and the third year

I thought I will do a Ph.D in management science

because to begin with I was using lot of these

application packages that were

available on that mainframe system.

But, then there was some special feature

I was trying to use in a simulation package

where the software kept crashing and that is when

sitting at home in the summer of 1974, I was debugging this

software and that is when I said the macho thing to do

is to do a Ph.D in Computer Science

and get into hardcore nuts and bolts low level

hardware as well as software kind of thing.

But, I still graduated only in the software space

in terms of my Ph.D work.

I didn’t really do any hardware oriented work.

So, and after graduation of course,

from my Ph.D I joined IBM research

and I have been there ever since 38 years of being part of the

IBM research division. Right.

Primarily in San Jose,

but I did spend about 32 months in Bangalore

as the IBM India Chief Scientist and also

for 1 year I did a sabbatical in Paris

at a French Computer Science Research Institute.

It was from 1998 to 99. Ok.

So, going back to your days at on campus,

what are your some of your best memories

you know maybe take it year wise first year, what you were?

First year I was more of a normal guy

in the sense that when I joined Loyola College

for my pre-university in 1971

that was the first time I started playing tennis.

As opposed to during my high school days in Vellore

playing cricket and being a member of the Vellore Cricket Club.

So, when I came to IIT in 72

that first year I regularly went to OAT movies,

I used the tennis courts here and so on.

But, once the second year started and I got sucked into

Computer Science related stuff as a side activity,

it began to dominate my psyche so much

that I stopped doing anything else.

I didn’t even hang around as much with my own batchmates

let alone others in the hostel and also in terms of hostel

I was in Alaknanda to begin with and I should have

as a Chemical Engineering guy gone to Godavari in 70.

You had the 1 plus 4 model right?

Yeah, right exactly, but at the time they

did not have enough space in Godavari.

So, some of us got sent to Saraswati,

but then from the third year onwards I was in Godavari.

So, I did you know spent some amount of time

with my batchmates and others in the hostel,

but really not the normal kind of time

that others would have done.

Because I got to know more of the Master students

who were in Computer Science

because when the Computer Centre was started in 73

they started with the Masters program and also the PhD program,

but undergraduate degrees in Computer Science

didn't begin anywhere in India to my knowledge until

late 70s early 80s.

So, of course, the campus and you know

Mardi Gras all those sorts of things

have left a lasting impression on me.

Mardi Gras is now called Saarang yeah.

And, also you know being close enough to my parents

who are living in Vellore just 80–85 miles I wound up

as a Tamil guy spending my entire pre-Ph.D days life in

Tamil Nadu except for holidays going to some other parts of India.

But, also I didn’t learned Hindi in school because

by the time I would have normally had

Hindi education in high school

the Tamil Nadu Government went from being

Congress Government to DMK and so, the

three language formula became two-language formula,

but my mother still thought I should learn Hindi and so

I had to go to Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha to learn.

And, some of that knowledge I could have kept up

while I was in IIT if only I had hung around enough with the Right.

my classmates or even others that were more into

Hindi speaking, but I just didn’t.

Of course, we are just had our own

vernacular rate we had that campus.

Oh yeah of course, of course, that is true too.

But, I do think that you know the

whole cosmopolitan student body is a the big plus.

Yeah, yeah definitely.

No question about that.

But, in fact, interestingly enough it is when I went to

America to Austin Texas for my Ph.D that I actually

started feeling very bad about having not having kept up my

Hindi knowledge because there the Indian community was

so small that everybody automatically assumed that

everybody will know Hindi. Right.

So, and also even movies that were being shown over

there were Hindi movies with no subtitles to begin with.

So, I actually tried hard to revive my [laughter] Hindi knowledge,

but then soon after the subtitles in English started coming.

So, I was less motivated then.

So, anyway that is the.

How was your workshop experience, sir?

That was pretty tough, right because

at that time in the first year 50 percent of the time

every other week we spent entirely in the workshop

and in the second year one day of every week

we spent in the workshop.

So, it did you know, make life here very different

compared to some of my contemporaries

in other engineering colleges and so on

or even in other IITs for that matter .

But, I do not know whether in my case it left

any lasting impression in the sense of being very hands on guy

because even you know much later in life at home and so on

my wife complains that I am not doing

enough of the things myself.

Like the professionals do it that's why.

But as an engineer I suppose

and I am supposed to be expected to be more hands

on than I have wound up being.

Yeah, just supervise.

The other subject lot of people remember is of course

drawing, Engineering Drawing

which also used to be pretty painful and,

but you are ok with the drawing.

Yeah, you see it is been so long that some of these things

have sort of been being

sent out of the cache in my head you know.

So, so, you know it is already what 42 plus years

since I graduated 1977 is when I

Finished my Bachelor’s Degree.

So, lot more things have come into my immediate attention,

scope and so on so, some of those memories are not as vivid,

but these days you know it is interesting when I look

at the WhatsApp group of my classmates, some of the guys

were able to recall even dorm room numbers and the roll number

and such things so vividly and they are also talking about

various workshop employees

and so on extremely well and so, I feel bad.

Is my brain so messed up compared to these

other guys at least in terms of memory? lost memories.

make up names and.

No, but then there are these other guys

who are also you know at times pointing out some

errors in this recollection and so on.

So, it is quite amazing how some people have such selective

Sure. memory about some of these sorts of things

and in my case that is not the situation.

So. Any memories about the department?

Chemical Engineering all I remember is

you know Ananth teaching Thermodynamics

and of course, later on long after

I left he became the Director

and then I am forgetting Gopinath was there.

Was there a Govinda Rajalu?

Govinda Rajalu, I don’t remember.

No, see again you know in my case I am a bad example,

right because I was essentially trying to get away

with the minimal amount of work in Chemical Engineering,

so much so that my parents when they noticed

how much time I was spending in

in the Computer Centre and even my name C. Mohan was

interpreted as Computer Mohan.

My parents thought that I might even flunk

my Chemical Engineering with all the enthusiasm

I was showing on Computer Science.

So, in that sense I do not have as much of an attachment to the

department in the sense of

after I left coming back and interacting with the

staff members, but there was one Chemical Engineering professor

who had become a Computer Science person

and that was Professor Nagarajan your name sake,

but he was an older gentleman of course.

So, he was one of the few faculty members in

in Computer Science after the computer came here the

mainframe that encouraged my craziness of

spending so much time on something

that wasn’t supposed to be my focus at IIT .

The major one being of course, Professor C. R. Muthu Krishnan.

Who was one of the two faculty members who came from

IIT, Kanpur to start the Computer Centre and the

other one being Professor Mahabala.

So, Muthu was ultimately my

project advisor even for my B.Tech project.

So, even that project I didn’t do in Chemical Engineering.

So, in so many ways I was the oddball guy

that was nominally a Chemical Engineering student,

but in fact, I wasn’t. Did you get into trouble in the department because of that?

No, actually strangely enough

they even permitted me to do this B.Tech project in Computer Science.

So, in that sense I got lucky and so in many ways

I used to feel originally that unlike the

IIT Kanpur administration based on the fact that

Kanpur was started with US assistance

gave the students lot more flexibility.

So, the only thing I could have done in a formal sense

in IIT Madras as an undergraduate student

in the area of Computer Science was in the

eighth or the ninth semester as a Mathematics option

I could have taken Fortran programming as a course

and that would have been the only formal

grade qualifying entry I would have had in my mark sheet.

But then since I had started programming

in the third semester this didn’t make.

Because things are very different now as I am

sure you know you know there is so much flexibility now.

Chemical Engineering student can get a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering

and an M.Tech in Data Science you know integrated

5 year program I see

or you can do a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering with a

minor in Computer Science.

So, there is just large number of ways in which- Yeah.

So, we didn’t didn’t have a notion of minor at all, right during?

No, we didn’t. And even in your time?

No. You are about 3 years, 81.

Yeah. 4 years junior to me, right.

So, yeah definitely I mean it is just that I was here at a time when

I suppose because of the West German idea of

what undergraduates should do it was a

more strict kind of way of deciding who gets to do what.

But, at the same time I was also extremely pleased

that not only the Computer Centre administration

but even the rest of the admin people in IIT Madras

allowed somebody like me to

have unlimited access to the mainframe.

And so, to that extent I am forever grateful to

the people in IIT Madras that let guys like me exist

and not get penalized in any sense.

In fact, I was quite surprised when I finally

managed to get out with a 7.5 GPA

is that the term or CPA? CGPA.

Now now I think it was originally credit point average. Yeah.

Yeah and that was just barely making it in first class. Right.

7.5 was the minimum we had to get to get a first class

and so, I was ok with that.

Although you know lots of other people obviously

got much higher CPAs than I what I got,

but the saving grace for me was once I started doing

Computer Science I managed to get out with a I think 3. 95 out of 4.

No only one course where I got the B

dragged me down to a none 4.2 grade point average.

So, yeah that is about it.

What was the food like?

I mean what is your memories of the-

A food, I don’t recall a whole lot.

I mean again I suppose I was not that much

hung up about food and such.

I mean I was a vegetarian and I am still a vegetarian.

So, I was ok with it.

I mean even now I am not so particular about

what I eat and such as long as

it fills my stomach I am more or less ok.

There aren't too many things that I say I just can’t

I I won’t eat because I don’t like the taste or whatever.

More and more of course, you know certain things

I am avoiding just because it doesn’t seem to suit me physiologically,

but other than that life in IIT, I mean I got so crazy at

one point that I even avoided going to the OAT

movies thinking I should spend even

that time learning more about some Computer Science geeky things.

Do you have any regrets about your time at IIT, Madras?

Not really the the only thing I could presumably have done

better is as I was saying earlier kept up my Hindi knowledge

and gotten to know a bit more about people

that came from other parts of India

to learn more about their states

and their culture and so on.

Interestingly enough it was for the first time in Austin,

the first summer over there, summer of 78 that some of the

Gujarati women there dragged me on to the stage to perform

in Raas and Bhangra and such things

and I had never been on stage in my time at IIT

and even in high school,

the school I went to was not one of those sorts of

all round kinds of schools in Vellore,

the Krishnaswamy Mudaliar High School.

So, it was more academic focus that was dinned into me.

So, in that sense you know even my roommate in Austin

for a couple of years was a Maharashtrian guy.

So, my- if you like appreciation

for other parts of India, expanded during my time

in the US than while I was here.

Even though as I was saying at the beginning

I did spend summer vacations in Baroda

and Calcutta and places like that.

But, I didn’t really spend too much time on the cultural side

and artistic side and things like that.

So, in that sense I didn’t have if you like

kind of more all round kind of appreciation for non-technical.

You are a Computer nerd.

Yeah, especially during IIT days,

but even before you know it’s not like I tried to pursue,

I don’t know, Carnatic music

or Western music or any of those sorts of things,

but later of course, more because of my wife,

my kids wound up getting all sorts of stuff

forced on them to begin with at least.

And then of course, they started liking it and

so, they went quite a bit into the arts compared

to my own upbringing and so on.

So, as a as a as an ex-IBM or I should

I have to ask you this- Sure.

what parables do you see between IIT Madras

and IBM as an organization, do you see any?

Interesting, I had not thought about.

I mean I don’t know maybe from a leadership viewpoint or from-

See of course, the difference is one is a commercial

organization in the case of IBM and of course,

since in my case at least I have been all my life

in the IBM Research Division in many ways that’s like

being in academia and of course, you are a great example of a

person who is spanned both sides.

In my case in a formal sense I have not been a

faculty member anywhere although for the last three years

and continuing into the next three years,

I have this position as a distinguished visiting professor at

one of China’s pre-eminent universities namely Tsinghua University.

So, in terms of IIT of course,

the great thing that has happened long after I left

is the establishment of the IITM Research Park

and the increased focus in faculty members also getting involved in

trying to get some of their research output

getting commercialized and so on.

So, in in such ways you could say that

there is more similarity now between

let’s say IIT Madras and IBM research people

because as research people we have had to also have our challenge,

we have had to face the challenge of doing

technology transfer of the research ideas into IBM products.

So, in some ways that’s like academics

who are doing research work, trying to make their ideas

see the light of day and so,

now there is more such similarity

if you like between IBM and IIT Madras.

I don’t know if you have some other kinds of things in mind.

No, I think you know I I just think they are about

top class organizations.

Yeah of course, that that’s definitely the case Yeah.

independent of the its academic focus or a

product kind of focus or trying to move the state of the art

in a dramatic way in certain dimensions and so on. Right.

So, of course, you received your distinguished

Alumnus Award a few years ago. 2003.

2003. Yeah.

What was your I mean reaction

when you first learned that you were receiving the award

and then you actually received the award

what what were your memories?

I was quite pleased obviously, you know it is like

nice to hear from your alma mater that they think

you have done something you know worthy of that kind of

honour being bestowed on you,

but I was unsure whether the nominal department

that I was attached to namely Chemical Engineering

would feel excited about this or not because

I didn’t really continue that area of work or study and so on,

after I left the campus.

But, then again I thought Computer Science people

might not feel they have any special attachment

to you especially because by that time I think if my

memory serves me right both Mahabala and Muthu Krishnan

were no longer regular faculty members here.

Muthu might have been still an adjunct faculty member,

I am not sure and I did not know too many of the other people

that long after I left gotten into Computer Science.

So, if my memory serves me right actually somebody from

Chemical Engineering came and handed me the-

Yeah, that’s a tradition that the Head of the Department

from which you have graduated has to read your citation and stuff. Yeah.

So, it was nice.

Of course, I would have been even happier had that award

come the previous year because for the first time

we had our reunion that was my Silver Reunion 2002.

So, it did not happen that year even though

the application had been put in by some colleague of mine.

So, that would have been nice because then you know

because at that time unlike now I think the awards used to be

given out during these sorts of reunions in December. Ok.

So, I was thinking wow, wouldn't it have been nice

if you know it was done with about 85 or

so of the 250 graduates

so, 77 year. Yeah, we still announce the awards at the reunion,

but the they are actual giving up the award. I see. I see.

Is in April in on institute.

Yeah so, but of course, because there are lot of my classmates

who are still in Chennai who never even left Chennai in terms of

once I started working and so on moving somewhere else.

So, quite a good number of my classmates

did attend the award function

and so, it was thrilling and my parents also were there

and even my sister came and so on.

So, but my family was not here, meaning my immediate family.

But, they were with me when we had the Silver Reunion.

So, that is the only time in fact, both my kids

and my wife attended the reunions because

they didn’t come for the subsequent 30th, 35th, so on reunions.

And, I myself didn’t attend after the 30th reunion,

the 35th and the 40th ones,

but we are going to have a cruise come

end of March in the US,

whole bunch of people are coming for that.

So, I am looking forward to that.

And how about the IBM fellowship, I mean how was that?

So, that was very nice that happened in 1997.

So, just about 15 years after I joined the companies

when that happened and that was quite a

thrilling thing for me to see

that kind of recognition coming especially

because while it is not a record in terms of the number of years

after one joins the company to get the IBM fellowship,

its less than the average number of years.

So, so in that sense I really felt extremely happy about that especially

since for an IBM-er who has chosen even to this day to be a non-manager

this is like the pinnacle of technical career in IBM to get the IBM fellowship.

So, and I also had more or less stuck to the same area of work

instead of moving even as a technical person to dramatically

different areas as some people do.

And, so, for me that award and the year before

the ACM SIGMOD Innovation Award which is given for database people

were really you know extremely pleasing kinds of

recognition to be offered by the community of

database people across the globe in the case of the

1996 ACM SIGMOD Award in 97 by IBM people,

the immigrant fellowships so.

So, going back to your student days did you have

any run-ins with the administration?

Did you ever get to meet the directors?

I don’t think I had any

slaps on my wrist by administration

because of any bad behaviour or anything.

I might have actually met the Deputy Director,

Professor Sampath used to be the Deputy Director

and he had of course, Electrical Engineering kind of

background having got his Masters at Stanford.

But, in terms of both Professor Ramachandran,

who was the Director when I joined and a few years later

when Professor Pandalai took over,

I am not sure if I even met them once each one.

At least I don’t recall now, although I used to be extremely

active in terms of not just campus kinds of activities,

I was the Secretary of the Computer Club in my fourth year

and the President of the Computer Club in the fifth year.

And, I used to interact with even people outside of IIT

that were big name people in the Computer Science area

people that were considered like pioneers;

Professor Nataraj I mean Colonel Natarajan

whose two kids were juniors of mine here

and who also subsequently came to UT Austin to do their PhDs,

and also professor Narasimhan

who ran on the Computer group in TIFR

and later when this National Centre for

Software and Computer Technologies

was formed it was called NCSDCT.

And, there was Major General Bala Subramanyam

these three people were even though they were not by training

Computer Science people they were one of the they were as

amongst a small number of people who had gotten into

the Computer field in India early on and so

I was in that sense very active even though

I wasn’t in a formal sense a Computer Science person.

And, so, in that sense I did, you know,

network a lot and things like that which all helped me later on

and also made me feel in many ways attached to India.

Even though IBM as a company had left India in 1978,

at the same time that Coca Cola left, and IBM

didn’t come back to India until 1992 and even then it came back

as a joint venture with the Tata’s.

But even during that 78 to 92 period,

almost on every trip I made to India, I tried to go give talks

both at universities as well as in various commercial establishments.

And, so, I kept up my contacts with the Computer

community in particular in India during my entire professional career.

And of course, it all became even more serious

when in June 2006 I came to India as the

IBM India Chief Scientist, a position they created

which didn’t exist before and and initially

it was supposed to be for 24 months

but then they extended it for 8 more months.

So, until January, 2009, I was based in Bangalore

and I took it upon myself during that period to not only

go around colleges big ones,

but even small ones and also to go to other companies

and talk about long term technical careers

and how they are important for us to move beyond

doing mundane work to you know,

move of the food chain and do more innovative work

and things like that and establish the notion of a

technical ladder and not make everybody think

if they do not become managers

they haven’t made it in life.

So, in your graduating class

how many went abroad for higher studies? What percent of?

My recollection is that out of the 250 or so,

out of which strangely enough there were only three women

maybe about one-fourth went abroad.

Later on of course, even some of the other people showed up,

but of course, that has changed dramatically

from what I gather a lot. 100 percent.

Yeah. So, that is a good thing and, but then that concern

I had was and I used to talk about this can India become an

innovation superpower because this idea of giving

such a presentation came up because

the UC Santa Cruz people had a South Asian kind of program

and they were asking people to come

and talk about India related topics

and this happened during my India tenure in Bangalore.

So, my point was even if the brain drain is not happening,

does that mean that these people that would have

otherwise gone abroad are they still pursuing an academic

career in terms of at least getting degrees like Masters and PhD

are or they just merely going into the professional

career path or as it used to happen even during my time

a good percentage of these people go in for MBAs

at IIMs and then they no longer even work as technical people. Right.

They become management material.

So, I felt that it probably was a problem for both

the foreign countries that used to benefit from

Indians going abroad as well as India because

people just had these easy to get jobs

especially when IT became so dominant in the

Indian scene even non-Computer Science

background people were able to get IT jobs.

I felt that in some sense it didn’t help

anybody that not enough of the people

who are pursuing higher studies and doing research.

I don’t know what your.

I think there is there is a fine balance you have to strike

somewhere I think maybe right now it’s too low.

But, was that like a scientific process for selecting universities,

you know I remember this tapping?

was a was a very very systematic exercise.

The students used to get together and divide up the Universities and. No.

So, in my time there wasn’t this notion of people going

and writing GRE and coming back and recalling

what the questions were and then preparing this

whatever this binder kind of thing, I didn’t even know

that that was being done after I left.

I don’t know after how long after I left

and that this had become like a way in

which a lot of the people here prepared for-

Actually what I am talking about is selection of the university.

No, no I I understand.

So, so this particular thing I didn’t know about,

but I also found out unlike in my time that subsequently

there was this attempt to divvy up who applies to which university.

To my knowledge in my time there was no such thing.

So, the level of sophistication if you like of trying to make sure

that the the top rankers don’t wind up applying to gazillion

universities and they all give them admission.

And then the each one is able to go to only one university in the end

and then they the process mess up the lives for the

sort of the next ring kind of students,

I don’t think that level of sophistication was applied in

my time for people to

try to make it a win-win for at least a significant

number of people in the upper ranks if you like.

So, I was- when I later on found out about all that I was like wow,

these guys have made it into an art form how to-

A science not even.

But then I also at the same time started hearing

from some of the US University people, meaning faculty members

that they had come to know about this and

so, they stopped giving importance to the GREs course of

especially people from institutions like IIT Madras

and maybe the other IITs also and they started

relying more and more on the reference letters from the faculty here

as being more reliable indicators of how good these people are.

You mentioned that there were hardly any female students Yeah.

when you were here.

So, how did that affect you after you graduated?

Well, I don’t know about after graduation,

but during the time in contrast to what the story was at

IIT Madras I used to feel very envious of the

guys across the street in Guindy Engineering,

where if my memory shows me right in all of Madras University

that was the only Engineering College where women were admitted.

So, they had something like 50 women in their

batch that came in in 72 whereas,

we had 3 women and so, I was like this is unfair.

I don’t think it affected me in any way seriously.

No, but I also like I said I got too engrossed in

all this Computer Science thing

so, I was not pursuing in any romantic way any of these women.

So, had I been you know motivated differently

maybe I would have felt even-

So, you are romancing the silicon so-

Yeah, not even the silicon more software right

because I wasn’t really a hardware kind of guy.

So, yeah so, and I was quite crazy in many ways like

that even when I went to,

I remember one time to Baroda for my

Summer Internship to the refinery in Baroda.

I still did it as a Chemical Engineer guy, believe it or not.

One day I went to Ahmadabad, instead of spending the

day sightseeing I went to the library there and started looking at

what they have in terms of Computer Science books and such.

So, in that in many ways like that it was quite

an abnormal case.

Did you have an industry tour when you were student?

Did you go? No.

Like All India.

I don’t even recall such a thing being done.

There was one yeah yeah. Did you have it?

Really? I didn’t even know. So, we went to Goa and supposedly to

Chemical factories which we never went near,

but yeah we went all over the place.

Ok, somehow I don’t recall my making a conscious

decision not to go on such a thing,

so, but one thing that I do remember ok.

So, that is in going back to one of your earlier questions.

I was in the Air Force Wing of NCC and I also

I think that might have been during

my pre-university day in Loyola.

What was the other thing?

National Service Core, NSC.

So, I took part in that too.

So, as part of this NCC Air Force Wing in IIT,

we were taken on a camp trip to Bangalore

and as part of that I forget now how long it was

10 days or whatever stay in the

Madras Engineering Service or some

such unit of the Army I think.

That’s where in their bunkers or

whatever is where we were put up,

we were given a joyride.

in an aircraft.

So, that is the only time I had ever been on an aircraft

until I was flying from here to Delhi to

Tehran to Paris to New York to Austin. Wow.

On my trip out of India for the first time

and I had never gone abroad also.

So, for me all this was like totally

different kind of experience.

And, but at the same time I should say that when I

was going to Austin all I knew in terms of even

Texas as a whole was based on the movies

I saw here in OAT right, western movies.

And so, I was expecting Austin to be like any other city

in Texas and it was such a pleasant surprise to go there

and find that Austin is so different – hill country, greenery, river, Yeah.

non-redneck kind of place because it was primarily

at the time a university town and a capital of the state.

We just spent 3 days there to the end of December early there.

Wow, nice.

So, so in many such ways for me the IIT life

and what it brought about in terms of my future and so on

those are extremely pleasant memories and

things that I appreciate a lot.

And, I constantly talk about not just IIT by the way.

Whenever I see Germans, especially Germans

who come from the western part of Germany

I don’t forget to acknowledge what that country

did to my career and future and so on.

In particular, I remember the German Minister

for Economic Cooperation I think there is a

photo of that person in the the. Collection.

You have in the Heritage Centre,

he in his remarks during the inauguration of the

Computer Centre which happened a few months

after the actual operational usage of the Computer Centre started.

He said not too many

German, West German Universities at that time

could boast of having such a machine.

Even though, when we now look back its crazy

this machine had 256 K of memory

and it took something like 7 to 8 hours for

a compilation to be done of the program

you had to punch in cards and. All FORTRAN, right?

Yeah. So, but the fact that West Germans

you know didn't give priority to all their universities

before donating machines to institutions abroad

is something that, at least in my life

came at the right time and made a huge difference

as to what I chose to pursue as a result of my exposure

starting from my second year to that mainframe. Right.

So, we should probably conclude. Sure, thank you.

Thanks for taking the time and thanks to Kumaran

and the others for giving me this opportunity to talk about

and reminisce about my past year.

Thank you.

Thanks Mohan.

A very good morning, sir.

You are my teacher, Head of the Department,

Director and research mentor also.

It’s my great pleasure to be interacting with you

and talk to you about the good old times at IIT Madras.

So, you had done your undergraduate education at

University College, Bangalore followed by

Prof. Natarajan: Yes. Prof. Sundararajan: Master's degree in IISc,

Prof. Natarajan: Yes. Prof. Sundararajan: and then another Master's and Ph.D.

from University of Waterloo in 1970.

So when did you join IIT Madras, sir?

September of 1970.

I had come here on a vacation,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: and then K. Ramachandran,

he was my teacher at the Indian Institute of Science.

So he asked me if I was interested in a

faculty position at IIT Madras,

because they were just…at that point of time

they were recruiting new faculty members.

So I said, “Yes” and I attended the interview,

and they selected me and then I had a little bit of

an issue whether to join…I could have…could have

you know pack up and

come back to India, or to go back to Canada

because I had a post-doctoral research fellowship

in Canada at that time.

So I deci…my…of course, obviously,

the influence of parents and so on,

and therefore, I joined IIT Madras,

and I am glad I did

because I’ve had a…1970 to 2000; about 30 years of

active academic service at IIT Madras

which is by all accounts,

one of the best institutions in the whole world.

Not only in India, but also in the whole world.

The…what you have said about

my education and early experience,

a couple of gaps there.

I worked in Tata Power Company for about 6 months,

and then in…in…in Canada again

as a post-doctoral research fellow for about 6 months.

Otherwise my career is complete, as you have mentioned.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: You know I…I have to say something about you;

you were one of…you have been one of our best students,

and then of course, you went abroad for your Ph.D.,

and when you came back,

I think you fitted very naturally

into the academic system at IIT Madras,

and I know you have been there since…at the time you joined,

but you joined IIT Kanpur first, right?

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes sir, 1985.

Prof. Natarajan: So you joined IIT Kanpur and

and we…we pulled you…you away from Kanpur to…

Prof. Natarajan: and I…I hope that we have [indistinct] Prof. Sundararajan: And in ‘93 I shifted to IIT Madras, sir.

Shifted, okay, and I hoped you have had a satisfactory and…

Prof. Sundararajan: Fantastic time, sir, great time.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: And my complaint against you was

that you take on too much to do.

So, in many, many items we…we would be

afraid to take on all those responsibilities.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: From the beginning…

you know when I joined IIT Madras as I have said,

Dr. A. Ramachandran was the Director,

and we have a natural fit also,

because, he was also interested in curricular matters

in not only delivery of education,

but also in the creation of knowledge.

Therefore, we had a natural fit.

And that relationship also worked very well.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Sir, before 1970

did you have an opportunity to visit IIT Madras, sir?

No, not really, I didn’t come here.

Prof. Sundararajan: But your brother studied here in IIT Madras.

Yes, but much earlier than that, probably the second batch.

So, ‘60 or…to ’63, he was in the 3-year programme,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: so I did visit IIT Madras.

Prof. Sundararajan: Okay. And…the reasons for my joining the Institute;

I had a preference for an academic career,

and as I mentioned earlier,

we had heard a lot about IIT Madras,

except that we were understaffed as usual,

and the facilities had not been established,

therefore, the people who came much earlier,

for example, the faculty members who are there now,

they owe a debt of gratitude to the

administration and the funding agencies,

before they joined.

They probably think that…that everything was

ready and operational by the time we joined. Not at all,

as…as you are talking about my brother,

they were staying in a hostel outside the Institute

when the campus was being built.

Prof. Sundararajan: Built. Prof. Natarajan: So I have a small grouse there.

If you look at the AICTE requirements,

because I have been a regulator,

regulations, a lot of things have to be in place,

both academic as well as extracurriculars,

stay arrangements and a whole lot of things.

And the…for the faculty families, the support infrastructure

before the students come in and start…starting their education.

However, even now,

Institutes have started, announcements are made,

and then the campus is getting prepared,

that is really not at all a good policy.

What you lose is about 3 years.

It…because it takes about 3 years to set up a campus.

A real case in example is the IIT in Hyderabad;

at the moment they have a very nice campus,

but when they started,

and I was the Chairman of a 3 member committee

to decide on the location of the IIT in Hyderabad.

There were three options and

we chose what we thought was the best option.

But the point is, when they joined,

it was a temporary campus,

whereas now, it is a very well designed…

probably one of the best campuses.

So you are…the…the students who join,

they are deprived of a whole lot of

necessary and desirable infrastructure.

Even…even today, you must…you must have seen

in the newspaper that the faculty shortage

in each of the IITs is about 30 percent or 35 percent.

So that is at…you…you are

deceiving the students, who have joined you

in the hope that…that…that they will get wholesome education.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: So that…that is part of the issue.

Prof. Natarajan: So… Prof. Sundararajan: Then IIT Madras also, the initial thing…

Prof. Sundararajan: the classes, were they held outside IIT, sir?

Prof. Sundararajan: In AC Tech or something?

Prof. Sundararajan: Initially in IIT Madras? Prof. Natarajan: Yes, yes,

at IIT Madras, quite right,

It took a long time for them to establish the departments.

But they had an advantage; that German

academic faculty…m…m…members from 5-6 universities,

they were called the Madras Committee,

they had a Madras Committee at that time

and they designed the syllabus,

they designed the important infrastructure,

and, at that time, because of the importance

that Germany gave for working by hand,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: or the practical knowledge and experience.

In fact, they used to have I don’t...I don’t think

you know about it also, they had

Prof. Natarajan: an academic week and a technical infrastructure week Prof. Sundararajan: I went through that, sir.

Prof. Sundararajan: In fact, in… Prof. Natarajan: You went through that?

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. So we had one week of…academic week Prof. Natarajan: Oh, great!

and then next week was workshop week.

Whole week you know, five and half days;

Monday to Saturday, half a day, it was a workshop.

So we went through that system.

A lot of emphasis on practical work,

Prof. Sundararajan: laboratory work and so on, Prof. Natarajan: Yes.

and 5 years of programme.

So what is your impression about 5 years to 4 year, sir?

Has it diluted the programme or?

No, the 4 years was made essentially because of the fact

that in the higher secondary…

or the secondary or intermediate for example,

they learned a lot of maths and physics and chemistry,

which need not be repeated.

Even today as you know, there is quite a bit of repetition

in terms of physics, chemistry, mathematics,

although workshop and drawing were different.

I think it was a good idea to reduce the…

because we also wanted compatibility between

the US system and the…the…the Indian system,

whereas, the German system and the Indian system;

many, many differences because

the basic degree was a 5 -year diplom.

Prof. Sundararajan: Diplom. Prof. Natarajan: Yeah, but because of commercial and the other interests,

they also fell in line with the international practices.

So there, they have a 4-year undergraduate programme.

Sir, one more thing is

initially as it was an annual examination system, sir?

Prof. Natarajan: Right, right. Prof. Sundararajan: So, like this university,

and later on the semester system came.

Prof. Sundararajan: So did you feel that Prof. Natarajan: more than

going from annual to semester was an improvement or…

Prof. Sundararajan: what is your opinion about that? Prof. Natarajan: Internationally, as you know,

we have the semester system.

In…recently I was in an advisory committee,

to convert the conventional engineering programme from a

semester system to a trimester system.

This was an institution

which was famous for…it is in Bombay,

is famous for their management programme.

They felt that they could follow the same practice,

but then, I was one of the principal advisers

who suggested that it will not work in engineering.

The reason why the annual was changed

to semester was because,

continuous evaluation, and you could have the tests

and semester examinations

and also more subjects can be managed.

If it is an annual thing, it will be more difficult,

and the other consideration…

taking the students’ interests into consideration was

that students study only before the examinations,

they do not have a continuous study and evaluation.

I think the semester system is probably the ideal;

neither the annual system nor the trimester system.

Trimester systems used to be suitable for

the management programmes

where you have to study a large number of subjects.

Sir, when we were students, the emphasis was more

on the undergraduate programmes,

but slowly the emphasis seems to have shifted

towards PG programmes and research.

So what is your observation on this, sir?

Here I will tell you,

you see the number of undergraduates you can handle,

but the load…more important than the teaching load is the

marking of grading of both

term papers as well as the final exam papers.

Now, the alumni of IIT Madras

seem to have a very strong opinion about this,

I will tell you the reason also for this:

They felt that the undergraduate students is

too valuable a programme

to dilute or reduce in magnitude or

increase the emphasis on postgraduate programmes.

In fact, a group of…I was in Canada at that time,

a group of alumni met us

because we were from the same Institute, senior alumni,

they said, “For god's sake do not

remove or dilute the undergraduate programme.”

Prof. Sundararajan: Okay. Prof. Natarajan: The reason for that; the IITs are known

more for the undergraduate programmes

than for the postgraduate programmes

including the Ph.D. programmes.

I happened to meet a US faculty member,

fairly senior person in Dubai at a conference.

And, he said, “I know I have seen…”

he was…he was a…he was an American,

and he said, “Thank you for feeding

good undergraduate students to us

as course…as graduate students.

Without them we will not be able to do our research.”

So, he also suggested that our undergraduate programme…

and we also know that they are the star products

for many reasons. You…you get good quality students

and even though we provide them with good education and infrastructure,

they don’t actually value it.

While…and students don’t value it.

We have had the meetings of current and alumni discussions,

and if you ask this…the current students,

“Which do you think is the most important contributor,

significant contributor for your education?” and so on.

They never used to talk about the Institute infrastructure,

nor of the faculty member for whom

they have the least respect.

But, they said it is because of the

interaction among the current students.

What interaction do they have, I would like to find out.

Anyway, you know, that’s a rather tongue in cheek response,

but it is true that you put bright students

who…if…if they want to study very hard

of course, the facilities that are available.

But the interaction among them,

you know that’s why in many of the US universities

you will know that

when they choose the students, they choose a good mix of

students with different capabilities

and different interests and things like that.

So I…I…you know, in fact, every Head of Departments…

at the meeting of the Heads of Department, I used to ask the Heads,

“Which is our most important contribution as an institution?”

It is undergraduate institution.

So, the question was, “When do you make this institution

where the star products, or the postgraduate students,

the graduate students?”

And, there is also the

feeling that we have an inverted pyramid;

the best of school leavers they become graduates,

and the best of graduates of course, go to industry, go abroad.

And, what we get as postgraduate input

is not as good as that of the undergraduates,

and the Ph.D., it is those who couldn’t find job

even after the post-graduation.

They…you know, because of the fellowship, they felt that

this…this was a common perception.

Even now it is there, perception.

But things have changed to some extent, sir, quite a bit.

They…we find that

both at the Master’s level as well as the Ph.D. level,

there are some good students.

I would say 10-20 percent are fairly good,

and of course, Institute as such,

its ranking, and you know whatever

the world sees you know, about the Institute,

the view will be improved only

if we get good publications and

even the…our faculty

who are selected from best among the world,

whatever output is there,

that has to be seen out…in the outside world.

So, undergraduate education alone will not…you know,

of course, it’s a good product, we should not dilute it,

but at the same time I think

research plays a very important role also.

So, what do you feel about the PG students in general, sir?

You know, nationally, I can talk about it.

What is happening is the PG students

you know, you have the best of the undergraduates as I mentioned,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: they get jobs, industrial jobs

and very few of them are interested in research or teaching.

Of course, they want to get the maximum education

before they start delivering that education to people.

However, at the moment there is a real issue;

employment and employability of the postgraduate students.

As you know when the companies come to the campus,

they are not interested in interviewing the postgraduate students.

First they would like to take a look at the undergraduate students.

This this is a serious issue, and that is why

people like S. Gopalakrishnan formerly of Infosys,

he has set up some incubation centres,

entrepreneurship training and things like that

in Kerala, that’s where he comes from.

And he has given a large amount of money

for these things to be set up.

Now, when I…I was in the IIT many years ago,

there used to be a ranking of the best Asian universities:

Japan, Korea…China was not yet a significant part,

and IIT Madras was almost always in the first three.

And we used to be very proud of that.

The interesting…this is the magazine Asia Week;

they became more and more sophisticated,

and they…when I…they stopped doing it

after the QS and the THE ranking;

the Times Higher Education rankings.

They became famous because that was global,

it was only Asia.

They used to have as one of the parameters,

internet connectivity for student.

So they had become quite…

you know, mature and sophisticated.

And, we always used to come within the first three

and we were very happy, and I had a committee

to look at the reasons why we were not number 1.

Prof. Sundararajan: Number 1. Prof. Natarajan: I believed in rankings

many people do rank and…and I have done some

work on ranking the academic rankings.

And, it is very important to

benchmark your institution with the others

Prof. Natarajan: and the rankings provide an opportunity for doing that. Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah.

Prof. Natarajan: Of course, there are some fraudulent activities. Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah.

You know you take advertisements in our journals and

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: attend our conferences, sponsoring them.

And they get slightly higher ranking.

But however, the methodology itself has become

Prof. Natarajan: very sophisticated. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, yes.

Prof. Sundararajan: Sir… Prof. Natarajan: So when I became the…

Prof. Natarajan: yes? in…you have been in the Mechanical Department

from 1970 to about 2000 or so.

What changes did you observe

in the department, sir, during this period?

Actually to tell you the truth, not many.

It also means that we had had a certain level of maturity

which need not be changed.

So, a department consists of

Prof. Natarajan: faculty members of different specializations. Prof. Sundararajan: Specialization.

The undergrad, the labs and the

experiences for the undergraduates

and the research infrastructure

as well as the climate for the postgraduates.

More and more what I have seen is that the

younger faculty members, they are not interested in teaching,

they have…basically interested only in research and

activities which promote the publication of journals.

So teaching used to get a very low priority among the

Prof. Sundararajan: Okay Prof. Natarajan: faculty members.

It was very difficult to make them teach new courses,

even though the curriculum was changing…being changed,

keeping with the changing

industrial and research environment elsewhere.

But the faculty members stuck to

their…their own in…individual research,

and also publish or perish was the basis for faculty promotions.

And one of the other factors here is,

you could…you could not even get young faculty members

to take on administrative positions

wardens or members of committees and so on,

because it would detract from their mainstream activity.

I understand even now it is very true.

Is that true now?

No, no there are people

who are interested in administration,

there are people who are not interested,

who would like to concentrate on the research.

So we get all sorts of people, that was not a problem.

Alright, and of course, the…the…the

the kind of that…the…the mix of

topics on which the faculty members work,

they have also changed considerably.

Because, internationally…

and usually people do not want to take up

work that involves lot of experimentation

and labs. Almost everybody has gravitated towards computer.

No, no not really,

now the materials area has really expanded,

so people are looking at micro, nano scale things,

in every area, whether its mechanical or

chemical or metallurgy or whatever.

So those kind of current areas, a lot of people are working,

and then energy related research is also going on.

And you were aware of the combustion research also,

where you have helped us really.

Prof. Sundararajan: The combustion research NCCRD. Prof. Natarajan: You know for example,

Mmhmm, yes…there is a lot of potential,

we hope it will serve the country,

we can…we have very severe requirements in combustion.

And for…for example, you know Ajit Kumar

Kolar of Heat Transfer,

he almost transferred the

fluidized bed combustion facility from New York,

because he worked there and they did not have

much interest in that subsequently

to our IIT, but I understand that

the activities there are petering out.

People are interested in…

you know they…they like to do modelling of

Prof. Sundararajan: Modelling. Prof. Natarajan: FBC and so on, but not so much.

This is really something that is happening

all over the world, it’s not only for us.

Sir, experiments at the system level,

they don’t have much…

you know people don’t respect it very much.

You have to do work at the minute level at the point or may be

you know, extremely localized measurements done

all over you know, the system

and then get a lot of data and process the data,

also compare that with predictions.

So it has become more intense.

If you do experimental work at that level it is respected,

but system level measurements,

so…so you take an IC engine and

measure input output, that kind of research is not respected.

So it is difficult to publish that kind of work.

What has happened is

the students have become very sophisticated,

we require sophisticated instruments,

lot of money has been invested,

either you do research at that level,

or you know, experiments at system level

are not getting much respect,

that is the problem.

So it has become very expensive in the process.

Yes, you are right…

my…my faculty supervisor used to say

that nature and reality

are only in experimental work.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes sir. Prof. Natarajan: What you do with computers and

theoretical analysis has to be validated

you know, by actual experiments,

but very difficult to…there are many…Murphy's laws are there

regarding experimental…if anything can go wrong, they definitely will.

I have one observation,

sir, when I came from Kanpur,

I found that in Mechanical Department,

all the labs were more or less isolated

and like water tight compartments,

Prof. Sundararajan: and people are doing work Prof. Natarajan: Yeah

you know, individually and not…

and most of the work is interdisciplinary.

Today in fact, you have to be doing interdisciplinary research

if you have to be counted.

So what is your observation on…you know, the earlier things

and how things evolved over a period of time?

See IIT Madras had a great advantage;

that the German system was adopted

because of the presence of the German professors

there and their assistance with being focused on

Indo-German kind of a cooperation and so on.

As a result of which, we invite several

very desirable practices from German system;

can you imagine, in a Mechanical Department,

Thermodynamics and Combustion is a separate lab,

Heat Transfer and Thermal Power a separate lab,

Hydro Power a separate lab,

Prof. Natarajan: you could not imagine in any other institute, therefore, Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah, yeah.

there was a certain culture

which was developed in each of these areas,

and I benefited from that because

Thermodynamics and Combustion are

naturally more closely related than,

let us say Heat Transfer and Combustion for example.

Therefore, there is quite a bit of basic studies

which happened in each of these individual…

they have…they are not different disciplines,

but different parts of Mechanical Engineering,

but grouped in a very…very wise manner.

So that was very good.

There are of course, some disadvantages of the German system;

are...[indistinct] you

when you are comparing IIT Kanpur,

all the faculty were put together in a faculty

in house, therefore the interaction was very intense,

whereas, in our Institute, except for the

few labs which were around the cafeteria,

so the faculty members…we used to go to the cafeteria together,

Aeronautical Department and so on.

Therefore, the interaction, even though

not much academic interaction takes place,

but still the fact that we were close to each other,

it helped in several ways.

For example, if you wanted to borrow some equipment,

and if somebody whom you knew

through your coffee interactions,

if you ask them, more often than not,

because at that time the pieces were just coming in,

and there were at much demand.

I have a few other things to talk about our Institute,

where I had some contributions to make.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: And that is, I looked at the different systems

and I felt that, you see,

I brought ISO 9000 to IIT Madras,

the first IIT to have it.

Because, I had several interactions with professional people,

both though professional societies

as well as through my personal relations.

And then I found for example, in one of these companies,

it was ICI…which became subsequently the company.

They had ISO 9000

and you could feel the…the…the existence of ISO 9000,

the place was very clean,

the quality policy was exhibited all over the place,

and each person had a sense of responsibility

and belonging to that institution.

Therefore, when I discussed having it in IIT Madras,

the faculty member of cour…of course, felt that

it was not suitable for an academic institution.

But my argument, which ultimately prevailed over

that there are many activities in an academic institution

which are similar to what happens in industry.

For example, if…workshop if you take a look at it,

it is a shop where students are trained,

but also products can be made

and sophisticated equipment can be utilized.

Now library, administrative section,

they all have similar

you know, characteristics as the industry.

So…and for that you need a lot of

training of the technical and support staff

and not only that, you need a

certain amount of coordination among them.

So the two or three supplementary things we did,

which fell in line with what industry, it does.

For example, you have to define a quality policy,

you have to train the people in quality assurance.

So we had a lot of training programmes,

and you also printed the

quality policy because Toyota does this;

that is you print this at the

back of a calendar in a pocket calendar.

And the…that explanation for this was

that you keep it in your pocket, the gentlemen

and it is close to the heart.

It’s so, and I found subsequently at some meetings,

that our faculty members were very

proud of our institution having ISO 9000,

particularly the workshop people.

Because, when they move about with other mechanics

and the foremen and so on of other factories for example,

they were proudly mentioning that

IIT Madras has ISO 9000.

Obviously, it is not really applicable to academic activities,

where accreditation is the important means of assuring,

now there again I was very lucky,

that our…particularly our alumni in the US,

they kept asking, “How…

what is your quality assurance mechanism?”

Therefore, we had several committees

consisting of the best of

industry people and their faculty members

in different departments,

and they spent 3 days…

2 or 3 days, I forget which one,

looking at different departments,

and for me luckily, the Computer Science Department

and the Electrical Engineering Department volunteered

to be examined by a group of peers.

And we had a final mean…almost similar to the accreditation practices

which take place by…through MBA,

but this was not happening in the other institutions.

Subsequently, I understand

that the other IITs also did this.

So they had a very intense interaction

with the faculty members of the department.

And we were surprised in the administration that

Computer Science came forward,

because they were all very bright

and proud faculty members.

They took it very seriously

and every 6 months this happened

and at the end of the 6 months,

they had to report again back to the committee;

what changes they have made,

what improvements they have made.

Therefore, there were many good things that happened,

and the other thing that I was very much interested in…

in defining a strategic plan for the institution.

And, unlike many other institutions

where the all the Heads of Department sit together,

and over a period of a week,

they evolve a strategic plan.

Because I have contacted

several academic leaders in US,

and they all told me the involvement

and the participation of the faculty member

or the concerned stakeholder is very important.

Because yes, you can define the plan,

but if you want to implement it,

you need the cooperation and commitment of

the each of the faculty members.

So that is something that we did.

And I’m glad that the practice is being continued

under the present administration, also they have

come up with two other strategic plans,

but I am little disappointed that

they did not show as…as reference

for their thinking and activities,

the plan that Professor Ananth and I had

Prof. Natarajan: Come…come up with. Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah.

And, for the first time, I use external

faculty members and industry specialists

to advise the IIT.

Normally, IIT was considered to be a resource,

where their knowledge and the experience

is transferred to the other institutions,

but never you receive the valuable inputs

Prof. Natarajan: from the people around you, so. Prof. Sundararajan: Especially in industry.

Prof. Natarajan: From industry and other…other faculty members also. Prof. Sundarajan: Yes [indistinct]

Because, because one of the…

like an oxygen for you know institutions is benchmarking.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: Industry follows it so very extensively.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: That is your…there are other people

who are doing similar things,

and some of them are doing it much

better than you are doing.

And, if you want to succeed and

move forward and upward,

then you need to see what others are doing,

there’s an excellent definition of benchmarking,

and that is to find out what others are doing,

and then replicating what they are doing,

emulating them and then going forward

from what they have done.

And I’ve had a discussion with Ramadurai about this,

and he said, “For each part of the activities

of the institution, you can have benchmark institutions.”

But now of course, MIT recently had a study,

they wanted to evaluate their undergraduate programme.

They chose about 8 or 10 institutions,

who are doing a very good job,

and the…in this context, you might also know that

Olin University, near Boston

is considered to be the best undergraduate institution.

There is a ranking for undergraduate institutions.

And there are faculty members

with Ph.D. who come there,

they sacrifice their research work

and…in the sense that

they do not engage in research work,

but then engage in

many different ways of transferring the knowledge

and experiences from the existing faculty members and the

industry around them for…to the students.

I understand those…they do not take a large number of students,

and they are in great demand by

Prof. Natarajan: industry in the government. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

Sir, from the time I joined…

one small thing, sir.

The industrial and sponsored research problem…projects,

and they have really increased quite a bit

over the last 20-25 years.

So what is your view on this, sir, the observations?

I would say that it is because of the

leaders who led the Institute,

and the…nationally,

as you…as you know…the initially…they said their

Prof. Natarajan: focus was on research: published or perish. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: And subsequently consult and publish or perish.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: Consulting basically means the industry oriented work.

Therefore, because of the

pressures on these institutions

to do different things,

obviously the institutions also started promoting

these activities and creating opportunities.

In this context one of the best things that happened

was the technology development missions that we had,

We had 8 missions or 9 missions of the [indistinct].

Therefore, the inter-IIT collaboration was also…

because in different IITs, there are

people who is doing similar things.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: But unfortunately, though it was not continued beyond

the first…first stage of about 5 years or 6 years,

you still do not know why.

So the planning commission which was coordinating it,

but now the NITI Aayog has come,

and they are putting some opportunities

in front of the different IITs.

the inter-IIT cooperation is very important.

Sir, some of the major projects that have been done

in the Mechanical Department…the Institute…

in fact you have also…yourself coordinated many of them;

the major projects that have been done from Mechanical.

Yes, apart from the technical projects,

we were given the opportunity

Prof .Natarajan: to do…engage in curriculum development. Prof. Sundararajan: Curriculum development.

So again because of Dr. Ramchandran,

he has interest in

academic, educational activities.

So our Curriculum Development Centre was a very active centre.

Essentially you had to provide some inputs

to the faculty members of the surrounding institutions,

because there are so many things that need to be done.

Because, the situation between IITs

and the other institutions is rather alarming,

because many of them, they…

they don’t have the facilities nor the faculty members,

but at the same time, they do not have the

will and the…the focus on engineering education.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: Sop that has been one of our hallmarks.

Some of the good things that happened

after I left IIT Madras,

were two or three things: one was the NPTEL.

Prof. Sundararajan: NPTEL. Prof. Natarajan: It actually…I…I sowed the seeds for NPTEL

behind the help of the Carnegie Mellon University

and also Professor Raj Reddy of CMU.

Now it has ultimately become swayam,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: And you know, involving several things.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: And the other thing that actually flowered

the…was this focus on R and D and interaction with industry,

and under Professor Ananth's leadership,

you have those research stars,

for example, it seemed to be quite active and bringing the

the industry and the other R and D institutions,

you know DRDO has a…has a complete floor of activities.

And, our alumnus Ramanujachari is heading it.

So this was again something which was

actually Ananth's achievement.

We had the land, and it was a curious circumstance

where we realized we had the land

Prof. Natarajan: given to us outside the Prof. Sundararajan: Outside.

IIT and we did some survey and

things like that and we found out and so,

it was possible to set it up.

There were some competitive interests also

that they wanted that that particular land

because land is so eagerly grabbed by everybody,

but we had a formal agreement with the state government.

So that is something else

which has become extremely significant in IIT.

Sir, one more programme we have now is GIAN,

I do not know if you have heard of this or not.

Prof. Natarajan: Yes, yes. Prof. Sundararajan: It is a Global Initiative for Academic Networking.

So every year we get about 100 faculty

or so, from different countries.

They come here and spend a week or 2 weeks and give

specific courses on very specific topics.

So that is also it has picked up quite well and…

A very good initiative,

I have been involved in similar activity

through something called IUCEE;

Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education.

And I was one of the founding directors.

It is doing extremely well.

It also provides opportunities in many other ways;

guidance for Ph.D. for young faculty members,

and many other things.

That is something that is happening.

One of the concerns of the central government also

has been our lack of presence in

the international rankings, global rankings.

I have done some work on that

and I have been assisting in a very small manner

Indian Institute of Science,

through what is called ICAR:

Indian Committee for Academic Rankings.

There are many procedural matters in addition to

the existing core of their rankings

which is really the research performance.

The manner in which you present the information,

the manner in which you ask all the faculty members

to publish papers until the same…you know kind of a heading.

For example, if you say Department of Chemical Engineering,

and things like that it gets a…it…the…the computer moves it

into a different…the different place.

IIT Madras should be available in every paper,

only then will it be counted

along with the other papers for that particular institute.

Because some similar…simple thing,

but the more important things are

publishing in Scopus indexed or…

journals which have impact factor.

The young people in order to increase the number; quantify,

they…they publish in several different journals.

You know this is something which will act

against the Indian journals,

because they are not counted.

Now, the question is, it’s not the number of papers,

as you know, it is the quality;

How is the quality defined?

Either through the Scopus indexing,

there may be the…some difficulty,

but that’s a different thing.

And then journals having impact factors.

Therefore, the young faculty members…because…

because I go to different institutions now,

they should publish only in journals

which have a certain minimum amount of quality,

only then, because they want to show

some publications for their promotions,

they published…and again the conference proceedings,

that is a different type of activity.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: They are not actually identified,

even though at the moment there are some indexes

which also take into consideration good conferences.

For example, IEEE conferences,

ASME conferences and so on,

but they are in a different compartment altogether.

Yes, sir. In fact for our promotion, we count only the Scopus indexed journals,

we don’t consider other journals at all.

Then the question is, then

why do you want to publish in other journals?

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: Becau…once you have published it,

then you cannot publish the same thing or parts of it

in Scopus indexed journals,

therefore it is a…it is a very simple analysis.

The…the question here, interesting question was suggested

as things for discussion CRD Narayanapuram.

See, I have gone through the origin and the

demise of the CRD.

Many of us felt that it was not in our mainstream activity.

For example, if you look at a faculty member,

what does he gain out of involvement in CRD activities?

At the moment the industry is doing it through CSR.

Right, because it will be counted,

it can be shown as desirable worthwhile activity.

CRD there were couple of problems: one,

a loan was taken, at one point of time,

the…the…the loan plus the interest was so great

that there was no way that the IIT was able to…

would be able to repay.

And therefore, an exemption was sought

when P. Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.

Again, the Director who actually originated that idea,

Professor P. V. Indiresan, he talked to quite a few people

to make sure that the interest

did not accumulate over the years,

and also to write off that particular loan

which was not a great amount of money.

But the activities…to some of us felt…

to what extent they enhance the

value of their activities for the IITs. This was one.

Secondly, there were a lot of people employed,

because there were lot of semi-skilled activities

which have to be done.

And these employees of these society, for instance,

wanted to be absorbed as the IIT employees.

That is a very serious…

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah, Prof. Natarajan: it has very serious political implication.

So these two things in particular, they…

so it’s…we have to learn from past experience,

particularly bad experiences,

and these two are not compatible with what IIT had to do.

Prof. Natarajan: [Indistinct] Prof. Sundararajan: Sir, one more interesting question.

Prof. Sundararajan: I have some…one interesting… Prof. Natarajan: Yeah.

over the last 3-4 decades the JEE exam

also has been undergoing some changes,

and coaching…effect of coaching also has been very strong.

So, do you feel these have really influenced the

quality of the students we are getting,

into IIT at the undergraduate level?

In the initial stages when I was there,

we…tried to find out, or people tried to find out

what is the reas…what are the reasons for the success of the IIT.

In other words, all the graduates that they produce,

they are prized products which go as input

to several places; both in India and abroad

for teaching, for research and…for industry.

And people talk about our IITs not having

many contributions for India,

that’s absolutely wrong.

If you look at the major industries

and public sector organizations in India,

many of them are from the IIT system.

Even research organizations, sir;

Prof. Sundararajan: many of the research organizations of IIT Prof. Natarajan: Not only.

as a postgraduate…PG students from IIT have gone there.

Prof. Natarajan: No, no, no, no. Prof. Sundararajan: In ISRO, NAL.

Yeah, but the ISRO people who are part of the ISR…ISRO success story,

they are graduates, postgraduates from IIT.

Prof. Sundararajan: In the IIT. Prof. Natarajan: Therefore, we have a lot of contributions. In fact, BHU,

that it felt very sorry that an…it is an iconic institution,

that they were being criticized

for not contributing to the

national development in different areas.

And they have published a booklet

indicating their major alumni

who have indeed contributed to the

Indian industry, R and D.

It’s a…it’s a huge number of people.

Therefore, all IITs have done that.

That was one, that’s was…

so JEE was considered to be the principal reason

that we were able to pick up the

best talent within the country.

And of course, you can also criticize it,

because the talent that it picks up,

Prof. Natarajan: they are not interested in staying in India. Prof. Sundararajan: Staying.

We…we…we are we are criticized for brain drain.

There are two types of brain drain;

I have done a little bit of work under brain drain.

One is the external brain drain, when our people,

they study in India and then go abroad

for postgraduate work and

even subsequently they settle down there.

The other one is the internal brain drain,

where you train our students for technology,

but then they take up non-technology occupations and

put it…that is the internal brain drain.

Prof. Sundararajan: Internal. Prof. Natarajan: There were reasons for both.

Now ultimately, it is all related to the national culture.

Now, when Gandhiji was leading the independence movement,

there was a fervor, there is a desire

and a very keen desire to serve the country.

At the moment, you look at the corruption,

you look at the political scenario,

and then you wonder

why the young people are not motivated to…

even then there are people who do rural work,

but the…that spirit of service, the spirit of doing work

for other people, they soon become cynical.

This is the…basically the problem.

So JEE therefore now, with 23 IITs.

The catchment area has also increased.

Prof. Sundararajan: Increased. Prof. Natarajan: And as I said, when the IITs start; the new IITs,

they don’t have the type of facilities nor the faculty members.

It is a shame that we have a

faculty shortage position of all IITs of about 30 percent.

Why, if all…students are keen to join IITs, then they expect

good faculty members to not only teach them,

but all to also to inspire them,

why is it that that the such a large number of faculty?

Of course, one of the reasons given is that we want the best

and therefore, we wait for the best to come. Yes, that may be,

but then, just like you want to enhance the

catchment area of students for coming to IIT,

similarly you have to provide for teacher training institutions;

institutions which create good teachers. We need to do that

and I don’t think it has been done enough.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: Because, you have several alternative professions now,

where business and money

are more important than anything else.

So, I…I think the demand for IIT seats

will continue to increase.

So, it is our responsibility to

provide for that fulfilment of the demand.

Yes, yes. Sir, from the time you joined, to once you were retired,

so what major changes did you observe in the campus and

the good ones, the bad ones?

No, I mean the bad one we have talked about,

Prof. Natarajan: because it…it doesn’t seem to… Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

interest the young faculty members and the young students.

The level of discipline…of course, I also get the information from

our IIT and other IIT in terms of faculty interactions,

the level of discipline; discipline is the word

which is not compatible with

the current day young students and faculty.

But, you…you…you…you don’t have to have discipline like in the military,

but unless people are organized,

people have a common purpose,

it is difficult to achieve success.

And, it is said that you have to get the faculty interests

and the institutional in…interests aligned.

They must both be interested in similar things

which are desirable things to do

that is not happening, there is a lot of…

whether it is because of…you know, the diversity

that is…exists now or whatever,

that…that they do not seem to be interested in similar things.

And if somebody is not able to cope up with many subjects,

no point in him being there and…

and that is why our Professor Indiresan's…

he gave them a way out,

by giving them a BA in Technology Arts,

but that did not work,

because many people said,

“We came to IIT for a B.Tech. degree.”

not for the [indistinct] degree kind of a thing

Yeah, but everybody cannot do everything.

So at some point of time you should

recognize your strengths and weaknesses

and that is a very mature decision one has to make.

And the parents have to chip in

and help them to do this,

and one example…set of examples people can give is

all the great…the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and so on,

they were all college dropouts.

Prof. Sundararajan: Dropouts Prof. Natarajan: I mean there is a reason for that.

Because they felt that they did not gain anything

Prof. Natarajan: through that…going through the academic studies, Prof. Sundararajan: Formal education.

but they had other innate abilities,

Prof. Sundararajan: I mean Prof. Natarajan: innovative capacities

which they could pursue to perfection

and then make a name in that particular area.

So these are things, it is a mature aspects…

you cannot expect an 18 year old

Prof. Natarajan: student to recognize these things. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

Sir, you have any advice to the faculty and students

for sustaining the excellence in IIT Madras?

I don’t believe that we have reached the peak

Prof. Natarajan: and we need to sustain Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah, we still have to go a long way.

I bel…yeah…I believe you have to go higher and higher and higher,

because one of the things that I have been involved

because of my presence in AICTE

and also my interest in engineering education is

that all institutions cannot become world class institutions.

The world class institution is a…actually a best in class institution

that is a better definition of that.

In order to do that, it’s not only important to work hard,

but also as they say in industry, you have to work smart.

Prof. Sundararajan: Okay. Prof. Natarajan: We have to choose, there is a decision making process

that has to be adopted

to choose the activities, first prioritize.

Prof. Natarajan: First prioritize Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

what is important for yourself and

for the institution, and then focus all your energy

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: In order to excel in those things and it’s not easy.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: For example, take a look at teaching.

So much of learning resources are available

both online, as well as in the libraries and so on…

the…it’s a constant struggle for the faculty member

to be one up on the students.

And therefore, the present

model of teaching-learning doesn’t work anymore.

It is a collaborative learning

Prof. Natarajan: that one has to participate in. Prof. Sundararajan: Right.

The teacher does not know everything

and the student is…doesn’t start from level zero.

So it is a cooperative mutually beneficial activity.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Prof. Natarajan: So, the…these processes have to change.

There is a disruption occurring in education

in particular, and technical education

because technical education has technological factors

which need to be taught

and which need to be imbibed.

Therefore, as I say, there are a lot of opportunities,

but also a lot of challenges.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: In the…the…the…the trick is in balancing these two

and ultimately, as they say,

if you have a tendency to speak the truth,

you don’t have to have a good memory.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: Because, you will never go wrong in your discussion.

That is something else that is…

as…I would like to mention this:

We had a matured student

who succeeded as an entrepreneur,

and we asked him, “What did you miss learning in the IIT?”

He said, “You never taught us how to be bad.”

In the sense say…say falsehoods

and look…look for cutting corners and things like that.

Within the IIT it is an ideal situation, idealistic situation,

because there are specific modes of behaviour

and you have to do the…almost always the right thing;

whereas, you come out of the campus,

and all this one has to forget

Prof. Natarajan: in order to learn new things, bad things. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

But…so we are doing a service

and a disservice at the same time.

We are showing them what would the right way to do things,

Prof. Natarajan: but at the same time that doesn’t seem to help him in life…. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir.

many of them, not…not all of them.

Therefore, the world has to change,

we don’t have to change.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: The world has to change

and somewhere along the line, we have to get together

Prof. Natarajan: and change the world. Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir, yes.

So, as long as you are in the IIT,

remember that you are in a good system,

Prof. Sundararajan: Yeah. Prof. Natarajan: And, there’s no reason to be sorry

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes sir. Prof. Natarajan: That you are not being taught the bad things.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes, sir. Prof. Natarajan: Okay.

Yes, sir, thank you, sir!

Thank you very much for asking good questions

and motivating me to answer.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes sir, Mr. Kannan Krishnamurthy: I edited your video long back

when I joined in 2005 in IIT Madras, and

2007 and 8, when I was making a documentary for

alumni…actually alumni affairs.

I edited you with…when you were inaugurating Sharavathi Hostel;

Prof. Natarajan: Did I do that? Mr. Krishnamurthy: a small video clip.

Oh I see, okay. Thank you, thank you very much.

Mr. Krishnamurthy: Thank you, sir. Prof. Natarajan: Nice interacting with you.

Mr. Krishnamurthy: Thank you so much.

Good morning, Professor Ananth. Good morning.

Sir, its always a delight to talk to you and the

especially in the context of this

Oral History project that the Heritage Centre has undertaken.

So, I would like to start by

asking you to describe your life

before you joined IIT Madras as a faculty

member, and then we will

talk about your life here.

When I grew up in Chennai,

I was part of a joint family,

went to a Tamil medium school till 4th standard

then switched to a convent because my mother was

concerned that I...I wasn't learning English enough.

And then, couple of years in a convent then

went to Madras Christian College High School.

We had a wonderful headmaster there Professor Kuruvila Jacob,

he was a really enlightened man. He made...

I think he made learning a pleasure overall,

he never believed in any punishment,

although he carried a cane with him.

And he used to punish us when

we were caught doing some mischief and sent to him.

He would swish the cane very hard,

but very close to your hand, it will never hit you.

In fact, I remember one classmate of

mine moving the hand getting hit, he said,

"Silly fellow, don't you know I miss always?"

He said...(In Tamil) Like that

So it was simply symbolic, but it was a

wonderful experience being with him in...

And later we started this Kuruvila Jacob initiative.

We started the Kuruvila Jacob initiative.

My classmate started it, I also helped with them.

And so that was a good experience,

then I was in Vivekananda College for one year,

that was also a wonderful experience.

The teachers were very good, uniformly good,

although at least half of them didn't know

how to keep discipline in class.

120 students many of them who made noise, but...

I think they were remarkable in the sense

their concentration on the subject was so much

that they didn't even notice that the students made noise.

So, we had really good teachers in Vivekananda,

then I joined A. C. College of Technology, and...

That's because back then, IIT Madras was not...

No, actually I applied, the...I got a letter

for saying I hadn't paid the postal order,

my postal order didn't reach them.

So I can't write the JEE. Oh.

And it...it was no big deal, because in those

days the other colleges were as good. Yeah.

The state Universities were run very well.

A. C. College had probably a better chemical engineering

department at that time than anybody else here in the South.

So, there was no...this thing at all.

So I joined A. C. College, I had a very nice time,

five years there, and Dr. Laddha was the Director

of A. C. College.

He was a very serious man,

but it turned out that he had a sense of

humour once you penetrated the

initial layer, but he kept a

very serious face.

In those days I think many

faculty did that...they...because, they

didn't want the expression voice

if you give them little space,

they will climb on your shoulders.

So, essentially they were very strict,

but they were very nice, they were very focused

and Professor Laddha was very clear that

while he was Director, Administration will

not consume his whole time.

So, the Registrar will turn up between

2 and 3 for signing any paper.

If he came before 2, he would be shouted at,

if he came after 3 he would be shouted at.

Professor Laddha said the rest of it was

his research time, he can't interfere.

But those were days when people

listen to older people.

So I think in that sense, the administration

was easier. Then after I finished, I went to

University of Florida in those days, I mean

we didn't know anything about the US,

I got a 1st rank here, but

I wasn't sure that I was clever enough to do good in...

too well in graduates type school,

I didn't know anything about it,

and only Florida offered scholarship.

So I went to University of Florida,

but they had at that...in that year they got a Centre

of Excellence grant.

In those days it was

500,000 dollars and it was a huge amount of money.

So they had a lot of good people

and I had quite a few young faculty who were

very good. One of them was

Keith Gubbins, and I worked with him.

I worked on molecular theory.

When I finished, I came back,

I wanted to come back, I applied actually,

I applied to all the IITs, I got no

answer from any of them, March 1971, I wrote a letter

saying "I am likely to finish in one year,

I am interested in a faculty position."

Then out of the blue in March '72,

I got a letter from IIT Madras, the first IIT to reply.

And they offered me an Assistant Professor position.

It turns out that Dr. Ramachandran

who was then the Director, had come to the US

For recruitment, and about 19 of us in the US,

he spoke to people we...whose names we had

given as references,

I didn't know about it till much later,

then he made the offer directly as Assistant Professor.

In those days it was very hard to get Assistant Professor

we were very lucky, because if you became

Lecturer, it took eight to ten years to become Assistant Professor.

And, that was the rule, but,

we were...19 of us were lucky, but

I think out of 19, only two or three stayed.

The rest left almost immediately.

I think what people don't realize these days

is that in those days, the money

was a very severe constraint.

I would say up to about '90. In fact, '99

when Natarajan was Director, the budget was still very small.

And in '99, it was the first year when

Murli Manohar Joshi suddenly tripled the budget,

and after that we have been

comparatively very comfortable. Yeah.

As far as budget goes.

So but...I joined as an Assistant Professor,

initially I didn't understand, there was

some slight hostility. I think understandable

hostility because people didn't understand why

these young fellows were given Assistant Professor's post.

But, I was very clear that I had

to be friendly with colleagues in order to stay in an institute,

and within six months, most of them were very friendly

and they were very helpful.

Professor Gopichand was

Head of the Department, and he was a very liberal person,

he let you do...he was sort of

whatever you wanted to do, as long as it was not

anything illegal, he would say "Yes."

And...in those days the Registrars were very strong,

or at least appeared to be very strong.

And of course, I had a run in with couple of them

in those days, but Professor Gopichand called the

Registrar and said, "He is a young man,

he is very enthusiastic,

he is a very good faculty member

here so, you shouldn't trouble him."

But he would say it very nicely,

and that made a difference, then the Registrar

softened a bit, and so on.

So overall, I think he made life

much easier, but the colleagues also, after six months,

the first six months, you could feel

a slight hostility all the time, but after 6 months,

I think that's true of IIT Madras,

it doesn't take to newcomers Yeah.

very well.

But within a few months,

everybody seems to settle

into a comfortable slot with them,

and then they are very helpful.

So, this was true, but by and large,

I think IIT Madras was considered, and was

a very conservative organization.

I think the difference was because

of the first Directors in various places.

And, in particular Kanpur had Kelkar

as the Director, who was a very very liberal man.

And I think that made a difference to the starting of Kanpur.

Also, they are hiring...they hired faculty

more autonomously the,n

in some sense as the way we did it.

I mean, all the other IITs were more conservative in this regard,

I think the advantage there was that,

Kanpur was connected to the US

through a consortium of universities.

Including MIT, whereas, we were all...

all the others were connected to the

countries that help them,

through the Ministry of Education. Ok.

And, that made a difference to the whole attitude.

R. Nagarajan: But I think we also had an interface through

University of Aachen We had,

but the universities were referred to us by... Ok.

See, after about 10 years,

we got to know the Germans well enough.

Then we could practically

tell them what we wanted. Sure.

Professor Wittig I think, was the first one,

'73 or something he came,

one year after I joined.

I...I was no...never in the picture because I was too...

low in the hierarchy. But I heard stories,

and Professor Wittig said, "You guys have reached a

level of maturity and we should be able to

deal directly with the Technische Hochschule."

So then, we had a very good interface with the Germans,

before that, many of the Germans who came,

were not academically the best,

but they were still very very committed people.

We had a few people in Chemical Engineering also,

they are very committed people,

but I won't say they were academically the best.

I mean later on when we got to know the Technische Hochschule,

we knew that the best people didn't come.

After that, after '73, after Wittig's visit,

a lot of these people came from

the best schools, and they came for

short visits, which is what

you would expect of a faculty member who is busy there,

but those short visits were very useful.

But overall, I think the German

connection, had also many plus points,

I found the discipline.

The level of discipline in IIT

Madras was better than

anywhere else,

and secondly, there was this

sincerity, the commitment and this thing, if you said

something, you did it.

I think the Germans,

we probably, we were naturally also that way,

but they emphasize that so much,

that it became...and the workshop again,

was very different,

but, the Germans

were able to run it with discipline,

because they were able to convince

people, that was...with something very useful.

So I think there were some, this thing, and

after all, we are all young institutions,

even now we are only 70

years old. So I think...like...the solution

to a differential equation, the dependence

on the initial condition is very strong.

So there is still a this thing...

although we have changed considerably

in the last, maybe 30 years.

Speaking of differential equations, you know

I was a student here from '76 to '81

and I remember taking Fluid Mechanics and Yeah.

Thermodynamics with you, and...

so did you enjoy teaching those courses particularly Yeah.

to IIT students, how was the experience?

Yeah yeah, I...I think I enjoyed teaching all the time,

I am sort of...naturally liked students,

and that helps because students

then like you reciprocally.

And...in fact, I was also warned

that these students are very intelligent,

but they will take advantage if you give them allow them,

if you give them an inch they will take a...

large amount of space.

But my experience has never been that.

In 40 years of teaching in IIT,

only 2 students crossed the line

where I thought they had...and I could

tick them off immediately, but otherwise they don't.

But, I think the big advantage I had

was, that I was much younger than most of the other faculty

So...and I was able to talk to

the students much more.

I remember back then all the

students wanted to do their projects with you,

and they all wanted your reco letters to go abroad.

No, I had more contacts in the US than most people.

Many of our...my older faculty members

had contacts with Germany, but students

weren't going to Germany, so, in that sense

I was saying but, I think more importantly,

while teaching undergraduate students, my

experience in those days was,

they were mischievous, but I remembered

exactly how mischievous they...

My classmates and I had been in A. C. College

so I had a...I always keep...kept that memory.

So it was clear as to why these kids were behaving the

way they were. But, I think the one thing I

found was, that whatever I knew well, I could teach them,

and they never complained about the paper being too hard.

They complained only when you were not uniform

in your grading, or you were partial about something.

Otherwise I found they never complained, and this is in contrast,

you see, much later I went to Princeton

for sabbatical, '82-'83.

And I was teaching this reaction engineering course and after

mid-semester, the...Professor Schowalter

who was the Head of the Department, he met me in the corridor

and said, "Ananth did you give a very hard mid-semester exam?"

I said, "I didn't think so why do you ask?"

He said, "There has been complaints

of your accent after 2 months."

If they had complained in the first week,

I would have had to take them seriously,

but since they complained now...

and it turned out...then I spoke

to the class and said, "What's your problem?" They said,

"You taught five hours of polymer reaction engineering,

didn't ask a single question

in class...in the exam."

And our kids never did that

Yeah. to me, yeah.

So I think, in a sense, they...

there the undergraduates were very demanding.

And they felt they had...they judged you. Right.

And, they asked you,

"Why you didn't ask a question with us?"

I said, "I thought that was my right."

Yeah, I remember you use...I think you were probably

one of the first faculty to offer take home exams and...

Take home didn't work though,

take home I got too many copies of the same.

But, open book exam

yeah I was probably the first

to give an open book exam, I think I have never

given anything except an open book exam,

and I remember the very first batch,

I gave an open book exam, and

they all brought the mini books.

But I had told them the main book

was Smith and Van Ness in thermodynamics and

so, this kid brought Smith and Van Ness,

he looked at the question paper,

he...I was invigilating,

he looked at me and said "What page?"

And I said, "113" just spontaneously.

And so this kid opened 113, it so happened there was

a worked example there, so he copied it and he got a zero.

So he came and complained to me,

"I asked you the page number, you gave

the page number" I said, "This is a free country,

I will give any page

number I want. After that they never asked me a question "

in the exams, but I think they got

used to open book exams. They realized that

open book exams were no easier than closed book exams.

So... So you are...over your four decades of teaching,

at the...have you seen a change in the in the students

composition and make up in...?

Well there is a change, but there is also a change in me.

So I think I would say, the big change

my...my perception occurred really in

'85-'86 when we switched from

five year to four year.

There was some immediate

change in the attitude of the students.

The five year students I think

felt there was a lot of time.

And so, they were much more relaxed at least for four years,

three to four years, they were...they enjoyed themselves.

After the four year batches came,

they seem to think that they had to rush through everything.

And secondly, I mean, there is always a

fraction of students who were an absolute pleasure to teach.

That fraction remains, and when you go into

class you try to find those four, five faces

that show the 'before' and 'after' look.

I mean when they understand something, they will smile

broadly.

I think that is important,

for any teacher, and that four or five always

remained, but I think the fraction of students,

who wanted marks, but who weren't willing to work very hard,

that increased. Right.

And, I think it was also related,

thinking back, I think it was related to the fact

that its around '90s

when the state universities started deteriorating badly.

There was lot of political interference in the university,

the Vice Chancellors appointment itself was somewhat political,

and these things led

to a continuous deterioration in the state universities

so that, now the difference between

IIT and the state university is huge.

See everybody wants to get in to IIT,

and they want to get into IIT for the wrong reasons.

I won't say all, but there is a small fraction that

certainly gets in for the wrong reasons.

And they can dilute the atmosphere.

See, its not as if students

were always studious, I mean nobody is. Right.

I mean, you study only when something

interests you,

or when you have to.

But I think this large fraction,

and I...I keep quarreling with

I used to quarrel with Professor Indiresan,

because he introduced the notion of relative grading.

It was always relative grading.

I...you can never do absolute grading, because any paper you give,

if its very hard, you are going to see if...

everybody it does badly, then you are going to moderate

it in some way, but you know you shouldn't have said it.

Professor Indiresan discussed it in the Senate and

came up with a formula for large classes,

x bar by two was a pass mark.

And...with the result, the students got the impression,

if all the kids did badly,

x bar would go down, x bar by two would go down

further and they would benefit.

These are calculations that in...all kids do.

Everywhere.

I think the mistake was

probably in discussing it.

Similarly, the other mistake

historically, and this is not the blame the people involved,

I mean Professor Indiresan was very interested

in students in fact, he was very very popular.

And Professor Srinath andz...

had a long discussion on attendance,

and I remember he introduced 55 percent

as the minimum attendance required.

And in the next term,

next semester, after three classes,

after mid semester, there was nobody in the class.

And then the kid said, "55 percent we have got sir."

And then they came back, but this is part of their fun.

I mean what else will they do on a campus if they leave?

So they came back, but I thought this

idea of discussing attendance, discussing

the way you grade,

is something that should be done with...among faculty it should be

reasonably transparent if somebody demands justice.

Butu otherwise you don't

have to go around explaining everything to them.

And these were...those were two big events that

changed the character of the students and their attitude.

Other than that I...there has still always been a

fraction of students who are so good,

and they don't necessarily sit in front, they are distributed in the class.

But they are so, interested that they make your life very

happy.

So, I can't complain at all.

So, one interesting thing we are finding is the

number of girl students seems to be disproportionately high

in Chemical Engineering, about 22 to 23 percent of the

entering class is now girls, so did you see

during the time you are teaching because we didn't have too many

girl students in the early years, but

was there a difference among the boys

and the girls in terms of how they...

There was...that again after this...I mean

I...I am not connecting the two,

but around the time in five year to four year

batch. After that, the communication between

the boys and the girls seemed to decrease.

For some reason.

so, in fact I had to tell my class,

if the girls were not present, I said "Make sure the girl knows,"

and I will catch one of the fellows and say,

"You are particularly responsible,

you must communicate this,"

otherwise they won't tell the girls. Sure.

And then you have a quiz on

something, and the girls don't come.

And then turned out they went and found.

So that kind of lack of communication was there.

I think, by and large they were alright.

A few girls have complained to me saying that

the boys have the advantage of being

able to discuss among themselves.

And therefore, they do much better and, "We are not

allowed to do the discussions," turned out the

discussions were after 11 at night,

which is when the boys got...

So you can't change the rule and ask the girls to Sure.

be permitted to go to the boys'

hostels at 11 so, that was...

Where do you think the department as a whole has

evolved over the years from the time you were there?

I think all departments, the research

content has increased, of that I think I have no

doubts at all. By and large, I think its also has to do

with our hiring, when we ask more questions about

research, about what people do and so on.

And, as I said after 2000, we have had plenty of money,

it's been reflected in the increase in publications. Sure.

In fact, 2002 to 2011

when I left, the publications went up

from 400 to 1200.

So there was three times the

increase, its simply that there was more money available,

and more young faculty were hired because

they were good at research. In fact

I remember one of my colleagues told me,

he was a wonderful, he was really good teacher,

I don't want to name him, but he told me,

"Sir the IIT cheated me."

I said, "What did they do?" "They only asked if

I will teach, and after joining

they told me 'you have to do research.'"

I mean, it is something that you have to

get used to, and if you are told then you have

mentally prepared for it and so on.

So, he was very intelligent, but somehow he didn't,

he said, "I have never thought of researches thing."

He was very practical, he did a lot of consultancy,

but what he said, I think was true that,

there was no job, clear job

definition in the beginning days. Right.

They only wanted sincere people

who would teach undergraduates.

But it turned out that if you have an academic

institution of any reputation, you will need research,

and then this gathered.

And, the science

departments of course, always started first in research.

Because there is a tradition of research in science.

In engineering it is much newer.

Now there is, but in...even when I joined,

the number of publications

in engineering was one third

the number of publications in

science, whereas, there were only three science

departments, of that Maths was not very prolific.

Chemistry was maximum, and then Physics.

So I think this notion

that you need to do research in order to

just make a claim for your reputation

and all that, came much later.

How about industry?

Professor Ramachandran introduced,

Professor Sengupto apparently never

spoke about research. Professor

Ramachandran tried to introduce it, he introduced the

postgraduate programmes and emphasis on research.

Sure.

But he stayed only for one term.

And I think then, the thing went back a bit.

And have...have industry relations

deepened over the years, has that been a...

I...I think again IIT Madras was a

pioneer in this, when the Germans introduced this and I think

in '73 it was Wagner, Professor Wagner

who first brought up this Industrial Consultancy

in Sponsored Research, and the idea was a

wonderful thing.

I mean it made the

interface with the industry much easier.

Right.

And, I would say, a

fraction...the number of faculty

involved in consultancy has always been somewhat low.

I think even now it will probably be 20 percent.

It used to be even less in those days.

Except for Civil Engineering and. Ocean.

Subsequently Ocean Engineering.

So there there was a natural inclination to do Right.

practical work.

But, I think overall,

we had this notion that

we had four obligations in IIT:

teaching, research, industrial consultancy

and improving technical education in the country.

That last thing we hadn't done very well,

by and large we had gone to these

other places, and told them how to

set up the lab, but it was a one-time advice.

You didn't check whether they got the right

things and so on.

So that wasn't

there, and in fact, it was under

that, that I started the NPTEL much later.

Because there was shortage of faculty

everywhere, and I said, "At least we

can contribute that," and,

that turned out to be a good time to start, and

we have...now have what,

the largest collection of technical

We have more than a 1000.

Lectures in

courses, you know, largest open collection. Right.

In the world.

So, I think

that has worked out quite well,

but the industrial...again we needed

to take the industry interaction

to one higher level, which is

when we thought of the Research Park.

Actually, the Research Park happened because...

did an analysis, very informal analysis

of some 100 patents, IPRs

in Silicon Valley between '90 and '99.

About 70 percent of them had Indian names in it.

And out of that 70 percent

had IITian names in it.

So, well, you know the story I went to MHRD

and told them that...I quoted Louis Pasteur

he said, "Discovery is the result of

chance meeting a prepared mind."

And I said, "We have been preparing minds for 50 years,

and chance is meeting them in Silicon Valley,

so it's time that's chance met them here."

Then he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I need a

place where industry and faculty

and students can all meet." But it has

to be right close to the campus, because

otherwise I can't ask my professors

to go there and come back and teach.

They will have to do the teaching research

and then they also have to do that.

And, fortunately for us in '99,

they closed down the...'98 they

closed down the MGR Film City

which was 40 acres of land just across the road.

So, I urged Professor Natarajan one day to write to the

State Government asking for land

for starting a Research Park.

We had no idea what a Research Park was at that time,

then we worked out things and said...

and then apparently Ashok Jhunjhunwala

came to Natarajan with the same request.

It was just a coincidence, and Natarajan

asked me, "Did you talk to Ashok?" I said, "No."

Then he said, "He also came and spoke to me about it."

I said, "It's a good time to ask for the land."

So we asked for the land, and we finally

got the land and, but the idea of

setting up a Research Park was mainly because of

all this creativity that was...

you know, on which we were losing money.

This innovation that was happening in Silicon Valley,

we were the authors, and

they were the beneficiaries.

So in that sense I think it was an

important thing...it so happened that the timing

was right, and a lot of people said "Yes",

who could have easily said "No."

So the Chief Secretary gave us land

for a very nominal sum, I mean the least amount is very

small, 30 years, and the MHRD had

to say "Yes" to start the company, Section 25

company that would...now Section

8 company that can hold shares.

And, the planning commission said "Yes"

and...I had done some homework, I had called

Montek Singh Ahluwalia twice and initially

the Planning Commission objected,

but I had talked to him when he came for a talk here,

and he said it's a wonderful idea.

So, I called him.

And he said "Its a wonderful idea," I said, "But the

Planning Commission is objecting to it," then he

said, "Look Ananth, not all

papers come up to me," I said, "Now it has."

And next morning Planning Commission supported

us, and they called me and said "Sir, we are all

in favour of the Research Park."

So I mean in various ways,

then the Finance Secretary,

she was also very nice about it.

They had never done it before,

but she said, "Ok we will take a chance."

And, once we created a Section 8 company,

we could take loan,

and that loan has also been returned.

I think the timing...it was...that's a matter of luck,

timing was just right, and now

phase 2 has also been completed.

So, the Research Park and NPTEL were the big thing.

Actually, I had a policy sort of,

MHRD everybody always complaints about MHRD

interfering, telling us what to do, and so on.

My contention to the Senate was that if

we don't keep MHRD busy, they will keep us busy.

So we should have two, three proposals

that are very large, that require a

lot of permissions, Yeah.

and you must keep on asking them,

"You see I sent you the file, what happened to it?"

So they hesitate to call you and

ask you to do this.

I think there, the Senate should play a role

in envisaging where we are going. Sure.

And that, we still don't, because we get so

busy with routine, we're still arguing

about what has already happened and...

we don't seem to plan, and in that sense,

the first time we had a strategic

plan that told us what future

should be like, was when

Madhav Rao Scindia became the Minister.

And he asked all the boards of IITs

to come up with a strategic plan,

it was supposed to be 2010,

and our board took it very seriously,

Natarajan took it very seriously.

He hired a

gentleman called Ganapathi,

who was an...Professor of Management.

In fact, initially there was lot of resistance to him,

like all things in IIT Madras,

initially when he came people said, "Oh,

he is a management man he will talk, but

he won't do anything,"

but he did a remarkable job.

Muthukrishnan was also in charge,

between the two of them, particularly

Ganapathi, he conducted 30 workshops

with various stakeholders in the campus,

and he was able to extract their opinions

in a cogent manner, so he

came up with a document

Ofcourse he wrote the document in

a very peculiar style, management style.

So I took his permission

and rewrote it in English.

I told him I...Ganapathi

became a good friend, so, when I told Ganapathi

I am going to rewrite it in English, "What do you think

its written in?" he said.

I said, "It's written in managese."

No, he had called the

Registrar a Chief Administrative Officer

and various fancy titles, Vice President,

President, things like that and,

I mean those are corporate titles

that just don't go well with...

so anyway, we rewrote it,

and it did give a good...

see it did two things, first thing

is it got the staff involved.

Sure.

And a lot of our staff are very intelligent

people, and they gave very good suggestions,

many of which were implemented.

Natarajan also started ISO 9001...

just before that. In fact,

I was Dean with him, I told him it's a

waste of time and all that,

but he said, "No no, you don't know,

we should do it," but I think it was a very

good thing in the long run, because, later on,

many of the staff told me, "Sir, for the first

time we were consulted."

And academic section was full of suggestions.

Many of which were implemented.

Simply because Professor Gokhale who was in charge,

made it very clear that ISO simply means

"You do what you say,

and you say what you do."

And we weren't doing that, we had

many rules which we thought were

not necessary, we didn't follow them,

but we had them there. So the ISO

fellow will come and say, "Where is this rule,

where is the implementation?"

And nobody knew.

Then we got rid of those rules.

So, I think we have made a lot of changes,

and they came out very well.

And, around that time, I think when

Professor Swamy was Director, N. V. C. Swamy was Director,

I was...in the last year of his

term, He made me Dean of Academic Courses.

And talking to Professor Swamy, I felt that

there was tremendous amount of

what you called oral history.

Which he alone seemed to know.

I mean he had a terrific memory,

and he remembered from '59