Good afternoon Mr. Koteeswaran.

Welcome back to your alma mater.

Good afternoon Professor Nagarajan.

Very glad to be here. Yeah. So, nice to have you.

But I do come here once in a while. Ok.

I have been here about 6 months ago. Right.

But before that a couple of years, before. Ok.

So, I got a special attachment to this place.

And you graduated with the first batch 64. Yes, it is true.

Civil Engineering. Yeah.

So. Long time ago.

Yeah. Just tell us about your life journey afterwards, just briefly.

Well, once I finished my studies here,

I went looking for a job in Mumbai.

And I did get a job with a consultant,

for salary of something like 400 rupees a month or something,

which I thought was too low.

Yes, I thought did, but too much about myself even then.

So, I I said I will think about it and I I did not fancy that anyway.

And in the meanwhile, I my father had contacted a friend of his

to see whether he can

get some contacts to offer me a job, and

I got an offer from London saying that

if I am willing they are prepared to take me on and try me.

So, so I have came back from Mumbai fairly quickly

to get all the visas and things were arranged and

I left India in August 64, about 6 months after I graduated.

Went to London, and joined

the company was then called CJ Belle and Partners.

They were consulting engineers, structural engineers.

And I joined them as a

the designation was an assistant engineer

and slowly from there I went up.

I was there for about couple of years before I

went and did a postgraduate at University of London

at Queen Mary College.

Did a Master’s Degree in Advanced Structural Analysis.

And came back and joined the firm again

because they wanted me back.

And slowly I went went up in the ladder,

5 years later I was an associate of the company.

10 years later I was Director of the company

and I stayed as a Director until I retired.

With the same company.

So, I did work with them for about 39 years and a few months.

So, it was, I enjoyed my work.

I think it is very important for people to

enjoy the work rather than

treating it as a chore and a necessity.

I enjoyed my work tremendously.

So, there are some some buildings

in London which are my hallmark.

And slowly and gradually

of course, as you know when you go up the ladder

you you forget the engineering part of it.

And you become more of an administrator

or a planner for the firm

and I tried to avoid that as much as possible.

So, I was, I had my hand in design Ok.

for very long time as a Director

which I think I was the only doing that. For very long time as a Director

which I think I was the only doing that.

Enjoy, I enjoyed designing especially conceptual design.

So, I did then more than 100 buildings conceptually.

Most of it in England a few in the far East.

I was sort of little bit involved with the

Stock Exchange Building in Mumbai.

And the Asia Stadium in Delhi.

Not much, but a little bit.

My speciality was tall buildings basically. Ok.

Especially, the lateral stability of tall buildings.

And I always, was one of my ambitions

to design a seismic resistant building.

But I did not get a chance because England is not a seismic area

and because of that I wanted to go to California

which is the place to be.

In 1970, I think it was

I did get a scholarship to go and do a PhD at Berkeley. Ok.

University of California.

And we were all set to go my wife and I,

and we had applied for a resident permit,

and not, in those days it was not that difficult

it took a bit of time, but we had

we had our green cards ready when we land there

But a last minute I changed my mind.

Did not go and stayed in England.

And I had a lot of incentives to stay as well,

which I used and at that time we were

looking for a house to stay

because once I decided that I am going to stay in England,

then there was not much point in renting a place.

So, so England is a place where people

would like to buy their houses

rather than rent, sure

which is prevalent in Europe.

So, we bought a house and stayed there and carried on. Ok.

So, how did, how do you think your education at IIT Madras

play a role in your, enjoying your career?

Yes, I think my education was primarily the

the reason for my jumping up from the ladder.

In in England because by far I was the most liked graduate

in the company because of the acute knowledge of

structures that was imparted to me

while I was here.

One thing that I did miss was

not knowing the codes of practice.

Which comes on by experience.

But I I would say if I were I give some advice to

any institution or anything like that,

I would say they are part of the curriculum must also

be the rationalization of the codes,

with what you are learning in theory.

Why is the code slightly different to, what you learn,

and why why is that in such a way

and what is the basis for it.

That would give a lot more

incentive for people to go into

private practice or things like that instead of a a public service.

I think that is very important and that is

one thing that I had to learn

but I think the basic education and the basic

structural knowledge that I had even at a Btech degree was Right.

quite something compared to the local boys. Sure.

So, I found that

even though it is only an undergraduate degree,

some of the things we teach are not taught

at least at that time in England

until you come to do a postgraduate.

Of course, different countries have different ways of Right.

imparting knowledge.

So, I am not saying it is wrong or right

It is just in my case it was used for sure.

Did you also go through the extended

engineering drawing and workshop classes and?

Either here? Yeah.

We we had workshop classes here Yeah.

and we had engineering drawing

Yeah. as a subject.

Both machine drawing as well as Civil Engineering drawing

But funnily enough,

once I joined work I I never did a drawing

because they wanted me to be the designer

rather than their draftsman,

which I did not appreciate that very much to start with

because sometimes it's

it's better to draw something

to know what you are designing

instead of just designing and leaving it is for

somebody else to interpret your design and draw it.

If you do it yourself you know what you want

But that was the way it was in England. Sure.

They have a draftsman as a separate set of people

and their design is- it's a separate set of people.

They work together, but one does not do the other.

So, one of the reasons for that was

possibly the draftsman are not engineers. Ok.

They are basically draftsmen.

They do a little bit of engineering,

so that they understand what the engineer says. Right.

But that's about all.

Maybe that was the reason for it.

And the the the in the UK the

the feeling was that a designer

should not waste his time drawing

which I thought was not the right

way to look at it, but that was how they were.

So, I could not change it Sure.

because that was their country’s practice

It is a it is different for an architect.

An architect designer also draws his own drawing,

but for an engineer it is they are completely bifurcated.

And it it goes on on different planes basically.

But, so do you think design should be a part of the curriculum? Sorry.

Should design be a part of the undergraduate curriculum?

Definitely I think so, I think so, because the first thing

that hits you when you go to a design office

is your theory is ok,

but unless you know how to design it after the

theoretical results you are not considered an engineer.

So, I would say it is not like doing a research project.

It's it's different when you do a consulting. Right

Practice, it is different.

And my experience it is all with consulting, not research.

So, the the practical aspects of it is more important.

And I think a short review of that Sure.

could be very useful for an undergraduate study.

So, what about your hostel life?

You were at Cauvery, right?

I loved my hostel life, I was in Cauvery.

I had some lovely neighbors there,

Krishnadas Nair who was the chairman of Hindustan

Aeronautics Firm was my next next room.

And we used to have a lovely time.

I remember the the problems we had with our food

for the first 6 months,

when we were in not in not in Cauvery Hostel,

but we were in a different hostel in Saidapet.

Little Teachers College Hostel.

And the South Indian guard was not very happy with the food

because most of the food was chapati and sabji.

And so, there was a bit of a hiccup to start with.

But afterwards the food became so good that I used to-

I used to go home on a Saturday morning

because I did not want to miss the breakfast which was very special,

on Saturday morning.

And I used to go home and then I

again I used to come back on Saturday night for two things,

one is for the biryani on Sunday night

and the other one is to see the the Open Air Theater film Right.

which was about 8 o’clock in the evening or something.

So, yes I enjoyed my life at Cauvery very much.

So, what are your best memories of the campus?

What is the thing that you remember the best and?

The best memories of my campus is

the interaction I had with with the faculty.

2-3 professors who I considered my mentors,

Dr. D. V. Reddy

who who did the applied mechanics for us,

then professor of Civil Engineering

who recently passed away.

Professor Verghese. Yeah,

him and Professor Sankaran

who took solid mechanics for me.

They were, they became very good friends afterwards.

But at the time they were real mentors for me.

So, so, so I remember the interaction with them very much.

Especially Dr. D.V. Reddy who helped me

I think it was a third year

when I have suddenly fell very ill during the final exam,

and I could not write the exam,

and he fought for me to have a re-exam

and we came back.

And because of that 2 or 3 other students also

had a chance to write re-write their parts.

And I cannot forget that

because I could have lost a year.

I I had met Dr. Reddy afterwards just while.

He was he was a professor in all sorts of universities in

in the United States,

the final one being in Florida.

And I met him once when he was

travelling through London to Chennai.

And we had lunch meeting and it was very nice.

I met my Civil Engineering professor 4 years back I think.

I went to his house and met him and

and I was very sad when he passed away.

Are you still in touch with your batch mates?

Some of them, some of them.

In fact, I am seeing 1 or 2 on on Saturday.

But it is the the exciting thing about is

it is not just my batch mates, my batch mates yes.

It is not my Civil Engineering batch mates.

I have lots of friends in all the other

different disciplines as well.

Chemical Engineering, Metallurgy, Mechanical,

Electronics and so on.

And one of my closest friend

did his electronics in the the same batch,

but he did electronics, he now lives in

Netherlands and he is he is coming here on Saturday.

And he and I are hosting a breakfast

for some of my friends.

Yes, it is very interesting.

I remember quite quite a few of them.

And when we met for the 50th year over here

that time I met a lot of them

who I hadn't seen after 1964

and that was a great time.

You still recognize them and they recognize you? Difficult.

Some of them were difficult, but

but funnily enough some of them I recognize by their voice

rather than their figure.

Especially, the one Srinivas Nageshwar who

who was my table tennis partner

for doubles. And I I recognized him only by his voice.

Because he had lost all his hair and I could

not I could not recognize him at all, but I recognized his voice.

So, you know the campus has obviously,

changed a lot since your days. It has, it has.

What do you think you think, are you happy

with the way the campus is developed? Our campus is fantastic.

It is really competes with any world campuses.

Anywhere else.

I have been to quite a few in in England and in in the States,

been to Stanford, to MIT and so on so forth.

I think it can easily compete with any of those. Yeah.

It is very quiet serene campus. Right.

Nice atmosphere to study.

So, I I also do want to thank you for

your giving back to the institute.

I know you have made a few gifts in the in the past. Yeah, yeah.

So, what motivates your giving back

and is it something you plan to continue?

Well, I suppose I

I have a basic tendency to help people.

Also, probably because I don't have a family

myself, I can say everybody my family.

It's, it's I find a lot of pleasure in helping people if I can.

So, in particular your contribution and your batches

contribution during the golden jubilee

was helped this centre, the Heritage Centre.

So, what is your opinion about our Heritage Centre?

Is it something we should say- I think it was when it was

intimated to me that this is going to come up,

I thought what a fantastic idea.

It's, it's a brilliant idea.

And I hope all the best for it, the best wishes for it.

I hope it gets bigger and bigger.

So, of course, this year we are celebrating our diamond jubilee. Yeah.

Our institute itself is turning

Yeah. 60

So, looking forward based on your experiences,

what do you think the institute should aspire to be?

I mean are we are we on the right track

or do you would you like to see a

course correction in some ways.

Now, I do not think, I I can say I can give any corrections.

Because I am I am not an educationist

so, so I do not know the ins and outs of

running an institution.

But I only wish, of course, every institute wants to be the best. Right.

In in their country and if necessary a world class.

And I am I am still waiting for the day when

IITs come in the top 10

in the world rather than the top 100.

And I am sure it will happen.

It is a question of time. Sure.

And because there are enough brains in this country to

get that going.

And more of them are staying back with because-

Yes, I think it, I think it is happening now.

At one time there was a dearth of

good inventive jobs

in this country. Right.

But I would say that is not the case anymore

But it can it can still be improved quite a lot.

But I think one of the one of the main things for

people to stay would be the the lifestyle here.

I find simple things are very difficult to achieve

without lot of sweat,

and that that should change

and if that changes I think

lot of people would stay.

And people get frustrated here

because you can't get things done.

The things do not move fast, fast enough.

When you, especially people who come from abroad

and they have experienced things which are happening

just by a phone call or an email or something,

and here you have to go and stand in a queue,.

That's very frustrating.

I think if, that needs to change.

And once that goes I think job front is has changed quite a lot.

So, that is a big incentive.

But once the lifestyle also changes then I think

of course, you cannot do anything about the weather, but.

So, what did you used to do during vacations

when you were a student,

particularly the summer vacations? Summer vacations.

I used to go and visit relatives

because we- that is one thing that these days are different

people try and do some sort of internship or Right,

Yeah. Something to get some practical experience

which I think is fantastic and I should have done it.

I didn't, because we did not think about it that way.

You know when you have a holiday, you have a holiday.

But I think the holidays could be used at least

part of it could be used to to learn your work. Sure.

True, I agree.

I know that you also provided some financial support to

some students who wanted to visit CERN.

Do you do you like this idea of students doing Yes.

Internships not only in India, but also going abroad? Yeah, now

I think I I did contribute a little bit. Yeah.

To couple of students

No, I think it is a great idea.

I think people should should go out and look at

how things are done in

in different places to get an overall view of the world

because it is very easy to get cocooned in a Right.

in your own atmosphere

and not know how people live elsewhere. Right.

So, I think that is a great idea.

So, do you have plans to spend more time in Chennai

and more time on campus?

I I have plans to spend about 4 or 5 months in Chennai

every year because of family commitments.

And there are still the time I will probably be in London,

but I also do visit the States

where several of my relatives are there.

So, I travel a lot.

I travel quite a bit.

Are you in touch with the Civil Engineering Department here?

Have you offered to come?

Have they contacted you about coming in? I have not.

I have about 5 or 6 years ago I did, but after that I have not.

But I should. Yeah. Yes, I agree.

Because we always talk about the 3

piece of giving time, talent and treasure. Yeah, true, true.

Since, you have already given the treasure you know.

It would be great if you can also.

Give your time and talent and.

Yeah, you know I do I am I am quite happy to help whenever I can. Ok.

So, it has been great talking to you and- Yeah, it was great coming here.

Maybe if Professor Swamy has more questions you can Yeah,

yes. go ahead as well so.

Sure, sure.

I need to leave for another meeting. Sure, yeah.

Hope to see you again in the. Hope, yeah, I am sure I will.

Yeah. Yeah, I am sure.

To be I wanted to know about your

teachers in Civil Engineering anybody who remember.

Sorry, come again?

The faculty who taught you Civil Engineering.

Yes. You are the Civil Engineering student.

Yes. Could you remember any of them?

Yes, I remember all of them.

All of them, ok. All of them

Have you met any of them recently? I met them

About 4 or 5 years ago Who?

4 or 5 years ago I met Radha Krishnan

Radha Krishnan, I see Rajagopalan

Professor Varghese Professor Varghese is no more.

Yeah, I know he is no more Yeah, yeah you came for that function?

I came for the 50th year function I see

For the first batch 50th year Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Yeah, that time I went to his house met him Yeah, he was

Yeah. Passed only a

Yeah. few months ago Yeah.

And Professor Radha Krishnan is in Adyar at-

Yeah, I need to get their addresses,

so that I can go and see them.

He is in might be the the telephone number is here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah contact number would be fine, Yeah. telephone number

Yeah. But I I know that approximately he is in that

behind that Padmanabha Nagar, you know that

road which goes to Elliot’s beach.

Next to that that Alcott Memorial School.

Yeah, Yeah. That route there is a colony just behind Padmanabha Nagar.

So, there he stays I am not able to get the name

That is, ok Professor E G Ramachandran was also living there.

Yeah. Metallurgy professor

I did not know Professor Ramachandran so

Professor E G Ramachandran is no more he is Yeah, he is no more as well

In fact, there was a function arrays

to establish a chair in his name yeah, yeah.

Last year That is, right, Yeah.

In fact, it is very surprising that just 1 month before

he passed away, he was interviewed here

by the Head of Department of Metallurgy

And he was he came in a wheel chair in the ICSR building.

Yes And perfect memory.

Yeah. Unfortunately, that day I could not come.

I wanted to meet him but

but everything, he had identified, the photographs identified . Yeah.

Everything his memory was tremendous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Professor Varghese was of course ailing, but quite some time.

Yes, that is right, Yeah. And he was really want to-

Yeah, he was reasonably ok when I met him at his home

In fact, we even wanted to have

an interview in his house, he did not

He wasn't. wanted. You know his son is a

Yeah. Yeah. Dean here, Dean of Administration.

So, but he also said yes, he doesn't like to.

Maybe he written something about his

experiences here something.

But I am told the function that was held later in a memory

was a very big success. Yeah.

By the time you left Dr. Srinivas Rao had already joined, is it not?

P Srinivas Rao, he is also success man,

he came from-

No, I do not remember that name. Should not-

I think he joined 60 Maybe it was a next year.

He came from originally if IIT, Kharagpur

and German PhD doctor, engineer.

And he was almost right hand to Professor Varghese

I see. He took over the structural engineering lab.

The professor. The the youngest faculty member I remember was

Rajagopalan. Ah Rajagopalan.

He he joined IIT, when I was doing my final year

He was joined an associate lecturer That is right, Yeah.

Then he he took his PhD actually from Germany That is right, Yeah.

Yeah. Correct.

He Yeah.

In fact, about a year and a half back,

we had Professor Radha Krishnan, Professor Rajagopalan

and one of juniors maybe about 7-8 years juniors,

one Kalyanaraman who had become a professor here.

He took- His brother was 1 year or 2 year junior to you.

Yes, I forget his name he was metallurgy,

metallurgy or mechanical engineering.

So, he has a shop in in a shopping center here. I see.

So, at he did all the three had a, we had a group discussion.

In fact, I retired in 96.

So, I lost my wife in 2002, somehow about 2 years back,

I thought I came here and

thought why not do something here.

So, what I have taken up is to prepare a list of faculty

who have served this institute right from the inception.

Yes. Of course, the getting information was not so easy.

Not, not that easy. So, we have almost completed the job.

Oh, very good. So, maybe we will release it before.

Yeah. See, diamond jubilee years closes by 31st July

So, in fact,

I was connected with The Archives

cell in Indian Institute of Science where I did my PhD

so, that I had given some idea in that direction.

So, initially I thought Heritage Centre will do some archival work

but that is going to start a separate thing now.

I our, a German professor is there

and he is a he has collected lot of information of German side

with respect to IIT, Madras.

Sure. So, he wants to collect all the

documents available, scattered all over.

And try to bring some order and bring out some

and I told him we can then do archival research.

So, take up a- Yeah, Yeah. Small thing and then

Yeah. Development of particularly field of specialization.

Yeah. In any branch of engineering

Yeah, yeah. Which happened in IIT

Yeah, yeah. I remember the German professors, Professor Hahn

Yeah. Professor Koch

And my hydraulics professor

Professor Rouve is it Rouve

Professor Rouve Gerhard Rouve

Oh, yeah, Yeah. Gerhard Rouve

I remember him very well.

And, yeah, you would certainly remember Ebert.

Yes, Ebert, Yeah. Who was in workshop.

Workshop, so yeah

and only other there was one

yeah, you would not have the applied mechanical Professor Haug.

Professor Haug, he joined in 62 or 63 before you left. Yeah, Yeah.

Now, never we we I remember another German professor

who did machine drawing. Ah that is Scheer.

Scheer, Professor Scheer,

Dr. Scheer Yeah.

see Professor Rouve is no more

His grandson was here about month back.

Rouve’s grandson.

Rouve’s grandson.

Really It is very nice.

He came and said my grandfather

was mentioning about it. So, he came.

That is very nice.

He came to the. Now, we know the he Yeah.

there was a towing tank built during his after you left,

but that was been closed down.

Now that the Ocean Engineering is a very big

Yeah Yeah. Is a tank and all that so,

we have generator and all that and of course,

you I think must have been knowing Abdul Kadhar

Yes Yeah, he left for Singapore,

after his doctorate after he never came back.

And yeah there are T P Ganesan . No.

You do not remember that. He was around the same time

maybe he became later after retirement he joined SRM college

and then he was a pro-chancellor

and a huge auditorium built there is in his name

T P Ganesan auditorium, SRM college in SRM.

And in the hostel, you remember any of your batch mates,

mischievous batch mates.

There used to one V Raghavan, you remember? V raghavan, yes.

Lean person, Chemical Engineering Yeah, Yeah.

In fact, he could not complete along with you he.

Went to the next year and he completed.

So, he was a very character by himself. Yes,

Yeah. And in your juniors there was one Rajamani.

Remember he went for the Republic Day parade selected.

No, I do not know. Same fellow, he was there in a Chemical Engineering.

That is second batch next Could be yeah.

I do not know much about the second batch.

What about Muthukrishnan?

No, I don't know.

The only one I know is because I met him later on

they call him Ghost.

Who? He is he is his name is

Narayanan Narayanan, yes.

Narayanan Narayanan,

Yeah. Oh, Narayanan, yeah, Yeah.

His nickname is Ghost

I do not know why, but- Yeah, that is second, second batch.

He is in second batch Yeah.

He is the only one I know

from the second batch No, he used to be in the first floor somewhere so.

And I was Assistant Warden. Where were you in that?

I I was on the first floor

I see. of Cauvery hostel, one of the wings

I forget their room number now

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.

Because I went to Cauvery hostel,

but I could not recognize my room.

So, you could not locate your room So, I did not know where it was.

You did visit in- I went all around

I could not recognize them.

Now, because on the mess side there was some 3-

There are some changes there Yeah.

in the mess side.

And the some of the batch mates who are

settled in Madras, you have met? Yes.

Srinivasan Srinivasan, Mahadevan,

Mahadevan Neelakantan

Yeah, Amudachari Amudachari

Yeah, because this- Prabakaran

Ramkumar Yeah, yeah, yeah that is that is correct.

Are you anyway associated with a Campastimes? No.

You were not contributing, but you were reading?

When I was a student here

I wrote an article in in the journal.

Campastimes Campastimes.

I think was was it called Campastimes at that time?

Campastimes is a monthly newspaper isn't it is called- Right

Monthly or weekly. I do not think, it was at that time.

Annual number at one time It was an annual number at one time.

I see, I see And I wrote in one of them I wrote an article

You remember which annual number it was?

So, was it a your second, third, fourth year somewhere between 1962, 63

Something like that annual number 62 or 63; you have gone, it is the one is it

62 Oh, you wrote an

I wrote an article which basically was trying whimsically to

to imagine what it would be if light waves

travelled the same way as sound waves

Oh, I see.

Oh, this is- Because sound you can hear

any- from anywhere even with an obstruction in between.

Yes But you cannot see.

And I I wrote a a funny article

basically what happens if you can see through everything. Right.

and Yeah, it is here, The Chemistry of the Engineer. It is right?

Is it the one?

Chemistry of the Engineer.

That is not my initial.

It's not yours?

I don't think so.

Ok Thank you very much. Yeah, sure.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Hello everybody,

my name is Najeeb Shariff

and it's a great honour for me

to talk to Professor P.S. Rao

and many people know him,

he was retired faculty at IIT Madras,

he was the head of department of Civil Engineering,

he held a lot of administrative positions

in the institute and he was

instrumental in building the laboratories at IIT Madras;

the structural engineering laboratory was built by him

and he is the

founding members of the institute, if I can

put it that way.

He has served for almost 30 years in this institute

and held various

administrative positions.

So, today, we will have Professor P.S. Rao

talking about his journey,

about his life

and the whole story about it.

So, Professor P.S. Rao,

I would like to start

from your childhood days.

So, can you just tell us about

how it all began,

so, where did you do your schooling

and what went on,

how did you choose

civil engineering as your BTech degree?

Thank you Shariff for your

kind words of introduction.

I had my schooling in a very small town

called Tuni,

it is on the border between two districts

east Godavari and Vishakhapatnam

in Andhra Pradesh

and the type of education at that time was

slightly different from

what you have nowadays.

We had schooling for 11 years

and it ends with a

an examination called SSLC,

Secondary School Leaving Certificate.

And one is supposed to

complete that at the age of 16 or 17,

because one is supposed to start at

age of 5,

but I completed that

when I was thirteen and half years,

very very young age

in Tuni, standing first for the school.

Then, I went to the college

in a bigger town called Rajahmundry

in east Godavari district,

the Government Arts College

and at that time,

the state of Andhra Pradesh did not exist,

it was a composite Madras state

and for the entire Madras state,

there were only three or four government colleges,

one of them happened to be

Rajahmundry college,

the other one was at Kumbakonam

and it was quite difficult to get into that college also,

but because of the fact that I did well in the

SSLC examination,

I was the school first,

I could get into that college

or intermediate.

The pattern was

at that time: 11 years of schooling,

2 years of intermediate,

and then,

degree was for 2 years for BSc,

but for BE,

it was 4 years.

So, I went for a 2 year course,

intermediate course at

Government Arts College, Rajahmundry

which was the stepping stone

for further professional studies later.

Ok.

So, after Rajahmundry, then what happened?

Well, at that time also

just as it is these days,

everybody wanted to become either an engineer

or a doctor and I wanted to become an engineer

and unlike the situation

in the present day,

civil engineering was the most preferred batch

branch at that time.

Nowadays, suppose it's computer science,

but at that time,

civil engineering was the number one choice,

then mechanical engineering,

then electrical engineering

computer science didn't exist at all.

So, that was the most preferred batch by - a branch -

by all the students and

I decided to go for civil engineering

because I had also an aptitude

for construction activities.

My father, he was headmaster of a high school,

but he was very good at construction

out of interest.

So, maybe part of it rubbed down to me

and I took civil engineering.

Then, of course, comes the question

to which college should you go?

IIT Kharagpur was started in 1951,

I finished my intermediate in 1953

And many people did not know about IIT,

it was the only IIT at that time,

but then

the concept of IIT was not known to many of you.

There was Guindy Engineering college for example,

with about 78 years of history

by that time itself,

Roorkee, very well-known old institute,

Shibpur College of Engineering,

these are the three oldest engineering colleges in India.

IIT was very new.

But then,

people knew that it was an institute

started in collaboration with

international collaboration.

It was an institute

where professors from at least

8 or 9 countries

were participating through UNESCO.

So, I wanted to go to that particular institute,

and luckily got selected.

And when we, the first 3-4 batches,

when we got selected for IITs,

we didn't go through this JEE.

We were interviewed by

particular selection committee,

each state had its own interview board

and because of my good career,

intermediate, I stood university first

so, because of my good academic career,

I could just walk into IIT Kharagpur

in 1953, that is, 3rd batch.

So, civil engineering was an automatic choice for you

because that was the most preferred

Yeah. Engineering branch at that point of time.

Yeah, I mean exactly.

Coupled with the interest

my father created in me, although

he was not an engineer.

Ok.

But he used to take a lot of interest in engineering activities.

Ok

And you met Professor P. C. Varghese there?

Yes.

So, can you share something about that, your first- I will tell;

I will tell you a few words about my

stay at IIT Kharagpur.

As I already told, I belong to the 3rd batch,

first batch was selected in 1951

and it was a four-year course at that time.

Professor Varghese joined that institute

around 56-57, around 55-56.

But then,

he came already with a good record as a

very good practical engineer from Hirakud Dam;

prior to that he did his post-graduation studies

in Harvard University,

everybody knows about Harvard

and that too, under the father of

soil mechanics, Terzaghi. Terzaghi

He didn't teach us in the third year

or fourth year.

In the undergraduate courses,

I didn't have the benefit of his lectures,

but in between, he went to England,

took a postgraduate

degree from Imperial College, London

and by the time he return in 1957,

I entered my MTech

and I did my postgraduation under him.

Then - My post-graduate thesis under him.

So, after Kharagpur,

you went straight to Germany

or was, did you work

somewhere in between? Well, there was something that

happened in between also.

Immediately after I completed my BTech 1957,

I decided I would write the engineering

services examination

conducted in, by the UPSC

that selects people to IRSE,

Indian Railway Service of Engineers,

Central PWD,

then Military Union Service - there were about 4 or 5

central services together,

examination was conducted

so, I wanted to take a chance

and write that examination.

Then, 2 or 3 of my other classmates also joined me

and we formed a group,

the other person was Shankar Prasad,

he was also a ranking student in civil engineering,

then one Venkatramani.

The three of us decided to stay back in the hostels

after completing our BTech

and work

in a very concentrated fashion,

focused fashion for the examinations.

So, we prepared like that for three

three months together,

some sort of a combined study,

wrote the examination sometime in August,

the results came out the next year

and believe it or not,

the three of us were in the top 10,

I was the number 1,

my friend Shankar Prasad was number 3

and my friend Venkatramani was number 7.

So, that I would like to quote as an example

to the present generation

which is taking the coaching at various centres

and competitive examinations.

We didn't take any coaching

and it was the first attempt for all of us.

Many people here, they spread the myths

that you have to write 2 or 3 times before you succeed,

but we attended, attempted for the first time,

when got these ranks of 1st, 3rd, and 7th

without any coaching.

So, I would like to tell the present generation

depend on your own calibre

and build up your own method of studying

rather than believing in coaching.

Before - So, after that, there was a gap

because once they announce the results,

there will be some time

until you get the order.

Yeah.

So, I joined MTech

and then, did my MTech course,

finished my MTech,

then joined as a research scholar under

Professor Varghese in a CSAR scheme

which I got sanctioned at that time,

a sponsored project at that time.

Ok.

And then, after Kharagpur,

after you finished your Master's,

you then wanted to go to Germany

for doing your doctoral studies.

That's right. Although I stood first in that examination,

I didn't take up that career of -

I just wanted to test myself

and proved myself.

And then after having proved myself,

I followed my

my immediate passion of studying further

and I chose Germany because at that time

or even before that,

Germany is known for;

Germany is known for its high level of scientific

and technological development.

Particularly what they

produced before the Second World War,

during the Second World War,

after the Second World War,

so, I wanted to go to Germany.

So, I started learning German

even when I was in IIT Kharagpur

and when they called me for interview,

I could impress them with my German knowledge

even before I went to Germany.

Ok.

So, that was an additional point

in addition to my good academic record,

that was an additional point

which brought me the scholarship.

Ok.

It is a DAAD’s scholarship

German Academic Exchange Service.

I was there for 5 years in Germany.

And there you worked with Professor Rüsch.

Right.

And I mean I would like to bring to the attention of

all the audience that

the work done by Professor Rao

that time which was

on developing the constructive model for

concrete is being used by,

you know, several engineers across the world

and it has been incorporated by several codes,

talk us through that

and how do you feel when

you know it's been implemented in the codes

because that's the ultimate satisfaction for every researcher.

I will tell you how it started.

I went to Professor Rüsch after completing

my German language course

in a small German village,

but I should say couple of words about that

German language course also.

It's conducted in an institute called Goethe Institute

named after one of the

famous poets of Germany, Goethe

and deliberately, they are located in villages

where the population

doesn't speak any language except German.

And the German teachers in the institute also,

they know they are very good in English,

they are very good in French,

some foreign languages they are experts,

but they never utter even a single word of

English or French or anything,

they keep on telling you in German and German and German.

If you do not understand,

again he repeats the

instruction again in German only

with different words

such that you get that feeling

for the words.

Yes.

And when you go out

and buy something in the market or

something like that again you are forced to

Speak in German. speak German,

maybe initially, naturally broken German,

but then it gets better and better Yes

as you go by.

So, I had undergone a course,

a 2 months course at that time.

I went in October 1959

to Professor Rüsch,

told him that I would like to do a PhD,

he said forget about PhD,

I want to first of all know the candidate myself

before I decide whether he is fit for PhD or not.

So, join in a research group

which is conducting an ongoing research project,

show me your interest in capability,

then we will decide about it.

That's how I got into that group

which was already working

on the effect of sustained load

on concrete.

Ok.

So you, suddenly the concrete is tested

with a 2 minutes duration

in a laboratory either on a cube or a cylinder,

but suppose you keep that load constant

for a period of 5 minutes, 10 minutes,

1 hour or few hours,

1 or 2 days and so on

with time, the strength of the concrete decreases

and that has to be taken into account

in design of the structures

because all the structures are

permanently loaded.

Yes.

For a long period of time.

So, that was being investigated

in depth

and I joined that particular team

and it was a big team of about 4 or 5 engineers

working under him because

we had to take

so many parameters into account:

the strength of concrete,

the age at which the concrete is to be loaded,

the rate at which the concrete is to be loaded,

so many variation, variables

which are to be investigated.

So, there was a group

conducting experiments

and getting the results and there was a group

which is taking the results and evaluating the results

to develop a theory out of that,

and I belonged to the second group.

Ok.

So, the one group was conducting tests,

we took the results from them

and there was another senior colleague of mine

by name Grasser,

he also became a professor later.

And, myself and Professor Grasser

formed the team which evaluated

the results.

So, we found that

whereas the strength decreases with time,

but the deformations increase.

So, we had to combine

fall of strength

with the increase in deformation.

We tried so many stress-strain curves.

And finally arrived at

a particular stress-strain, stress block,

a parabola plus rectangle

which gave the minimum strength

taking all the parameters into account.

And that is how the German government has

German industry has adopted that as a standard,

then France has adopted that as a standard

and the entire Europe has adopted that as a standard,

England has adopted that as a standard

and we corporate from England

in one of our earlier course,

I think in 1978 code if I remember right.

And your PhD was

on developing the constructive model

or was it something different?

Well, I didn’t, I couldn’t submit my PhD on that

because it was a group

work of about 4 or 5 engineers

and that is the practice in

German Universities that yes,

somebody submits a thesis for PhD,

but they would like to encourage the group work,

at least 3 or 4 people work together

and maybe one of them takes one part of the experiment

and develops a thesis on that,

another person takes another part of the work

and develops a thesis on that.

So, I could not do that

because it was a big group already

and my Professor Rüsch

suggested to me after seeing the way

I interpreted the results of the other group,

he said why don’t you take up your own independent work

and my dissertation topic was

on the stiffness of

reinforced concrete members after cracking.

The tension stiffening effect.

Tension stiffening effect, yes

and that has again become a standard,

I am happy to know, to tell you also,

that it has become the standard method of calculating

the tension stiffening effect

according to the latest Euro norms;

Euro norms.

So, I feel very happy

to know that my work found

Place in several courses. use in, not only in Germany,

but in several countries

for practical design of structures.

Yes.

It formed the benchmark.

Then tell us about this story of the shells,

you were so fascinated about shells,

and you would design lot of shell structures,

roof structures in Germany,

so, how did all of that happen?

Yes, shells started,

reinforced concrete shells

started in Germany.

Professor Dischinger was the person

who built the initial shells

and Professor Rüsch under whom I worked

was a student of Professor Dischinger

and his thesis was on shells

when he graduated in 30s or 40s,

he worked in South America,

built large number of shells,

but gave up shells,

he became a researcher on basics of concrete

once he became a professor.

But shells for example,

were used in large measure

for factory of Volkswagen

in the northern part of Germany.

Yes.

Wolfsburg, I think is the name of the city

where Volkswagen had their factory.

Professor Rüsch built those shells, those north light shells.

Ok.

But then later on,

they lost in popularity

because as the time passed by

particularly after Second World War,

labour cost grew

much faster than the material cost.

Shells has advantage

that the material consumption is very very small,

but the labour involved

in making the necessary form work

is quite substantial

and with the change in the ratios of

cost of labour versus cost of material,

the shells have gone into background nowadays.

So, after spending five years in Germany,

you flew back to India and -

No, I didn’t fly back, I came by ship.

You came by ship, ok.

So, you sailed back to India.

There is- I would like to make this comment,

I went by air.

Yeah.

Came by ship.

I deliberately chose this ship

because I wanted to see Naples.

Ok.

There is a saying "see Naples and die".

Ok.

So, it is a very famous city in Italy.

Yeah.

In addition to that, I wanted to have the

experience of travelling by ship

which I didn’t have when I was going

so, I deliberately took ship to come back,

for 2 weeks it took from Naples to

India. to- to Mumbai, Mumbai.

So, after 5 years,

after spending 5 years in Germany,

you came back to India

and who was the first person you met?

I am sure you did not go to Rajahmundry;

you went somewhere else.

No, I did not go to Rajahmundry,

but before I tell you that experience,

let me tell you

what I did in addition to my

research work in Germany.

I told you already two important thing,

the stress concrete stress block one,

then the tension stiffening effect, second,

those were the main activities for me.

But in addition to being a researcher,

I had good exposure to industry.

The contact between the industry

and universities

in Germany is very very strong.

And they have a

system called Prüfingenieur

through which means in literally translated

checking engineer.

So, even if a God designs a structure,

another God should check the design

and that is how Professor Rüsch used to get

a lot of designs for checking.

And here because of my,

because of the confidence he had in me

along with Grasser of course,

he asked me also to help him in checking the designs

and I did lot of checking

work for Professor Rüsch

and through that,

came in contact with a number of firms

constructing buildings, bridges and so on

and very monumental structures were constructed,

one of them is a hanger for

Lufthansa.

Lufthansa

and also, for the NATO

military base at that time.

With a column free area imagine

150 metres by 60 metres,

150 metres, 60 metres

absolutely column free

so, that two Boeing jets can get into their hangar

simultaneously for repair.

And this was a steel structure.

That was a steel structure of course.

Yes, after that, when I went to, came to Mumbai,

the two people whom I met at the Mumbai

Mumbai port

because I came by ship,

were my brother,

who also graduated from IIT Kharagpur

2 years younger to me,

and my brother-in-law

who was in the railways at that time.

But they came only to see me

and take my luggage to Tuni

where my parents were.

I came straight to Madras.

After five years of stay in Germany

returning to India,

I first came to IIT Madras

from Bombay

to attend an interview

in civil engineering department.

I landed on the 4th of June

and the interview was on the 8th of June,

just made it in time,

the Professor Sengupto was the director,

Professor Varghese was the head of the department

and got selected as assistant professor

and joined in October in 1965

as an assistant professor.

So, when you joined here as a professor, assistant professor.

Yeah, assistant professor.

You, there was nothing,

I mean the there was no laboratory at that time.

Right.

You had to build it from the scratch because

the IIT itself was very new,

IIT Madras. Well, I don’t say I built it

but we built it Yes

along with our colleagues also.

So, how much of German

influence was there

in the sense, like your stay in Germany

and your association with the professors there

and how much of it came down here,

how much of it trickled down? Yes

there, there again I have to tell

a couple of stories.

The civil engineering department

was not included

in the Indo-German agreement

when they set up this institute of

IIT in the- IIT Madras.

But that reminds me

my connection with IIT Madras

started well before that

even when I was in IIT Kharagpur. Kharagpur

The German delegation

which came to India

to study the existing IITs

already by that time,

there was IIT Kharagpur, naturally,

then second IIT was Mumbai

the third was IIT Madras.

So, they wanted to study how IIT Kharagpur

and IIT Mumbai were working,

and that committee

came to IIT Kharagpur in 1950,

this institute was started in 59, 57.

Ok.

And I was a student at that time,

I was in my

Azad Hall of residence at IIT Kharagpur,

we invited the German team

for dinner on a Deepavali day

so, the German team which sanctioned this institute,

we entertained them in our hostel

at IIT Kharagpur

2 years prior to that

on a Deepavali day.

Yes, coming back to IIT Madras,

when civil engineering was not included,

Professor Varghese came down from IIT Kharagpur,

he knew how valuable the

foreign collaboration is

from his IIT Kharagpur days,

he somehow wanted to

get civil engineering also included

in the departments

which are to be supported by Germany

and it came very handy to him

that the leader of the German delegation

which was here in IIT Madras

looking after

the initial setting up of the institute

happened to be Professor Kraus,

who was a professor at IIT Kharagpur.

So, professor Varghese knew Professor Kraus

from his Kharagpur days

and then,

after he took over as the head of department in 62 or 63

around that time,

he approached Kraus,

convinced Professor Kraus

that civil engineering also should be included

and that is how he got

civil engineering included.

The reason why the Germans didn’t include

civil engineering in the initial list was

they felt that

India was good enough

in civil engineering even without foreign aid,

but then, that was correct,

we had wonderful irrigation structures

which were on par with

any structures anywhere in the world,

irrigation structures,

but urban infrastructure,

we were not on par with other countries.

So, I think Professor Varghese

must have made that point to Professor Kraus

and got civil engineering included.

And once we got civil engineering included

in 63, 64 around that time,

he started corresponding with me

in Germany

because he knew I worked with Professor Varghese,

went to Germany

so, he knew that I was in Germany,

and he said

why don’t you ask your Professor Rüsch

to help us

in setting up the laboratory.

Then, when I met Rüsch,

he was already 64 or 65,

he said, Rao I am quite old,

India is very far,

you know, go to Professor Kordina,

who was here in my laboratory

and who has now become a professor at Braunschweig,

and he will agree.

So, I and he I knew Professor Kordina

because he was originally in Munich,

he used to come very frequently,

then I wrote to Professor Kordina,

I talked to him and he readily agreed.

And then, as a junior of his Professor Eibl,

he was also earlier in Munich laboratory

so, those two formed a team,

Professor Kordina and Professor Eibl,

they came down here number of times,

helped us in

preparing the layout for the laboratory

obtaining equipments from the German companies,

all that was done by the German team.

In fact, the structural engineering laboratory

which we have today

is more or less a replica of the Munich laboratory

because I had training in Munich,

Professor Kordina was a student of Professor Rüsch

earlier, much earlier,

Professor Eibl also joined in Munich

and then, went to Professor Kordina.

so, all the three of us had that

Munich flavour with us

and we reproduced that here

with a few modifications to suit Indian conditions.

For example, the Munich laboratory

would be having three office blocks

on three sides of the laboratory

here, we have only on two sides. Two sides.

That is to permit ventilation

Yes.

which is not necessary in Germany.

Yes.

So, we made some alterations

to suit Indian conditions

and that's how the Germans came into picture.

First, Professor Varghese got the

department included in the list,

then I played my part

in identifying the experts.

Ok.

Who were the other faculty members

who helped you

in constructing this laboratory?

This, Professor Kordina and Professor Eibl

were primarily in Germany,

and they were coming only now and then and going back,

but we had two faculty from Germany

stationed at Madras

Professor Plähn from Hanover

and Dr. Cordes also from Hanover.

So, we had two Germans with us

for about

two and half years or three years

and they were the people who helped us

in constructing that

strong floor which is a unique feature of Yes

this laboratory

which makes it one of the best in the

country even today. Yes

The other Indian colleagues

some of them were already there

even before I joined,

most of them were there

even before I joined in 65.

Professor Victor and Professor T. P. Ganesan,

Professor R. Radhakrishnan,

Professor Rajagopalan,

Professor C. S. Krishnamurthy

all stalwarts in their own fields

of course, they became stalwarts later,

but at that time, they were a young faculty

and I had the benefit of their cooperation also.

So, while you were here,

what were the courses you had taught to our students?

I taught reinforced concrete

for two years;

3rd year and 4th year,

I taught prestressed concrete,

I taught design of shell structures.

Tomorrow in the

function, I will elaborate a little more

when I talk about my relationship with Professor Varghese,

I would like to share some material away from you.

So, I taught shell structures

and then,

I learnt from Professor Varghese also

the importance of conducting

courses for outside engineers

not only for students in the campus

that is how we come in contact with practice.

When you conduct a short course

say for about a week or 10 days or 15 days,

engineers from industry come to you

and they had to gain knowledge, no doubt,

but they also come to know that

yes, here is a man,

here is a person or a women

could be a lady also,

here is a person who knows

something more about

the subject to whom

I could go and consult

and that is how we built up our consultancy activity.

So, I conducted a large number of

courses, short courses

for practising engineers also.

That's how I came in contact with engineers from L and T

from Doordarshan

from so many other departments.

You mentioned about the consultancy activities

so, some of them are remarkable

and that we know.

So, for example, the TV tower,

the Doordarshan TV towers,

radio towers and the

tower at Rameshwaram which is

perhaps was, the tallest till for a long time

and there was one in Bhuj

which withstood the 2001 earthquake.

So, tell us about that story,

that journey about

how you got involved in Indian projects.

Before I talk about towers,

I would like to go in the chronological order

were the towers I started working in

end of 70s and beginning of 80s

but before that,

when the laboratory was inaugurated

in 1971,

it was the only laboratory in India

which had dynamic load testing facility

and the Indian Railways

wanted to switch over to

prestressed concrete railway sleepers

from wooden sleepers

because they have the advantage,

they are very heavy

so, when you go in curves

with the centrifugal force acting on it,

the heavy track permits you

to take the trains at higher speeds.

So, they decided to go for prestressed concrete sleepers,

but then, the design

again Germany was the leading country,

which was using prestressed concrete sleepers

in Europe

so, they wanted to

copy the design, German designs,

but the German companies were not

that much willing to

part with their designs unless

they are given the contract.

So, the Indian Railways started to

develop their own designs

and they, when they came to know that

our laboratory had the dynamic load -

in the railway track,

you keep getting their loads as dynamic loads.

Cyclic One after the other,

one wheel after the other.

They came to us

and said why don’t you collaborate with us

and that is how Professor Varghese

started the work and myself

and my other colleagues continued it later.

And it was a real big success,

the prestressed concrete sleepers

I don’t want to go into technical details

now because this is a general talk,

the design which we developed

and also the method of production

which we developed

has been adopted by

as many as 15-20 companies

in different parts of India

and now, the

sleepers are produced in millions

used in Indian Railways.

So, that was the very striking

consultancy work we did in early 70s.

Towards the end of 70s and early 80s, yes,

what you mentioned, the tall towers

was a focal point for my activity

where there were others who were doing

works on other for example,

Professor Victor was doing a lot of work on bridges.

Professor T. P. Ganesan

was an expert in experimental stress analysis,

Professor C. S. Krishnamurthy

was a top notch specialist in

finite elements

so and my group,

myself and Professor Rajagopalan,

Professor Aravindan, we were

concentrating on sleepers initially

and then, came to the design of tall towers.

And when the tall towers

were being built for the first time in India,

the tall tower we had

towers of the heights of 100 metres

or a 150 meters at the most as tall towers,

but when I finished my consultancy work,

we went up to 350 metre tall towers

which you mentioned in Bhuj

and Rameshwaram

and Barmer therefore, are the towers.

There was no Indian code,

there was not even an international code,

except beginnings were being made in America

and an organisation called

CICIND in Europe

is a consortium of countries

which came together to

draw standards

for design of tall chimneys,

but then, it was in beginning stage.

We had to build our own towers

with very scanty information.

So, we had to go through the

practises in different countries

and pick up the best

and we found that the Canadian code

amongst the existing codes at that time

was the best,

here a beautiful wind tunnel

it was Davenport in Canada

is the largest wind tunnel at that time.

Now, I do not know, in the world,

I went and visited that wind tunnel,

borrowed the ideas from Canadian code,

passed on that information

to practising engineers through short course

conducted by me

on design of tall tower structures.

And then, the people came to me

once I knew that they had some information,

they came to me for consultation

and the one big difference is

such tall towers

we have to consider structural dynamics

whereas, small buildings of 3 storeys, 4 storeys,

5 storeys of the order,

you don’t need to consider dynamics,

it is all static load,

but in a tall tower,

when wind blows on the tower,

then there is a very flexible tower,

it starts oscillating

and there is dynamic amplification

of the load coming under that.

And the Canadian code handled it very well

now, the present Indian code for example,

has taken good part of it

again from the Canadian code

but enriched by our own studies in work in our

laboratory also.

Professor Devadas Menon did his work on that,

some of his contributions are now incorporated in

the present chimney code.

And then, during your consultancy activities,

you also got in touch with

one of the greatest engineers

the country has ever produced, Dr. Ramakrishna,

who happens to be

just on the other side of the bank,

where you mentioned about Rajahmundry,

you were in Rajahmundry,

he was in Kovvur. Kovvur - kovvur

So, and it took so many years

for you to meet and then,

once the once you met there,

there was a great partnership,

you worked together with L and T

on various projects

and took the

Indian infrastructure to a different level.

Right. I was born in Rajahmundry

on the eastern bank of Godavari

and he was born in Kovvur

on the western bank of Godavari

and the two are connected by a bridge,

the old railway bridge,

but we met here only in - in -

in IIT Madras

and he joined L and T

already by that time; by that time

and I still remember when I joined here,

Ramakrishna was a fresh man in L and T,

Doctor C. N. Srinivasan and his own

design company, design organisation

C. R. and sons C. R. Narayan Rao and sons,

then and a few others also,

we decided that

the engineers of our age group

who were very very active

in obtaining knowledge

and also disseminating knowledge,

we should form a group of a

young engineer’s club

and we used to meet once in a month

in the residence of one of the members.

We were about ten or fifteen

engineers Ramakrishna was one, I was one,

Professor Purushottaman from

Engineering College, Guindy,

C. R. Narayan Rao sons, C. N. Srinivasan,

then 4 or 5 others

we were meeting,

discussing the codal formulations,

criticising the code

and thinking of possible alterations

we could suggest

for code making authorities at Indian Standards Institute,

it was a very lively group

for about 2 years,

but then, each one of us became

busier and busier,

then the meetings

became less frequent. Less frequent yeah. Not continued

So, we But we still remain good friends and, you know.

So, we spoke about your teaching activities here,

we spoke about your consultancy,

let us talk about the research

which you had done here and which

shape the codes in the country,

there was, you had several students,

you may number the number of

PhDs you had produced

and also the works which they had done.

Yes,

my first PhD student was Dr. B. V. Subrahmanyam,

a brilliant candidate,

he later on worked as a scientist in SERC.

Then, he became a consultant

consulting engineer by himself.

It was on the design of

statically indeterminate structures,

concrete structures using plastic hinge theory,

that was a contribution

which was adopted in some of the codes.

Then, the formulae for crack width calculations

was another point of investigation

which again

found application in some of the codes.

As I told you already the loadings

which are to be considered

for design of tall towers

based on a very rational

probabilistic consideration,

we determine the criteria for that

which again are finding

place in the chimney code.

So, like that there were many instances

where they had a direct impact on the industry.

The sleeper production

I had already explained to you

that the initial first sleepers were

cast in our laboratory

now, they are manufactured in millions

all over the country.

Now, we move to the other segment

which is the administrative

Oh yes. work which you had

done for this institute which

has helped institute the lot - in a big way.

There are several positions you had held,

if you can first tell about your

first position of responsibility you know

when it started, probably the head of the laboratory

or head of the department? Well, I was

the head of the laboratory,

Professor Plähn was,

Professor Varghese was a head of the laboratory,

but he left in

one year after inauguration

72 or 71 it was inaugurated.

Then, I was in Germany at that time,

I came back

and became the head of the laboratory.

For about 12 years, I was the head of the laboratory,

then we introduced the

system of rotation.

So, every professor became a head

once in 3; once in 3 years.

But after having been a head of the laboratory

from 72 onwards,

I became the head of the department in

77, end of 77,

then within one and half years of my becoming the

head of the department, Professor Indiresan

came over as the director

and he wanted to make me the dean

for consultancy

because I was already active in consultancy.

So, I was there only for one and half years

as the head of the department

and I became the dean for consultancy

for 2 years,

a job which I liked

because I liked consultancy

and I did a fairly good job

which was appreciated by my colleagues also.

But after 2 years,

Professor Indiresan had an idea

that he would like to retain some of the,

we were 5 deans,

3 deans he would like to retain,

the other 2 deans would retire,

then he would recruit fresh 2 deans

and again that sort of

partial replacement

would be followed

so that more number of people get

exposed to administration and then.

So, in that process after finished

my 2 years as a dean of consultancy,

he asked me to take over as a,

he asked me to continue,

one of the persons to continue

and he asked me to take over as the dean of

academic affairs

which deals with examinations,

succession of courses,

looking after dropouts,

re-examinations conducting,

grades, publishing grades, and things like that.

I told Professor Indiresan; sir,

that is not my cup of tea,

you gave me consultancy,

I liked that work,

and fortunately my colleagues also

appreciated it, I'm happy about it

but this I don’t think I will be able to do it

please leave me out.

Then, he ask me two questions

one after another,

what do you want to do

if you don’t want to become a dean?

Said, sir, I have got my consultancy,

I have got my research work,

I got my teaching, I like all of them

so, I will go back as a professor and

do all these works.

Then immediately shot a question at me,

do you mean to say, Professor Rao,

that I should select as deans

such people who do not have any work to do

and can you imagine

immediately there came the question,

can you imagine how much harm such people

can do to the system

if I select such people as deans?

I didn’t have answers

for those two questions.

So, I had to accept that dean of academic affairs

and that was

one of the bad - worst periods

for my stay as far as work is concerned,

I did fairly well,

but the amount of work

I had to undertake

was tremendous, those 2 years.

We had to close the - 4 year-

5 year programme - BTech program

and start the 4 year program.

And these students who were to pass out

simultaneously with fourth year -

4 year batch and with fifth year batch,

they came and told me sir,

we would like to go out after four and half years

so, I had to run a four and half year programme,

a four year programme,

a five year programme,

MTech was to be changed

from 2 years to one and half years.

We had to conduct the first GATE examination,

all came under my purview

as a dean of academic affairs

and then, introduced the credit system

in the college, in the institute,

until that time credit system was not known

it was brought by Professor Indiresan,

but I had to implement that.

So, there was so much of work to be done at that time,

but fortunately, I could withstand all that pressure

and convince

satisfy my other colleagues also

about the way things have to be done.

But you were also the

the warden for some of the hostels.

Oh, that was much earlier

that was before I became a

even a professor I think,

I was only assistant professor at that time,

it was 69 to 72,

at that time only I was the

faculty advisor to Campastimes

around that time 67, 68.

Dr. Ramachandran,

he wanted me to become the campus advisor,

the advisor faculty advisor for Campastimes.

I was warden of Narmada hostel

for 3 years, 69 to 72,

at the end of the time only I became a professor.

So,

after serving in this institute for 30 years

and then, finally, you had to say goodbye,

but before you had to say this farewell,

I want to ask you, how was the campus back then

and how do you think you know

because now, since you have come here,

what do you think has changed

and the department as well,

the campus and the department.

Well, the department has become

much much bigger,

I think we were only about

30 faculty members

or even less than that 25 to 30 faculty

now, I understand it is as much as 50 to 60,

the structural engineering laboratory,

the PhD scholar strength is

quite large now,

I think the department has

I got into Meher Prasad,

when I talked to him some time back,

had as many as 200 PhD students at a time

and all - the all sections put together,

was unimaginable and we were

on the faculty here.

I do not know about the

teacher-student contact nowadays,

but the teacher-student contact at that time

used to be very very close.

In fact, many of the MTech students,

we used to involve them in our

consultancy projects

I don’t know what they do right now,

maybe they are doing even now.

Then, the one big difference I find

from that time to this time is the

increase in the faculty strength

and the student strength.

I don’t know because of that,

the personal contacts have become less,

and it has become more mechanical

that is what I guess,

could be the difference now.

So, 20 years back you left this campus.

When when?

20 years back or 20 years back yes 20 years back yes

so, I'm right on that.

Exactly.

20 years back you left this campus

and after that what did you do?

Well to say so happened that

I retired officially in November 96

and an educational society

called Gayatri Vijayaparishat in Vishakhapatnam

wanted to start an engineering college

and they knew me,

they knew that I was retiring

and they started a college in December 96,

I retired here in November 96 was

continued for 2 months as

for extension here

to, for seeing the MTech student

through finishing their projects.

And when they came to know that I was retiring,

they invited me to

go to them as the principal

of the new college.

So, I became the principal of a new college,

I was the principal for 10 years

and I am glad to say that

it is ranked now as

one of the topmost engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh,

you were a student of that college.

So, I met Professor P. S. Rao in 2005

for the first time when he gave a

talk for the Hindu Summit,

the technical summit and that was the first time

I heard him speak about civil engineering

and that was sufficient for me

to get into civil engineering.

Nice to hear that. I would also like to ask you this was

I mean I should have asked you this earlier,

but when you were a faculty here,

did you stay in the campus

and where did you stay,

which quarter did you stay

and how was the, how did you like the campus?

I this campus is one of the best in the world,

no doubt about it,

you can’t get any such campus

anywhere else in the world.

I stayed initially

for good part of the time,

I stayed in that area near the temple,

initially in those multi-storey blocks

C1 type I think,

they were being called C1 type,

I don’t know what they are called now

C1-16, I remember the number very well,

as an assistant professor I moved in there.

Then, when I became a warden,

I took, I stayed in the wardens quarters

for 3 years,

from there I came back to the

so called German quarters

that is the other side of the

C1 block was on the one side

and C block near the temple,

they were all being referred

at that time as German quarters

because the Germans participated

in the design of that building,

in the layout of the rooms

and they were meant for

at one time, there were as many as about

30 German faculty here

and all of them are staying there.

So, when once they left,

they naturally threw it

open for Indian faculty

and I stayed for 25 years in

one of those blocks, c blocks,

near temple third of road third of road yes.

There are some stories.

Professor Natarajan was my neighbour

was the next-door neighbour at that time.

There are some stories which

going to every IIT, I believe

that whenever the civil engineering students

see the water tank,

they say that there is no water in this tank

the reason being when it was designed,

they forgot to take the water load,

how much of it is true?

Go down I didn’t get it.

There are stories in almost every IIT.

That whenever. Every IIT.

Almost every IIT which I know

where they have these water tanks,

these huge water tanks and the

students claimed

there is no water in the tank

because it was not designed for that

they had when they designed,

they forgot to add the water load,

they designed it for the sulphate,

how much of it is true?

Oh, I don’t think it is true at all,

I don’t think it is true at all,

that must be a joke going around.

Why are you asking that question

that must be something.

No, this has been a joke since many years

and seniors pass it on to the juniors,

juniors pass it on to the next batch

and it goes on.

Well, it could have happened once or twice,

I wouldn’t be surprised,

it could have happened once or twice

in fact, that is what the job of this

Prüfingenieur is,

it is not that 2 into 3 is equal to 6,

did he get that 2 into 3 is a 6 or 5.9

that doesn’t matter much.

Whether all the loads have been taken into account

which are supposed to be coming on the structure,

you have to check the assumptions

due to basic assumptions,

the concepts,

whether the structural system has been

properly identified or not

that is more important

than checking 2 into 3 is equal to 6 not that.

So, that is the

For example, if somebody has

forgotten water load,

then the checking engineer would have noticed it

that the water load was not taken into account.

In fact, to my knowledge,

this concept of Prüfingenieur

I think so we are calling it as proof checking,

I personally believe

it came from the German word

prüfen means checking,

prüfeningenieur they are called checking engineers

and we will do proof checking for printing and all that,

that is not what is

meant by we don't do checking printing Proof printing

we do the correctness of the assumptions

and as I told you it was a

mandatory in Germany

that A has to check

even if B is a very great man, these calculations,

but it was not there in England,

it was not there in any other country,

it was not in India at least,

but once people like me,

Ramakrishna and a few others

who got trained in Germany,

Professor V. S. Raju

who came back,

introduced the system of checking,

it has become very common now.

A few anecdotes which you can recollect,

can you share something with us?

I want to narrate about another episode

which happened around the middle of 1987,

it also happened to be the middle of

the term of Professor L. S. Srinath

as the Director of IIT Madras.

Around that time,

Professor Srinath wanted to

appoint a deputy director

to help him,

for that purpose

he sent out a circular

to all the professors

requesting each one of them

to let him know

whether he would like to be considered

on the possibility of the director

and if not to recommend

the name of another suitable candidate

for the post.

I replied stating that I was not interested

but recommended the name of

a very respected

professor of electrical engineering

at that time,

other professors would have replied

in their own fashion.

After about 2 to 3 months

after this circular was issued,

I got a call from the director’s office

stating that the director wanted to see me.

When I met Professor Srinath,

he asked me: Professor Rao,

you replied that

you would not be interested

in the post of the deputy director,

but all your colleagues

want you to be the deputy director,

are you prepared to accept the offer

if it is made?

I replied to him stating that

I was very happy to know

that all my colleagues had

such a good opinion about me

and further added

that if the director feels

I could be of some help to him,

I will certainly will accept offer.

He smiled and said

he would consider that.

For another 2 to 3 months thereafter,

I heard nothing,

and, in the meantime,

I got an offer of fellowship from the

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

for a second visit to Germany.

I left for the University of Karlsruhe

and after about 2 to 3 months

after I started working

in the University of Karlsruhe,

I got a letter from the director’s office

stating that somebody else

was selected for the post of the deputy director.

So, I may not have got the

post of the deputy director officially,

but I was very happy to note

that all my colleagues

had such good opinion of me

and recommended my name

to the deputy director.

I am repeat - I am narrating about this incident

because it's 30 years

since it happened

and at that time and until now,

nobody else except me,

my wife, and the then director knew about it.

The good impression my colleagues

must have had of me

must be due to the

experience they had with me

as dean for two terms under the

directorship of Professor Indiresan,

the predecessor of Professor L. S. Srinath.

There was something which

has a remarkable place in the history

in terms of engineering

which was you know

done by your colleagues or

your friends in Germany,

which is now not known to many people,

but you know the background.

No, I have some anecdotes

regarding my personal career here,

but they may not be of interest to anybody

as a historian,

they may not be of any interest to anybody.

Ok, thank you sir,

thank you for the time.

And I would like to conclude by saying

that you have been an inspiration

for several engineers,

you have taught thousands of students in IITs

and been an inspiration for several engineers

across the world,

thank you.

Thank you.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: A good evening to everybody.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Today is a red letter day for the '65 batch.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Though, we belong to the second batch,

MR. K. NARAYANAN: we were the first batch to inaugurate this campus and the hostel.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: At that time, the Krishna hostel was named as Taramani

MR. K. NARAYANAN: and that is the one which we occupied, two per room.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: I had the distinguished honour of being

MR. K. NARAYANAN: neighbours with Dr. C. R. Muthukrishnan

MR. K. NARAYANAN: the gold medalist of our batch. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: A3.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: He was in A3, I was in A4. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: A3

MR. K. NARAYANAN: And, A4 is the room where I was named Ghost.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: And, since then, nobody remembers my original name is Narayanan.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: And, Pradeep Mallick called me about 10 days back,

MR. K. NARAYANAN: said, he is coming to Madras.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Then, I talked to Mamata and Mr. Kumaran

MR. K. NARAYANAN: and then organized, “why not we have a get together of ‘65 batch?”

MR. K. NARAYANAN: In fact, I would have called another four or five people from Madras,

MR. K. NARAYANAN: but I understand, there is always a space limitation.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: So, I thought, we will have the restriction to

MR. K. NARAYANAN: two distinguished alumni, Pradeep Mallick and K. V. Rangaswami -

MR. K. NARAYANAN: winners of Distinguished Alumnus Award

MR. K. NARAYANAN: and two distinguished professors of IIT Madras -

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Dr. C. R. Muthukrishnan and Dr. O. Prabhakar.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: So, in between, I am a nobody,

MR. K. NARAYANAN: so, I just start this and then end with this

MR. K. NARAYANAN: and then, hand over to Mr. Rangaswami.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Good evening, as Ghost said, sorry, as Narayanan said,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: we were the first batch to enter into the campus.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And, I was fascinated in 1960,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I remember it was August 16th

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: when we walked into this campus,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the beauty, sheer beauty of this campus,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and I am and still fascinated

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: by the way they have kept this campus as it was,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: as as it used to be those days, green, nice, beautiful.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I remember, those were the days when

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the hostels are started,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the construction was going on in Cauvery was,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: what you say Cauvery now -

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: It had a different configuration at that point of time,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the wings and Krishna.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And Dr. Chaudhri, Professor Chaudhri, was the

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: eivil engineering professor, he was the warden of the hostel.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And, director was Sengupto and we had a wonderful registrar,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Dr. R. Natarajan, who recently passed away,

we had a condolence meeting also here, IAS.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: We were lucky to have that kind of people there, at that point of time.

Because the improvement and the genesis of this institute is,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: you know, what people we had at that point of time.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Mr. Sengupto, for example, he had a big hand in the,

you know, design of the various buildings.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And, he wanted to preserve the greenery of this campus,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: so he told the people, architects,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: who were, sort of in a competition to build,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: to design the buildings, he said,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: “I will only select those designs

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: which have least cutting of the trees.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, he said that, “no tree should be cut, that is one of my conditions.”

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: That is why this avenue used to be called Banyan Avenue,

even now, it is called Banyan Avenue.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And, it is so beautiful, no?

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: They could have easily designed it in a different way

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and cut all the trees and all that, but it was his insistence

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: that, no tree should be cut while planning this campus.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, that was his will.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And everyone, naturally, he was number one director,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and people who designed, had to follow his dictum.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: That is why this campus is so...that,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: you know, initial you know, what pace

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and direction which he gave, is still probably active

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and the whole campus has, you know, has been,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: kept nice, kept green, kept beautiful.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, and still, I am fascinated whenever I come here,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and that is a number of times,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I come here on various works, assignments.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And whenever, I know, as I remember about,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: that is, about 50 years back,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and that feeling, you know, that,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: whenever I come here, it invigorates me.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And I suppose, others also will have the same kind of an experience.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Even when we sit here and look at this greenery,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: you know, it gives you a lot of happiness and peace of mind.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, there are so many things that we can talk about,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: during those initial days, how the hostels were

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and how we were transported.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: In fact, the colleges, the academic classes

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: had not started functioning from this campus at that point of time.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: We had our classes in AC College

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and another, Guindy Research Station.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And we used to be transported by lorries like sheep. PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: trucks.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I remember still, and after some time,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: of course, many of the students picked up their own cycles 93

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and we were, you know, cycling from here to AC College

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and other Guindy Research Station, for our classes.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And it used to be one week

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: you know, we had a nice curriculum arrangement.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: One week, only theory and the next week used to be workshop -

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: practicals; that was the nice arrangement.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: We had 4 groups - A, B, C, D.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, when two batches had the theory classes,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the other two batches will have practicals.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And the carpentry shop was,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: again, in the Guindy Research Station

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and welding, the fitting shop was in is AC College or CLRI is it? OTHERS: yes, yes.

OTHERS: No, AC. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: AC College and

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think, CLRI was our admin block. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Admin block.

CLRI was Central Leather, MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: so, we had a different locations.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Carpentry was in highways department. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Highways institute.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: But what happened was, the administrators saw to it that

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: all these things were shifted into the campus within 6 months.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And we started having the regular building,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: first was the civil engineering block. MR. K. NARAYANAN: 105

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: 105, where our classes used to start

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and...I mean, very quickly the campus was setup, I must say that.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, we were in that scenario,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: where one side construction used to be held

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and on the other side lot of activities used to be

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: had; I mean, we had classes at different points of time

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and in between, the deer was crossing the road,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and that kind of a scenario, I still believe, it was very nice.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And now, let me hear from Pradeep,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: what his initial reactions were

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: that maybe, we can take up from there and as a discussion.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah, to touch upon a couple of things that you have mentioned.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: One is, the leadership of

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Professor Sengupto was really amazing. OTHERS: Okay.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He had a quiet leadership;

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I do not think I heard him or saw him yelling at anyone.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There was a certain firmness about him and a good leader.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And, I think, you very rightly point it out

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that there were certain things that he wanted,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: which was, for the good of the institute

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: good, for good of the nation.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And, the entire planning of how these A, B, C, D sections were made,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because of utilization of space.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: We were called tenants in AC College

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: or in the Highways Institute;

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: we all had to be bundled.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: The few of first memories of this place was,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: the first memories were one of amazing enlightenment,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: in the sense that, having been brought up in Madras myself

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and having had a close, say, group of Madras

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: friends or some north Indians,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but here, we were exposed to a diverse India

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that came into your hostels.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, 120 of us, I think there was,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: kind of, I am not saying unwritten,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: it may have been a written rule that they wanted. MR. K. NARAYANAN: 120, right Pradeep?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There were 120. MR. K. NARAYANAN: 120.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: They were drawn from all states of the country a country.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think, there was like quota,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think they had probably done a quota system PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: some numbers.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and I was lucky to get in over here.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, it was the first exposure to see

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: the diversity of India represented here.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And, to meet up with lots of new faces,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: lots of new friends and that excitement

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: in fact, became a bit of a distraction in my studies. This is one.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Second observation I have for myself,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: looking back nostalgically, is the fact that

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: we all came with our own set of say, baggage,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: with our own unique identity.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Whether it is our Muthu or Rangaswami or Narayanan or O.P.,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: everyone had his own identity.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I was a gold medalist in math in PUC.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I was a boxing kid when I was 10 and 12 years old,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: which I later put on weight, I could, I passed my age, my weight class

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: so, I could not box into that class.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Well, I was captain on my school cricket team,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I had done parallel bars, I had done swimming,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I had played hockey and cricket

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and all that prior to coming here.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I had been in NCC, in Loyola College I was in NCC

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: under a very famous under officer...now famous,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and so, we had very rigorous training and all that.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: But suddenly, you come to a place,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: where you have suddenly grown,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: you come from a little well into a larger ocean,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: who are the first of their institutes.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, I may have been very good in

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: what I did in my little space,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but here I was exposed to a number of people,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: who were excellent in theirs.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There was Olia, who was excellent in gymnastics,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: roman rings or parallel bars and weights.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There was Aleem, who was a great sprinter.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There was our Shetty, who was a great cricketer.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, I join the cricket team, but I was not captain, I was not as good.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I used to play badminton before,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but there was Jaggi Anand, who was

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: star badminton player from Punjab.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, like that there were many firsts

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and you suddenly found that you are no longer that first

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that you thought you were, right?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, you get a little bit of, shall I say,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: lesson in humility that you are not cat’s whiskers.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Now, you there are more cat’s whiskers than you,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: more super cats than you.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That was of very good learning initially.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: The second, as I said, was this diversity

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that caused certain distractions in my studies.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, the gold medalist in PUC math

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: was struggling to get through the first-year maths over here,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: which was very very tough, right?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: In other words, so a second lesson that I learnt was that, the

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: moment you...and then, it was like a boot camp over here.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I mean, these sessions of being driven in a truck,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: transported from our hostels to AC College

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: or to the Highways Institute, I found interesting, fine.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: One of our, talking about those truck rides,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: one guy called Zachariah got hit by one of the tree trunks

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because he was not watching.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Remember, he got knocked down?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Another guy, when we used to cycle,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: the deer those days, today they are all timid, they have become tame.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Those days, they were running wild,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and we were in their territory, do not forget.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, if we had a road on which we were cycling,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that might have been that track,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: where the deer used to cross.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, when they saw this cyclist coming down,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think it was Zachariah got hit by deer;

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: he got hit by a deer’s hoof.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, you know, these sort of things are memories,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but the boot camp business was very hectic classes,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: such an overdose of lectures,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: difficulty for me in understanding some of the

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: German accents of Professor Koch and others.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Hahn, it was tough.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Although, they made it simpler, in a way,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: by using lots of, what you call these, props?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think Dr. Koch particularly would use props to explain,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: say, physics and so on.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: But anyway, there was a lot of overdose of that stuff.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: The workshops and carpentry

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and the fitting shop became a kind of

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: get away from the heavy dose of lectures

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because it gave a little respite

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: into doing something else.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Until there again, one found

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that it was not easy to file on those

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: steel bars that we were given.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And to make a cube,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I do not know whether you had to do that. OTHERS: We did.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: To make a cube to stand on an end

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and that was a relief OTHERS: We also.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and that was such a relief, when it finally happened,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because when I would file,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: to me it looked very nice, but when that gap,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: we could see light through it, every time!

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And we used to take a week to reduce the thickness of that. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I know.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, you had blisters on your hand and all that weeping.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, the respite of workshops from classes,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I do not know if it was true respite, how was it, it was

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: also murderous.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, the second lesson was then,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: when I once told my father,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: he had this just knack of asking questions and he would say,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “so, how is it going, would do you enjoy the most?”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I said, “I like my fitting class the most in the carpentry.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He said that “you know, you should have

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: joined a mechanics school rather than an engineering college."

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That was his way of cutting me down to size and telling me,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “focus on what you have joined there for."

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, the second lesson for me, first was in humility,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that I am not cat’s whiskers -

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: there are many who are much better than I in various fields.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: The second was to focus on, you know,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: what you have come here for,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: don’t take your eye off the ball.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That lesson took a little while, it took two years.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: When I had to finally choose my branch,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and I think, my professor those days called me

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: the “reluctant electrical engineer”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because I opted for mechanical and I did not get it, right.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, third, fourth, fifth year.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but then, I had very good electrical engineering batchmates

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: there was Muthu, there was Ananthu,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: there was Mani Chandy.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And here again, there was an exercise in sizing you,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because they were all brilliant,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: all of them, all three of them, brilliant guys.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And one could, sort of, learn from the sheer tenacity

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: that they had - in how they applied themselves,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: the hours they would put in.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Muthu did not put in too many hours of work, to my knowledge,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: because he was a natural.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He knew it all, somehow, I do not know,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: like, you know, because when I used to

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: go to his room to study, to get my doubt,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: There are always lot of people

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but he found time. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: waiting for his notebook.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: But he found time for everybody.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He made time for everyone.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That means, when did he study?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That is why, I say that he did not have to put in hours,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: his tuition was through tutoring others

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and that was an amazing thing.

So, that is the lesson, that was him.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: You know, what my friend classmate

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Sunandan Sen, he used to tell me.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: He says, “I will start my, you know,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: study after 12 o’clock at night.” I said, “why?”

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: “That is when Muthu’s notebook will be available to me.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: ” I said, “how will you get it?” He said,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: “after finishing he put it outside the

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: door. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: You know, the windowsill.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: “I used to pick it up at 12 o’clock

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and come to my room and study for 2-3 hours.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Because I did not take any notes in the class."

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, that my only saviour is Muthu’s notes. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK Yeah.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: He used to tell me.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, he was the most brilliant, the best student we had.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Of course, it reflected finally in his getting the

PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: Let me put it this way. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: President’s

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: gold medal. PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: The best teacher we had.

OTHERS: Yes MR. K. NARAYANAN: Who?

PROF. O. PRABHAKAR MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Muthu. He was fantastic,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: really MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Continuing from what Pradeep was telling,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: it was a mini-India.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: In the sense, people from all state,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: it was a state quota. It was not like what you have today,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the basis of selection is an entrance exam.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Those days, it was a state quota.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, from every state, you have several people.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And it is...you know, for us,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: it was a, in a way, cultural shock.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: In the sense, MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: One of my friends; Mr. Chandrashekar. MR. K. NARAYANAN: Professor Chaudhri made it a point,

MR. K. NARAYANAN: that your roommate should be from some other state. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Some other state.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: You must not have the same person from. OTHERS: Same state.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: the same state as a roommate. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Even

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: though, we were initially little irritated by that,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: then later on we understood that it had its own merits.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And Chandru, you know, Chandhan Chandrashekar,

he used to tell me later on, last year when we met for the reunion,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: he said, “only after coming to IIT

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and moving with the people here,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I recognized that there could be other languages

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: in which people can converse.”

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Yeah. So, he was always conversing with these people in,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: the friends in Tamil. Yeah.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, it was only here he says, "I realized that

there could be other languages for conversations."

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, that was, you know, a natural national integration like thing... MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: That is right.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: that was injected in us at a very very young age.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, our we had a broad mind

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: that was developed here during our initial days.

We had people from Bengal.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: In fact, my all my survey mates were from Bengal.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, I picked up a little bit of that language,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: but Pradeep and all were, you know, born in Madras

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and so he had a mastery over several languages,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: it was natural to him.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: For me, having been, you know,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: having been brought up in a rural,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: semi-urban place like Trichy - Srirangam.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Therefore, it was difficult for me to get used to

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: this kind of a cosmopolitan setup

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and that took at least 6 months for me to

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: get adjusted to that cosmopolitan setup.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I chose Sunandan Sen as my roommate.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And that guy would start his morning

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and end his day with Rabindra sangeet.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And I would tell him, I said that

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “Sunandan, this is too much for me.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Then, he would try and say things in Bengali;

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: one of his famous sayings was

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “Ma Ma Brahmamai, raja koro ma, raja koro.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, what does that mean?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He is praying to Ma Ma Brahmamai,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “make me good, make me good.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So I learnt those.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Then he would say,I would say “teach me a few words.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He said, “forget it, Pradeep forget it.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: You will not learn Bengali. You are no use.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I was posted in Calcutta, during my working life for 14 years;

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I love their language.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I think it was a bit of this.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Then, I went to England for 2 years.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: There again, I had to share a room with a Bengali mate,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and he again had Rabindra sangeet.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, that was such a...started getting transfused into me,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: imbibed into me like osmosis and it was very wonderful.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, later, Ghost was our provider of all information,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: he is our encyclopedia, right?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And so, I asked him, I said,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: “I want Sunandan Sen’s address and telephone number,

I may go to Calcutta sometime.” He gave it to me,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: but, it was 3 years later that I went to Calcutta.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: My wife and I met Sunandan Sen

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and his wife for the first time.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And he was surprised to hear me speak Bengali.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He said, “wow, I thought you would never learn Bengali, but you learnt it.”

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And it’s good we met him that time because 3 months later,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: we could see his health was not good,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: 3 months later he died.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And for me, that was really a vindication of my desire to meet him

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: and to go and sit with the roommate I had in 1960.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So... MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: He was your roommate, is it? MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah, yeah.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I did not know that. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: 6 months I shared the room. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: He worked with me for few years in LNT.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah, that was after that

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, I came to know him more closely at that point of time.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Then, he used to narrate a lot of funny things,

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: during his childhood, or even when we were here.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: You know he was one of triplets. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Triplets yeah.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: He was one of triplets, two sisters. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: And his brother was

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: here, working in Chennai. In some Eswaran

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: and Sons MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Hackbridge, yes

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Eswar, Hackbridge MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: company

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Hewittic transformers. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Do you remember Sunandan?

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: So, he was an interesting chap. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Do you remember Sunandan Sen?

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Yeah, PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: all Yeah.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Like that we had a lot of interesting characters. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: And I knew, and I knew Eshu

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: before, but I knew everybody.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: I knew Eshu before we joined because we knew the family.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: So, he was one year senior to us, as you know. MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: yeah yeah, true.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Carry on. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Pradeep, do you remember that industry tour

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: we went, to Bangalore and Mysore, electrical? MR. K. NARAYANAN: Electrical groups.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah, did we go? PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Yeah, you do not remember that.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: I think it was for 12 days or so. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Do you think I went along?

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: I doubt it, I doubt if I came along with you.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: You did not come along uh? MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Maybe not.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Ananthu came along.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Gopi. That is also an interesting experience.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: I think we stayed in a big hall in some hotel.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Ok. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: It is a, it is a...

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMIl But, only in the final yearwe were allowed to some tour. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: The setting is more or like a prison.

MR. K. V. RANGASWAMI: Otherwise, there was nothing, tour and all was not encouraged. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Which are the, which are the

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: industries you visited, you remember?

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: I remember a few Indian Telephone Industries, PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: Kirloskar and all.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Kirloskar. PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: Mysore lamps, Kirloskar

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: was quite hectic. MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Which year was that?

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: I do not know, ’62 - ‘63.

MR. K. NARAYANAN: Must be after third year, after branch.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: And we had one course, which was called, I think,

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: machine elements or something, which was

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: packed over 15 days from the workshop area.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: And Narayanan from IIT, Kharagpur,

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: young, more or less our age, he was a teacher in that course.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: And, he used to show us...opened out machines

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: and explained the principle of operation, make a drawing.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: That was a very interesting course.

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: I do not remember how they assessed us in that course,

PROF. C. R. MUTHUKRISHNAN: but I got a decent grade.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Yeah, we were learnt very quickly here, while we were here that ,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: there is always somebody better than you,

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: faster than you, louder than you. PROF. O. PRABHAKAR: Smarter than you.

MR. PRADEEP MALLICK: Smarter than you and you know.