Good morning sir.

Good morning. I am Parvathi.

So, I guess we will just start off with the questions. Yeah.

So, to...from the beginning, could you just

tell us a bit about your career, where you studied,

and the...your reason for joining

the Aeronautics Department so early on.

I did my B. E. Mechanical from

Vikram University Ujjain,

of course I studied in Indore. Ok.

and...in 1964.

Then I joined IISc Bangalore.

For M. E. in Aeronautical Engineering. Ok.

And that I completed in 1966.

And then I was looking for some industrial experience in HAL,

for...before taking academics,

but that year there was an inci...that

there was a heavy devaluation of the rupee

in June 1966

and therefore, there was sort of job freeze.

And so, I could not get into HAL, but then

NAL had offered some...this fellowship.

Research...Senior Research Fellowship,

so I was there for about four months

and then IIT Madras was hiring but...for...

because the department was coming up.

So, I received a...senior Professor G. Subramaniam joined in

July, I think July 2000, July 1966.

Then some other Professor R. M. S. Gowda

and T. K. Varadan joined later,

and then I joined in January 1967. Ok.

Yeah, and of course that was the...

but then I have continued here.

Ok, and what was the reason for choosing the aeronautics branch?

No, that was after B. E. we were just

thinking aeronautics, one of the

advanced topics and so on. Ok.

So that glamour

Yes, sure. ...glamour yeah.

Ok and so, when you joined,

the department was in its nascent state then. Yeah.

And so, who were the faculty members,

the Head of the Dep...could you just give us a feel of the department yeah

at that point of time see

I would just like to mention at this stage, that

Professor S. R. Valluri,

Sitaram Rao Valluri,

he...he joined IIT in 1964,

he had done actually M. E. from IISc,

and then he did some work at CalTech.

California Institute of Technology,

and then, in many American institutes they have

Department of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics.

So, he started that department,

but it so happened that 1965, the Founder-Director of NAL,

Neelakantan, he passed away

and Dr. Valluri was requested to start

become the Director there.

So, at that time, he is 65 I think, he joined there.

Professor Balaraman, K. Balaraman

was there, and then D. V. Reddy,

they were there. But then an Aero they started

first batch in...'63 batch was taken

to enter, to take and so,

they were there, then 19...7...then after...by '66-'67,

they started having aero courses,

and so they were recruiting.

So, Professor G...as I mentioned G. Subramaniam and Varadan...

and '67 January I joined,

but there were other faculty members in Applied Mechanics,

like Professor B. H. L. Gowda, Ashwathanarayana,

and others were there. Ok.

Yeah. Ok, and Professor Santhakumar had mentioned that

in the beginning there was more focus on teaching than on research.

So, how did that affect the branch?

Yeah what happened was that...

six...yeah yeah...there is...it was Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics.

And, but because of that, it could get some German aid.

And so, Professor Armin Klein,

he joined I think in '68 or so. Ok.

And he got some facilities for this. Ok.

And then research could be done,

and at that time of course, there were not many

senior people here.

So, research was slightly...

there is also many of us who joined,

who had M. Tech. degrees and all that,

so we were doing teaching,

but soon after, that is why...what I felt was

that Professor Sengupto’s contribution was

to set up the infrastructure and all that. Yeah.

And the German professors who were here,

they were setting up laboratories,

which were later...

later became research laboratories and all that. Ok.

So Professor Sengupto did play a major part

in the development of the department.

Like, could you tell us any memories of him?

No I...I was rather a junior.

Ok, I mean I was a Lecturer, but still,

not so high to be in contact,

I did not have much with...we use to know he is Director

and he used to address sometimes, and all that.

But not...but this is what I say,

his role was to develop rather...

develop the infrastructure and all that,

and the German professors,

and as I mentioned Professor Armin Klein..

he had worked in Göttingen under famous Professor Schlichting.

He had worked, and so he came and then he

he got one good very good tunnel,

thats a return circuit tunnel

which is called Göttingen type tunnel Ok

and it was started...and on mid...I think early '70s it was

set up and many people used it for research purposes.

I had also used it, yeah. Ok.

Research and Consultancy Project. Ok.

And to talk about the building itself,

when was the department building built,

and, like was it extended at any point of time?

What...in that also, I would just like to give a little background. Ok sir.

See earlier, this Department of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics,

but then in late '60s,

there was a committee, national committee, Ok.

which recommended that there should be

Aerospace Departments in many IITs. Ok.

And so, that IIT Madras also decided,

and then, in order to give more emphasis to Aeronautics,

it...it was decided to separate.

So, and also Professor Pandalai. K. A. V. Pandalai,

he was...he had worked in structures

and in Brooklyn Polytechnic.

So he also came and...

then a separate department was formed in...in 1969.

4th of April I think.

1969, the building was inaugurated

by the then Chairman Board of Governors

Dr. H. V....Mister H. V. R Iengar. Ok.

Yeah, so department was started, and then of course

we had...we had laboratories, space and all that.

And later Gas Dynamics Laboratory was...

because now we did not have much...

I mean we did not have German aid.

So, we were developing our own laboratory,

so Gas Dynamics Laboratory was developed, just nearby. Ok.

And then Rarefied Gas Dynamics, that was the...that area,

I will perhaps talk about that later. Sure.

Rarefied Gas Dynamics facility was erected,

and it was...it has been used very well.

So, that also a separate. Ok.

And something that catches the eye about

the Aerospace Department is the

aircraft that you have outside it.

So, how did the department come to get it?

No, see early...as you have also mentioned there,

that there was an old airplane.

So, old airplane was given by the Air Force

and...that, but that was rather dilapidated,

and so, we were looking for different airplane.

So Navy gave this, this is...airplane Navy has given.

So the one that is lying discarded

at the back is the one you got earlier. Yeah.

Ok fine, fine.

Then, could you tell us a bit about

Professor Ramchandran, the second Director.

Yeah, he joined in the late, I mean, towards the end of 1967,

and he did give,

I mean he gave emphasis to the research. Ok.

And actually...may...he was...he...

I had heard somewhere, that when he

joined, there were only 40 professors in IIT,

but when he left, there were about 100 or so. Ok.

100 professor...may...that number may not be correct,

but 100-120 professors were there,

and Aero also Aero Department also benefited,

senior people were inducted, professor level and all that.

Professor N. R. Rajappa. He did his Ph. D....

of course, he was here earlier in Maths Department,

he did Ph. D. in Stanford, and then he joined Aero Department,

then then of course, Professor Pandalai

as I mentioned he was there, Professor Damodaran

and A. Krishnan they joined.

But in '70...and then Professor T. K. Bose,

Ph. D. from Stuttgart, he joined

in high...gas dynamics and all that.

And then Professor A. K. Sreekanth from...what is that

it is called University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Study. Ok.

It is a famous institute.

So he had worked there, and he came.

And then Professor N. R. Subramaniam.

He was a well-known scientist in NAL Bangalore.

So he...he came for four years - '71 to '75.

So this period, we had many people.

Inducted and so the department...

then the research activity started,

you know as you had asked for research,

Professor Klein was there,

then Professor Pandalai,

then this Professor Sreekanth, Professor Rajappa, Professor Bose.

Then they were guiding Research Scholars,

ofcourse, I did work with Professor Rajappa and all. Ok.

And to talk about your other activities on the campus,

like were you involved in any other activities?

Like were you a warden of any hostel or something like that?

No, I was the Assistant Warden in Narmada Hostel Ok.

From '67 to '70. Ok.

But afterwards, I was mainly concentrating on academics. Ok, fine, fine.

Then how was...like

could you tell us a bit about how it was to teach students

so early on in the department, like

how was the...how was their attitude towards the subject,

and a bit about your teaching experience?

Ofcourse, there I have some attitude like that,

if there...I mean my feeling is only about

10 to 20 percent of the students

are interested in a particular topic and pursuing it.

And so, I was happy if that was happening,

see we used to have only about twenty students,

about five-six students are interested,

so they would come and meet me outside the class,

and we would interact with them. Ok.

And and ofcourse, I gave,

ofcourse later I will come to my topic of

research and all, turbulent flows. Yeah.

I used to give courses on

introduction turbulence flows and their prediction.

There the students from various departments used to...

used to...I mean that is...they used to attend my classes,

and actually I used to give them notes,

and those notes were circulated even abroad.

So people even there, they used to study me,

when I went to University of Maryland,

they said we are studying your notes and all. Ok.

So, that way it was one happy experience. Ok.

But there were some students who may not be interested,

so that is how...and because

everybody is not interested in every subject.

Do you have any other

memorable incidents that you still remember

from your teaching career,

anything specific sort of? Yeah.

No, not...means...I was rated as one of the good teachers and

that some students would come, and there was

some good students, one is one S. P. Vishwanathan.

He did it in '60...no '70, 1970 batch

he was, and then he was in Boeing,

he was in Boeing and all that,

and he used to do,

but even as B. Tech. student, he did some work

which was later used, you know the winglets.

Winglets on the airplanes,

he had thought about it here.

And then he went there,

he went...he was in Lockheed no...

he was in Lockheed, I think

he was in Lockheed Martin,

and then he was nice.

I had his notes,

see he had...he used to write nice answer...he...

his assignments used to be good,

so I had kept them.

And then in 2004, he came here

as a Visiting Professor. Ok.

So I showed him, and he was very happy,

very happy to see his notes, yeah. Ok

And, one more thing sir, Yeah.

we understand that there was a brief collaboration with

France with...for the department.

So, how did this affect the department?

Yeah, that...no, it was useful. Ok.

And that is...it started in mid-1970s

and Professor Pandalai was Director from '73

to...he was the HOD...first HOD of Aerospace,

then '73 he became the Director.

'73 to '77 he was the Director,

and since Aero did not have any aid,

he...although he had inspired us to

develop the laboratories on our own,

but he also procured this...

or rather he was instrumental in getting this collaboration.

So...we of five people visited, under that,

so Professor Gowda, S. Santhakumar,

then S. Krishnan, P. Venkateswarlu and myself,

we went there for a varying period. nine to... Ok.

nine months to 15 months or so,

we used to...we went to some of the very important laboratories

and did, and then they gave a shock tube.

I forget which institute they gave,

right, they gave a shock tube in that

Professor...for that Professor Sreekanth and Dr. Kurian,

Job Kurian, they went to France

then they brought it, and set it up.

So it was only a small collaboration,

ofcourse there was a very interesting...

then once we asked one of the French Professors

that "Why not extend it?"

They said, "You bought some French airplanes,

so we gave a collaboration.

You buy more aeroplanes, we will give you more."

So, it was... Ok.

So, now we could, we would like to move a bit

on to your fields of research.

Yeah. So, could you tell us a bit about your major areas of interest?

Yeah, I have been working in the area of

Turbulent Measurement and Computation of Turbulent Flows. Ok.

And so, I have given,

actually invited lecture on...on this topic,

or on turbulent flows for one week

short term courses, for major aerospace industry

that is NAL in 1987, ISRO in 1991,

and then DRDA in...I think 1996, HAL in 1990,

and also I...abroad I have given lectures on this subject,

turbulent flows and their prediction.

And then I gave advice to ADE

Aeronautical Development Establishment

when they...who were developed this LCA airplane,

that is what model should be used for

computation of low pass airplanes.

And that has also been published as a review article

in 1997, in Progress in Aerospace Sciences. Yeah. Ok.

So, like, could you tell us about your first research project

and how was it to get funding and other support for the project?

I would just like to give a background. Sure.

That...you see in mid-'70s,

The Government of...the not...Ministry of Defence,

they established this...there is one board,

Aeronautical Research and Development...

Development Board, AR & DB.

So, this, and on this was rather

they would fund open ended projects, research projects

and all, not exactly application oriented.

And so...and they were also visual,

they had people, eminent people from IITs and IISc, NAL,

and various people, and they would give projects.

So, Professor Sreekanth got a project for...

I...this rarefied gas dynamics facility. Ok.

Because that was not there in the country and actually...

and when it was built in early '80s, I think.

So, it was one of the best facilities in the South-East Asia.

South-East Asia and then ofcourse,

the shock tube was also there,

that was also updated under this ARDB projects.

And I had a project in '80...

'84, I had first project from ARDB, wave boundary layer interaction.

So, we did studies on that,

and under that, we lot equipment.

See, the main...as I mentioned, ARDB

was very generous in funding,

and also, they didn't ask for...you know applications immediately.

So, because I had also gone to France and that...

I had also done something work on turbulence and all that,

and so that was very helpful to continue,

then it was a four year project,

we did some work, published many papers,

and yeah, after of...subsequently

I had a project from Volkswagen Foundation.

For flow study inside cars...inside,

because outside people have studied inside,

so for that, we got a equipment...laser Doppler anemometer. Ok.

Laser Dop...so we were able to get this

latest equipment with the help of these projects. Ok.

So, when you look back on your research career,

what is it that you find the most memorable,

or most successful sort of?

That is, I was also...I was trying to involve many...

I was also involved in Computational Fluid Dynamics,

of course Professor T. K. Bose and

some other peoples...people will also be there,

Professor Ramakrishna, M. Ramakrishna

had joined our department in 1990,

and so CFD, that is Computational Fluid Dynamics

was becoming a very important area.

And so, we brought...we...and this was being,

the research was being done in various departments.

Aero...Applied Mechanics, Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Mathematics,

and so...Metallurgy also.

So we brought toge...people together,

and then proposed a big project to DST,

and they gave us a three crore project.

So, to set up a CFD centre ok.

That was project was given in 1998,

and then centre was...centre started working and all that.

And ofcourse, at that time there had been this,

India was not being high speed computers and all that,

high, so we took help of DR...

there is a DRDL Lab called ANURAG. Ok.

Advanced Numerical Research Analysis,

so they built a supercomputer. Ok.

Supercomputer for our purpose,

of course that it was super...at that time,

but now it is, of course, ALDR this C-DAC

Centre for Advanced Computing in Pune, they also had.

So we got that, and then we worked, about 25

staff members from various departments,

were working together,

and we did computations for various industries

and all that...GTRE Gas Turbine Research Es...

so we had some six-seven projects from them.

Then DRDL, DRDL Hyderabad.

We...and many other...you know, in some industries also

we developed some codes and all that.

It is still there, centre is there.

But then...I will come to that, later also.

Some things...what happened.

And one other thing I would like to know is like

how was the collaboration with other departments then?

So...like the interaction, teaching or research,

could you tell us a bit about that? Yeah

As I mentioned here, that, I mean see

Aero we had four-five people who were working,

the...actually the...the CFD centre,

coordinators also, there were five coordinators. Ok.

Five or six, six coordinators,

and they were from different department.

Aero of course, we...because I was the Principal Coordinator,

Aero there were one more Ramakrishna, Yeah.

And then Professor Sreenivas Jayanthi from Chemical Engineering,

then Professor T. Sundararajan from Mechanical Engineering.

And somebody else...

but ofcourse, one more person was there,

so five-six coordinators...and then, we had good relationship. Ok.

People from Mathematics and all that,

so one Professor Usha in Mathematics, Yeah yeah.

she...we have worked with her

and we have published, I mean several papers together.

So otherwise people they think that

Maths people you cannot...work with them...with them easily,

but now we...we, but with, understanding it was possible,

Metallurgy people were there. Ok.

So it was...there about 25-30 people were,

you know, using the facilities, students would use,

and, we were doing problems of industry by solving... Ok.

And one other thing, like the FRP Centre was

set up around this time,

so were you involved with it in...in any form?

No, that was a slightly different area,

but the history as I...as I see about it is,

that in 1972, I think it was 19...

this CSIR, you know Scientis... Yeah,

Council of Scientific Industrialists.

I...I think that it was having Silver Jubilee Ok.

in '72 or '73, somewhere around that.

And then Professor Pandalai,

he was given a project by CSIR.

Silver Jubilee fund, that to start a Centre for Composites...

Composites...FRP, FRP means Ok

Fibre Reinforced Plastic, Ok

this research centre was started in 1972.

So...and then he...he...it was attached to the Aero Department

and some two-three people were...

one Professor Kunukkuseril...Xavier Kunukkuseri he was... Ok

he...he was there and some others were there,

and he mentioned about Professor Nair or somebody,

so Nair and others were there.

And then in the active...they did very good work,

industry and others were...they were developing manpower,

they were they develop...

and also did lot of work for others,

they acquired equipment

which could be used by industry and others. Ok.

And so, in order to further encourage ARDB I think,

ARDB gave funds to have more equipment, more faculty,

and also three-four people from from other department also. Ok.

So, people from Aero were there,

then people from Metallurgy, people from Civil,

So three-fo...they used to work,

it became interdisciplinary centre, Comptech,

it...then it become Comptech in 1997. Ok.

And it was doing, it was doing good work. Ok.

Ofcourse, I will come to it later, what happened to... Sure, sure.

what...some problems came up, yeah.

And sir, moving on a bit to your life on campus,

did you stay in campus during those days? Yes, yes

ofcourse, as Assistant Warden I was here and then,

afterwards I had...I was in Taramani Guest House

for some time, and then we moved after marriage,

and we moved to quarter, that was in D-Type,

then C1-Type and B-Type.

It was a nice...ofcourse,

my wife was also working in KV-IIT. Ok.

And son was study...son was studying in Vanavani.

So, we had...it was very lovely, Yeah yeah

ofcourse deer would come into our camp...compound and all that.

So, like anything else, like how was the...

was the OAT...did you go for the movies at OAT? Yeah,

we used to go, we used to go every week and all,

even after retirement I used to go for some time,

I used to go. Ok.

And looking back, could you identify any

exceptional research scholars and

any experiences with them?

People you still remember from your career?

Yeah, now...I would mention about Dr. Gangan Prathap.

Gangan Prathap you might have heard of his name,

he...he...he...he was first in JEE in 1969. Ok.

And then he joined Aero Department,

and then he was first in B. Tech., Ok.

I think President's Medal, yeah President's Medal he got,

and...Gangan Prathap...and then he

joined our Department for Ph. D.,

then of course he did Aero B. Tech. Aero,

so first time anybody from Aero had stood first. First

Stood first in IIT, and then he

joined for Ph. D. under Professor Varadan. Yeah.

Varadan in Structural Mechanics and all that,

and he finished Ph. D. in four years.

In the '78 he had finished his Ph. D., then he joined NAL. ok

National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore,

and he did work in Structural Mechanics and all that,

he...he got Bhatnagar Award and many things,

and he is...he is one of the I...I think he is the only from Aero

to get the Distinguished Alumnus Award

and so, he has made... Ok.

so he was...of course, I had very good students,

they have published some papers and

some of them, they remember and all that.

And, I have...I mean, I had also a good

experience with M. S. scholars. Ok.

See, what happened, M. S. scholars most...

many of them are from other colleges,

not from IIT, because our own students used to go abroad mostly.

So, the M. S. scholars I found them

very, I mean and that...are hardworking and also

willing to listen and all that, learn,

and then I used to publish papers with them

and so, it was nice.

So we have published several

papers in international journals,

and done some good work,

industrial work and all that. Ok.

So, Ph. D. scholars also have been good,

I had one person from Iran. Ok.

So, he... From Iran.

Yeah Iran, he was a student of Iran.

So, I had good relationship, and yeah. Ok.

And now looking back at the department as a,

could I...could you identify like two or three

major implications that the work

has had on the aerospace industry,

like department has had on that industry?

That as you see, this CFD Centre

which was there, Yes

it was...it...it did...I mean projects

for DTRE or DRDL and many other research.

even some private...these on metallurgy,

the...the Institute of Metallurgy Company,

they m...they mould and all that.

So, they ha...they were having an imported code.

But then, they wanted to make changes

and they...and it was becoming costly,

so IIT people wrote.

IIT people wrote a code for that, Ok

that is you know, it is a very complicated,

the...in the mould, the molten metal is coming,

it is freezing, and so, phase change and all that.

And so it was completed already...Professor T. Sundararajan of

Mechanical, and Professor what is his name, Prasanna Kumar. Ok

Of Metallurgy. You know Professor Prasanna Kumar, Yes yes

he is still there I think, he is still the faculty yeah. Yes.

So, Prasanna Kumar, and Sundararajan and others,

they did project for industry

and so, that was one thing.

Then, yeah and department, yeah

this...I...what is that...yeah rarefied gas dynamics I think,

that was the unique in the

neighbourhood country and neighbourhood.

So, a lot of research,

interesting research for ISRO was done. Ok.

And then shock tube also, yeah the...

because we...we have at high...high...high speeds

and all that, you have the shocks

so the, when we had updated facility.

Just to give you an example in that

rarefied gas dynamics facility...you have a jet of air,

it expands at a certain rate,

in this ordinary atmosphere. Yes.

But in the rarefied atmosphere,

it expands much...much...

much faster...wider, it becomes wider,

and then in a...in a...in a satellite,

there are small jets to correct its rotation and all that.

There are small jets.

Now, these jets are...when they are fired,

the...that jet will come,

and that jet should not hit the solar panels.

So, that kind of studies people have done, and so on

and then another thing was,

our Professor, I didn't mention our Professor S. Krishnan

Professor S. Krishnan joined IIT say '68-'69 or so,

and he did lot of work in propulsion. Ok

So, he developed his Rockets and Missiles Laboratory.

There, they did lot of propellant tests for propellants, for DRDL.

And DRDL was given propellants,

which were more efficient,

you know...you know the specific thrust,

there is a term called specific thrust,

so they had more specific thrust.

So, he did lot of work along

with Satyanarayana and others.

And then the gas dynamics and other laboratories,

the Professor Sujith, R. I. Sujith

he did lot of work for...consultancy work for ISRO. Ok.

ISRO, so department made

Parvathi: Quite a lot of...[Indistinct Dialogue] Yeah yeah.

Parvathi: Ok, and Because you know, and one thing was most of the

aerospace organizations they had this embargo.

So DRDL was not getting technology from outside,

ISRO was not getting technology from outside.

So, our peop...and even nuclear research

you know that is Kalpakkam and others. Yes.

So they...they were denied in this thing,

our people were helping them.

See people from...and the

the flow inside the reactors are complicated.

They have different material sodium, liquid

sodium, and with a different type of fluid and all, so

flow inside that and complicated flow.

so people have been solving those things...problem Ok

Sir, and one other thing, like with all your experience

in the field, like could you tell us

like two or three qualities that you think

an aerospace engineer should have,

just looking back on your experience?

I see, you know aerospace what we try to do is,

it is...it is something at the cutting edge level.

So, we give them general background. Yeah.

That is because...but at the same time,

they are given more fundamentals and computational skills. Yeah.

Experimental skills, all the fundamentals, Yeah

computational and experimental skills, we...

so they have good mathematical background,

because this, you know computational fluid dynamics

or aero dynamics, or structural mechanics,

they involve advance techniques, Yeah.

finite element methods and so on.

So our students have given background in

computational techniques and also mathematics.

So, they are able to solve problems in different areas,

and also they go to different areas. Yes.

Our students have been going to different areas

and doing very well, even one of them,

there is one...Sumantran. Sumantran, he was

he...he was in General Motors.

He was...he was you know...and then he came and he was in...

he was in Tata Motors. ok.

And this I think Nano and all that

were...he was...he was one of the

persons who...he lives here only I think,

he...he...in Besant Nagar, but he was been...

So he was...so like that, there were our,

they have general background.

So, they are able to fit into various areas.

And, looking at the situation of the industry right now,

how do you think 'Make in India' and the increased

external investment will help the department, and the industry?

Now, as I have mentioned earlier, that

our people have been helping the aeros...

I mean that aerospace laboratories and R and D,

because most of the aerospace is actually is like

they do R and D, and then they produce,

it is not much of a mass production,

but you know, the satellites are made,

but there are problems, our people have been solving them,

and even this...some time back, they have...they...

they have flown that reusable vehicle. Yeah.

So, some of our people have helped in that, Ok

they have done some problem, here...here and also

DRDL the...the some of the missiles,

they enter the atmosphere.

So how that...what should be the

type of material for the heat shield and all that,

so many of these...and even as

I mentioned, nuclear power also.

So people have been helping,

so, there is a potential available.

So if now, other people also, they have some problems,

they can come, and our people can tackle them. Ok.

So that may...that Make in India,

where it is not Make in India, just producing,

but if there...there will be technological inputs,

so I do not know, this maybe this, our Research Park, Yes.

they must be helping them.

So, and if some of them,

ofcourse, I am not sure whether aero people

are involved with them, but they can be involved

and they...there should be...that should be,

and they should...I mean...that is, they should design and make. Yes

Ok, you are saying it should not be just Make in India. Just making.

Ok Ofcourse, in making also if there are any difficulties,

our Production Engineering and other...

a Manufacturing Eengineering you know, MES. Yes

People are there to sort out those problems.

So, to just close off, could you just like...

what would you like to say it to the young aerospace engineers

in campus, and like everywhere around?

What...see when I become a HOD in 1995,

I was finding that some of the younger people

were drifting in...away from research,

so, then what...what...I tried to do something,

and so Professor Sujith,

in '95, he joined and then Professor...

now they are Professors, Satyanarayana Chakravarthy.

They joined during that period.

So, I used to, when they came

and met me after joining,

I told him that, "You concentrate on research,"

because what I told them is that IIT teaching

is different from other colleges,

Because here people do research.

People are doing research

and the research findings they percolate into teaching.

So that is how the teaching is much...at a higher level.

And, how to keep on doing research, I told them

that there are simple...I mean two simple ways,

but practical, that is you try to publish

at least two papers in journals in a year.

And second thing is, you have two projects at a time.

Because some people are not taking project,

even now IIT not...I think the...only about...

not even half these faculty are having projects.

So, with the projects, I told them

"You will have...you can buy equipment,

computing experimental equipment

or computing resources

and then you can also have students."

See IIT has limited number of students,

but if you have project, you can have a student

on the project and he can do M. S. and Ph. D.

So...and there were some other freedoms also,

you can travel, and all that.

So, have two projects at a time

and...so this advice was...

was followed by Sujith and Satyanarayana,

Sujith has done very well, he...he two years ago

he got that Mid-Career Research Award.

Ok IIT has the awards you know.

That...the initial award and then,

Mid-Career and then senior people get

some Lifetime Award and all that.

So he got that award, and he has even published

more than 100 papers by now,

I had just told him,

that "Try to publish hundred by...try that

target of 100 before you become 50."

So, he...he came and told me

the other day that he he had achieved that.

And Satyanarayana also has done very well in...

he is very well known...abroad,

and in the country also.

And he is now the...almost he is the leading...Principal Coordinator

for the 50 crore centre on combustion research.

There is a big...it...it will be inaugurated I think soon. Ok.

You might have heard by the side of Aero Department, Yes.

There is the Centre for Combustion Studies,

so, he has been given that project,

and so, they are doing...they have done,

then they have been editor of journals,

and so they have...both of them have done very well.

So that's what I tell you know, our younger people also

when I met them that, because some people say,

"No we will not do project," and all that.

But I tell them, "Projects have their own..."

even projects help the Institute, and we solve problems

which are needed for the country and all that. Ok.

So I have been telling that,

and that was...they followed and it is

having a seen this way.

Now, Sujith is...has...recently you might have see in

last Sunday’s Indian Express that,

Sujith and his students, they have...

they have been studying this combustion instability.

And now, they have developed a scheme,

or a method...that how to...because

sometimes, this instability sets in, and engine stops.

To prevent that, they do all sorts of...

they...I mean, they do use it under efficient yeah...

under capacity and all that.

But now they are, they have given a...yeah, they are coming up

with a scheme that it can be...warning can be given.

Warning can be given, it came in last Sunday

Indian Express and all that,

and so, of course, they are going to have patent and all that.

So those things, they are coming,

that is we should develop new things

and then make patents and all that. Ok.

So before we end, anything else that, you would like to say

to the people who are watching this?

So, about your having had such a long career

in the department, and looking back,

anything that you would like to say to us?

Yeah that is what...

yeah I think you had asked something,

now, the working together...

yeah [Reads From Paper] see...yeah working...that was...the anything

[Reads From Paper] I would like to have accomplish

[Reads From Paper] accomplishments of department. What happened was,

that yeah since 1990s and so on, the funds are available.

That is...when you propose projects and all that,

so you can get big funds for equipment,

for computing resources and so on,

but to make a mark, what was...

what is needed is, to have a group. Yes sir.

And the interdisciplinary group.

So, CFD centre we started,

and so, as I have mentioned 25-30 staff members

from various departments would come together,

discuss together, and see, somebody working

in metallurgy, he may have some problem,

but same thing can be...same...

that method can be used in some other.

So, that was that...what they call

cross fertilisation of ideas and all that.

So that was going on,

and it went on for some some years.

Similarly there is the there is this...this Comptech

Comptech there are people from Civil, Metallurgy and others.

Then, the CFEAD there was a centre called

Centre for Finite Element Analysis and Design. Ok.

CFEAD. It was in civil line,

but there were people from aero

and other people were there,

even Tata Consultancy had given them...

some students used to come.

That is, they used to depute their staff

to do M. Tech., and all that here.

And there was one MSRC, Material Science Research Centre. Yeah.

So these we are bringing together

from Metallurgy, Chemistry and other places.

But somehow in 2004, something happened

and the IIT was trying to say...

yeah of course, I was I think I was mentioning in something

which you...you felt you could not do before retirement,

I think that is the point I was...

that question is what I had written down this.

So, 2004 this idea somehow it came,

that the centre should be attached to the departments. Ok.

2004, and I have...

I thought that was not a good idea,

but after I retired in 2005 first time,

of course, second, then re-employed

and first time at the age of 62.

So, 2005, I could not prevent that.

And then these centres were attached.

CFD centre were attached,

Mechanical Engineering Department

Comptech was attached to Aero,

MSRC was attached to Chemistry,

and CFEAD was...they...they didn't like this idea,

so they closed, I think they...they said...

they...they...they they sort of...people said you know ok,

we...we will do our own.

But what happened with this attachment,

the interdiscipline nature stopped. Yes.

So now, CFD Centre in Mechanical Engineering,

the people from Chemical and all the

other departments are not coming,

he said, "It is department of Mechanical,"

and Mchanical Department says

"Let us have...it is a part of the department."

So, it is like one laboratory.

So, funding was also gone,

Comptech also these people from Civil, Metallurgy

they went away, they...they same MSRC,

which is all other people,

Metallurgy and other people

they had lot of costly equipment,

they...they have gone away.

So, this was not, this is...this I felt was

not a good thing, I felt, I...even now I feel sad about it,

but now of course some new centres are coming up.

This Combustion Centre is coming up,

and then I think Biotechnology also they have some...

so, I only wish that these centres

and interdisciplinary work blossoms in IIT. Sure, thank you.

Ok, and that's all sir, so

Yeah. we come to the end of our interview.

Kumaran Sathasivam: You had mentioned something about the FRP Centre, sir.

FRP had become Comptech, FRP in 1997,

because to give it more importance,

it was made Composite Technology Centre, Comptech.

that also see, Comptech had people from Aero,

people from Civil, people from Metallurgy,

I know they were there,

but now once the centre was attached to Aero Department,

it became...the funding was small

and also other people said "It is Aero."

So, it was. So the interdisciplinary nature was not there.

That interdisciplinary nature was...

so this was...now anyway some...it's coming,

new centres are coming, this Combustion Centre

they are Mechanical Engineering people, Aero people,

and maybe Chemical Engineering, they...they will be there...there.

so that is needed...interdisciplinary studies,

our way of working is important,

because people come together

and they can do bigger projects.

See what happens is IIT Kanpur,

they had some Professor Biswas,

of course he has now left

and he has become Director of IIT Guwahati.

But Professor Biswas, Professor Muraleedhar,

Professor Muraleedhar, Professor Eshwar,

but of course, he has also gone to IIT Hyderabad,

The Head of Mechanic...

But there some of them, they came together

at IIT Kanpur, and then they developed course.

See to develop a course,

you need a team,

and you need also some ideas,

because different people have different ideas,

so what they have...what they had achieved was,

that BARC, BARC had developed some code. Ok.

Now, these people develop a parallel code,

and then they would compare.

See the...so that is called...I mean

in computational fluid dynamics, that also is needed.

You give it to two teams,

and they develop course,

and then they...inter-code comparisons,

and there will be some other things.

See, how they are tackling some of the computational difficulties,

so that was, of course they are also...

these people have now...they have gone

to different places, Muraleedhar is there,

but Eshwaran has gone to Hyderabad,

Biswas has gone to... Ok.

But that is needed.

So people coming over together,

then only they can do good codes.

See, abroad some of the professors

and others are developing codes,

they are forming companies,

that is because they...they have

they...they work together and yeah,

so that is what is...interdisciplinary...working is needed. Ok.

Yeah. Ok, that's all sir.

So, thank you so much for spending your time,

No, it is ok. Ok, thank you.

Good morning, Mohan. Welcome to Heritage Centre.

Thank you, Nags.

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

even you are a student,

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

how you got into IIT and then what you have been

doing since you left IIT. Ok.

Interestingly enough even though my

mom’s first cousin Professor V. Rama Murthy

was a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering.

Somehow I didn’t know about IIT until

I was about to apply for pre-university course

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

you should go join Loyola College because they have this

coaching for a month before the

JEE for IIT and I am like what is IIT?

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

my parents said why do you want to go to Chennai

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

For purely the kids education.

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

Voorhees College in Vellore or Loyola in Chennai

I should take it up

and luckily for me the Loyola College one came up

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

each day in the morning before regular classes

Math, Physics, Chemistry being covered in these things.

So, that is how I wound up getting

to become aware of IIT and then you know

get prepared in terms of the JEE.

And, it was like sheep mentality at the time right

based on what rank you got you know the

top choice was Electronics, next was Chemical.

So, my rank was such that

I went into that not because of any particular

interest in Chemical Engineering as supposed to

some other branch of Engineering.

But, then as many people know when I was

starting my second year, it is 1973 is when the

IBM mainframe came as a gift to IIT Madras,

from West Germany and I got hooked

and the rest is kind of history in the sense of

my spending all my spare time and more

hanging around in the Computer Centre

and I had the benefit of IIT letting even undergraduates

who had from a curriculum perspective

no business going anywhere near the computer. Right.

Unlimited access so.

And since I left IIT in ‘77 of course,

with all the 4 years of heavy duty learning about computers

and such I had made up my mind

especially starting from the third year

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

But between the beginning of the second year

and the third year

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

because to begin with I was using lot of these

application packages that were

available on that mainframe system.

But, then there was some special feature

I was trying to use in a simulation package

where the software kept crashing and that is when

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

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

is to do a Ph.D in Computer Science

and get into hardcore nuts and bolts low level

hardware as well as software kind of thing.

But, I still graduated only in the software space

in terms of my Ph.D work.

I didn’t really do any hardware oriented work.

So, and after graduation of course,

from my Ph.D I joined IBM research

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

IBM research division. Right.

Primarily in San Jose,

but I did spend about 32 months in Bangalore

as the IBM India Chief Scientist and also

for 1 year I did a sabbatical in Paris

at a French Computer Science Research Institute.

It was from 1998 to 99. Ok.

So, going back to your days at on campus,

what are your some of your best memories

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

First year I was more of a normal guy

in the sense that when I joined Loyola College

for my pre-university in 1971

that was the first time I started playing tennis.

As opposed to during my high school days in Vellore

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

So, when I came to IIT in 72

that first year I regularly went to OAT movies,

I used the tennis courts here and so on.

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

Computer Science related stuff as a side activity,

it began to dominate my psyche so much

that I stopped doing anything else.

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

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

I was in Alaknanda to begin with and I should have

as a Chemical Engineering guy gone to Godavari in 70.

You had the 1 plus 4 model right?

Yeah, right exactly, but at the time they

did not have enough space in Godavari.

So, some of us got sent to Saraswati,

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

So, I did you know spent some amount of time

with my batchmates and others in the hostel,

but really not the normal kind of time

that others would have done.

Because I got to know more of the Master students

who were in Computer Science

because when the Computer Centre was started in 73

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

but undergraduate degrees in Computer Science

didn't begin anywhere in India to my knowledge until

late 70s early 80s.

So, of course, the campus and you know

Mardi Gras all those sorts of things

have left a lasting impression on me.

Mardi Gras is now called Saarang yeah.

And, also you know being close enough to my parents

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

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

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

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

by the time I would have normally had

Hindi education in high school

the Tamil Nadu Government went from being

Congress Government to DMK and so, the

three language formula became two-language formula,

but my mother still thought I should learn Hindi and so

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

And, some of that knowledge I could have kept up

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

my classmates or even others that were more into

Hindi speaking, but I just didn’t.

Of course, we are just had our own

vernacular rate we had that campus.

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

But, I do think that you know the

whole cosmopolitan student body is a the big plus.

Yeah, yeah definitely.

No question about that.

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

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

started feeling very bad about having not having kept up my

Hindi knowledge because there the Indian community was

so small that everybody automatically assumed that

everybody will know Hindi. Right.

So, and also even movies that were being shown over

there were Hindi movies with no subtitles to begin with.

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

but then soon after the subtitles in English started coming.

So, I was less motivated then.

So, anyway that is the.

How was your workshop experience, sir?

That was pretty tough, right because

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

every other week we spent entirely in the workshop

and in the second year one day of every week

we spent in the workshop.

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

compared to some of my contemporaries

in other engineering colleges and so on

or even in other IITs for that matter .

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

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

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

my wife complains that I am not doing

enough of the things myself.

Like the professionals do it that's why.

But as an engineer I suppose

and I am supposed to be expected to be more hands

on than I have wound up being.

Yeah, just supervise.

The other subject lot of people remember is of course

drawing, Engineering Drawing

which also used to be pretty painful and,

but you are ok with the drawing.

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

have sort of been being

sent out of the cache in my head you know.

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

since I graduated 1977 is when I

Finished my Bachelor’s Degree.

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

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

but these days you know it is interesting when I look

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

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

and such things so vividly and they are also talking about

various workshop employees

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

Is my brain so messed up compared to these

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

make up names and.

No, but then there are these other guys

who are also you know at times pointing out some

errors in this recollection and so on.

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

Sure. memory about some of these sorts of things

and in my case that is not the situation.

So. Any memories about the department?

Chemical Engineering all I remember is

you know Ananth teaching Thermodynamics

and of course, later on long after

I left he became the Director

and then I am forgetting Gopinath was there.

Was there a Govinda Rajalu?

Govinda Rajalu, I don’t remember.

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

right because I was essentially trying to get away

with the minimal amount of work in Chemical Engineering,

so much so that my parents when they noticed

how much time I was spending in

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

interpreted as Computer Mohan.

My parents thought that I might even flunk

my Chemical Engineering with all the enthusiasm

I was showing on Computer Science.

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

department in the sense of

after I left coming back and interacting with the

staff members, but there was one Chemical Engineering professor

who had become a Computer Science person

and that was Professor Nagarajan your name sake,

but he was an older gentleman of course.

So, he was one of the few faculty members in

in Computer Science after the computer came here the

mainframe that encouraged my craziness of

spending so much time on something

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

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

Who was one of the two faculty members who came from

IIT, Kanpur to start the Computer Centre and the

other one being Professor Mahabala.

So, Muthu was ultimately my

project advisor even for my B.Tech project.

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

So, in so many ways I was the oddball guy

that was nominally a Chemical Engineering student,

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

No, actually strangely enough

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

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

I used to feel originally that unlike the

IIT Kanpur administration based on the fact that

Kanpur was started with US assistance

gave the students lot more flexibility.

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

in IIT Madras as an undergraduate student

in the area of Computer Science was in the

eighth or the ninth semester as a Mathematics option

I could have taken Fortran programming as a course

and that would have been the only formal

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

But then since I had started programming

in the third semester this didn’t make.

Because things are very different now as I am

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

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

and an M.Tech in Data Science you know integrated

5 year program I see

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

minor in Computer Science.

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

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

No, we didn’t. And even in your time?

No. You are about 3 years, 81.

Yeah. 4 years junior to me, right.

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

I suppose because of the West German idea of

what undergraduates should do it was a

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

But, at the same time I was also extremely pleased

that not only the Computer Centre administration

but even the rest of the admin people in IIT Madras

allowed somebody like me to

have unlimited access to the mainframe.

And so, to that extent I am forever grateful to

the people in IIT Madras that let guys like me exist

and not get penalized in any sense.

In fact, I was quite surprised when I finally

managed to get out with a 7.5 GPA

is that the term or CPA? CGPA.

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

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

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

and so, I was ok with that.

Although you know lots of other people obviously

got much higher CPAs than I what I got,

but the saving grace for me was once I started doing

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

No only one course where I got the B

dragged me down to a none 4.2 grade point average.

So, yeah that is about it.

What was the food like?

I mean what is your memories of the-

A food, I don’t recall a whole lot.

I mean again I suppose I was not that much

hung up about food and such.

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

So, I was ok with it.

I mean even now I am not so particular about

what I eat and such as long as

it fills my stomach I am more or less ok.

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

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

More and more of course, you know certain things

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

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

one point that I even avoided going to the OAT

movies thinking I should spend even

that time learning more about some Computer Science geeky things.

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

Not really the the only thing I could presumably have done

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

and gotten to know a bit more about people

that came from other parts of India

to learn more about their states

and their culture and so on.

Interestingly enough it was for the first time in Austin,

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

Gujarati women there dragged me on to the stage to perform

in Raas and Bhangra and such things

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

and even in high school,

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

all round kinds of schools in Vellore,

the Krishnaswamy Mudaliar High School.

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

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

for a couple of years was a Maharashtrian guy.

So, my- if you like appreciation

for other parts of India, expanded during my time

in the US than while I was here.

Even though as I was saying at the beginning

I did spend summer vacations in Baroda

and Calcutta and places like that.

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

and artistic side and things like that.

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

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

You are a Computer nerd.

Yeah, especially during IIT days,

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

I don’t know, Carnatic music

or Western music or any of those sorts of things,

but later of course, more because of my wife,

my kids wound up getting all sorts of stuff

forced on them to begin with at least.

And then of course, they started liking it and

so, they went quite a bit into the arts compared

to my own upbringing and so on.

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

I have to ask you this- Sure.

what parables do you see between IIT Madras

and IBM as an organization, do you see any?

Interesting, I had not thought about.

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

See of course, the difference is one is a commercial

organization in the case of IBM and of course,

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

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

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

person who is spanned both sides.

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

faculty member anywhere although for the last three years

and continuing into the next three years,

I have this position as a distinguished visiting professor at

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

So, in terms of IIT of course,

the great thing that has happened long after I left

is the establishment of the IITM Research Park

and the increased focus in faculty members also getting involved in

trying to get some of their research output

getting commercialized and so on.

So, in in such ways you could say that

there is more similarity now between

let’s say IIT Madras and IBM research people

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

we have had to face the challenge of doing

technology transfer of the research ideas into IBM products.

So, in some ways that’s like academics

who are doing research work, trying to make their ideas

see the light of day and so,

now there is more such similarity

if you like between IBM and IIT Madras.

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

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

top class organizations.

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

independent of the its academic focus or a

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

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

So, of course, you received your distinguished

Alumnus Award a few years ago. 2003.

2003. Yeah.

What was your I mean reaction

when you first learned that you were receiving the award

and then you actually received the award

what what were your memories?

I was quite pleased obviously, you know it is like

nice to hear from your alma mater that they think

you have done something you know worthy of that kind of

honour being bestowed on you,

but I was unsure whether the nominal department

that I was attached to namely Chemical Engineering

would feel excited about this or not because

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

after I left the campus.

But, then again I thought Computer Science people

might not feel they have any special attachment

to you especially because by that time I think if my

memory serves me right both Mahabala and Muthu Krishnan

were no longer regular faculty members here.

Muthu might have been still an adjunct faculty member,

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

that long after I left gotten into Computer Science.

So, if my memory serves me right actually somebody from

Chemical Engineering came and handed me the-

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

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

So, it was nice.

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

come the previous year because for the first time

we had our reunion that was my Silver Reunion 2002.

So, it did not happen that year even though

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

So, that would have been nice because then you know

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

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

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

if you know it was done with about 85 or

so of the 250 graduates

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

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

Is in April in on institute.

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

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

once I started working and so on moving somewhere else.

So, quite a good number of my classmates

did attend the award function

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

and even my sister came and so on.

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

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

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

and my wife attended the reunions because

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

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

the 35th and the 40th ones,

but we are going to have a cruise come

end of March in the US,

whole bunch of people are coming for that.

So, I am looking forward to that.

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

So, that was very nice that happened in 1997.

So, just about 15 years after I joined the companies

when that happened and that was quite a

thrilling thing for me to see

that kind of recognition coming especially

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

after one joins the company to get the IBM fellowship,

its less than the average number of years.

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

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

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

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

instead of moving even as a technical person to dramatically

different areas as some people do.

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

the ACM SIGMOD Innovation Award which is given for database people

were really you know extremely pleasing kinds of

recognition to be offered by the community of

database people across the globe in the case of the

1996 ACM SIGMOD Award in 97 by IBM people,

the immigrant fellowships so.

So, going back to your student days did you have

any run-ins with the administration?

Did you ever get to meet the directors?

I don’t think I had any

slaps on my wrist by administration

because of any bad behaviour or anything.

I might have actually met the Deputy Director,

Professor Sampath used to be the Deputy Director

and he had of course, Electrical Engineering kind of

background having got his Masters at Stanford.

But, in terms of both Professor Ramachandran,

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

when Professor Pandalai took over,

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

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

active in terms of not just campus kinds of activities,

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

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

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

that were big name people in the Computer Science area

people that were considered like pioneers;

Professor Nataraj I mean Colonel Natarajan

whose two kids were juniors of mine here

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

and also professor Narasimhan

who ran on the Computer group in TIFR

and later when this National Centre for

Software and Computer Technologies

was formed it was called NCSDCT.

And, there was Major General Bala Subramanyam

these three people were even though they were not by training

Computer Science people they were one of the they were as

amongst a small number of people who had gotten into

the Computer field in India early on and so

I was in that sense very active even though

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

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

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

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

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

at the same time that Coca Cola left, and IBM

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

as a joint venture with the Tata’s.

But even during that 78 to 92 period,

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

both at universities as well as in various commercial establishments.

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

community in particular in India during my entire professional career.

And of course, it all became even more serious

when in June 2006 I came to India as the

IBM India Chief Scientist, a position they created

which didn’t exist before and and initially

it was supposed to be for 24 months

but then they extended it for 8 more months.

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

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

go around colleges big ones,

but even small ones and also to go to other companies

and talk about long term technical careers

and how they are important for us to move beyond

doing mundane work to you know,

move of the food chain and do more innovative work

and things like that and establish the notion of a

technical ladder and not make everybody think

if they do not become managers

they haven’t made it in life.

So, in your graduating class

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

My recollection is that out of the 250 or so,

out of which strangely enough there were only three women

maybe about one-fourth went abroad.

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

but of course, that has changed dramatically

from what I gather a lot. 100 percent.

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

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

innovation superpower because this idea of giving

such a presentation came up because

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

and they were asking people to come

and talk about India related topics

and this happened during my India tenure in Bangalore.

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

does that mean that these people that would have

otherwise gone abroad are they still pursuing an academic

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

are or they just merely going into the professional

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

a good percentage of these people go in for MBAs

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

They become management material.

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

the foreign countries that used to benefit from

Indians going abroad as well as India because

people just had these easy to get jobs

especially when IT became so dominant in the

Indian scene even non-Computer Science

background people were able to get IT jobs.

I felt that in some sense it didn’t help

anybody that not enough of the people

who are pursuing higher studies and doing research.

I don’t know what your.

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

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

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

you know I remember this tapping?

was a was a very very systematic exercise.

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

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

and writing GRE and coming back and recalling

what the questions were and then preparing this

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

that that was being done after I left.

I don’t know after how long after I left

and that this had become like a way in

which a lot of the people here prepared for-

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

No, no I I understand.

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

but I also found out unlike in my time that subsequently

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

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

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

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

universities and they all give them admission.

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

and then they the process mess up the lives for the

sort of the next ring kind of students,

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

my time for people to

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

number of people in the upper ranks if you like.

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

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

A science not even.

But then I also at the same time started hearing

from some of the US University people, meaning faculty members

that they had come to know about this and

so, they stopped giving importance to the GREs course of

especially people from institutions like IIT Madras

and maybe the other IITs also and they started

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

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

You mentioned that there were hardly any female students Yeah.

when you were here.

So, how did that affect you after you graduated?

Well, I don’t know about after graduation,

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

IIT Madras I used to feel very envious of the

guys across the street in Guindy Engineering,

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

that was the only Engineering College where women were admitted.

So, they had something like 50 women in their

batch that came in in 72 whereas,

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

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

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

all this Computer Science thing

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

So, had I been you know motivated differently

maybe I would have felt even-

So, you are romancing the silicon so-

Yeah, not even the silicon more software right

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

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

that even when I went to,

I remember one time to Baroda for my

Summer Internship to the refinery in Baroda.

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

One day I went to Ahmadabad, instead of spending the

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

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

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

an abnormal case.

Did you have an industry tour when you were student?

Did you go? No.

Like All India.

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

There was one yeah yeah. Did you have it?

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

Chemical factories which we never went near,

but yeah we went all over the place.

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

decision not to go on such a thing,

so, but one thing that I do remember ok.

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

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

I think that might have been during

my pre-university day in Loyola.

What was the other thing?

National Service Core, NSC.

So, I took part in that too.

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

we were taken on a camp trip to Bangalore

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

10 days or whatever stay in the

Madras Engineering Service or some

such unit of the Army I think.

That’s where in their bunkers or

whatever is where we were put up,

we were given a joyride.

in an aircraft.

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

until I was flying from here to Delhi to

Tehran to Paris to New York to Austin. Wow.

On my trip out of India for the first time

and I had never gone abroad also.

So, for me all this was like totally

different kind of experience.

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

was going to Austin all I knew in terms of even

Texas as a whole was based on the movies

I saw here in OAT right, western movies.

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

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

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

non-redneck kind of place because it was primarily

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

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

Wow, nice.

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

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

those are extremely pleasant memories and

things that I appreciate a lot.

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

Whenever I see Germans, especially Germans

who come from the western part of Germany

I don’t forget to acknowledge what that country

did to my career and future and so on.

In particular, I remember the German Minister

for Economic Cooperation I think there is a

photo of that person in the the. Collection.

You have in the Heritage Centre,

he in his remarks during the inauguration of the

Computer Centre which happened a few months

after the actual operational usage of the Computer Centre started.

He said not too many

German, West German Universities at that time

could boast of having such a machine.

Even though, when we now look back its crazy

this machine had 256 K of memory

and it took something like 7 to 8 hours for

a compilation to be done of the program

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

Yeah. So, but the fact that West Germans

you know didn't give priority to all their universities

before donating machines to institutions abroad

is something that, at least in my life

came at the right time and made a huge difference

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

starting from my second year to that mainframe. Right.

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

Thanks for taking the time and thanks to Kumaran

and the others for giving me this opportunity to talk about

and reminisce about my past year.

Thank you.

Thanks Mohan.

A very good morning, sir.

You are my teacher, Head of the Department,

Director and research mentor also.

It’s my great pleasure to be interacting with you

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

So, you had done your undergraduate education at

University College, Bangalore followed by

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

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

from University of Waterloo in 1970.

So when did you join IIT Madras, sir?

September of 1970.

I had come here on a vacation,

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

he was my teacher at the Indian Institute of Science.

So he asked me if I was interested in a

faculty position at IIT Madras,

because they were just…at that point of time

they were recruiting new faculty members.

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

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

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

you know pack up and

come back to India, or to go back to Canada

because I had a post-doctoral research fellowship

in Canada at that time.

So I deci…my…of course, obviously,

the influence of parents and so on,

and therefore, I joined IIT Madras,

and I am glad I did

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

active academic service at IIT Madras

which is by all accounts,

one of the best institutions in the whole world.

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

The…what you have said about

my education and early experience,

a couple of gaps there.

I worked in Tata Power Company for about 6 months,

and then in…in…in Canada again

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

Otherwise my career is complete, as you have mentioned.

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

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

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

and when you came back,

I think you fitted very naturally

into the academic system at IIT Madras,

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

but you joined IIT Kanpur first, right?

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes sir, 1985.

Prof. Natarajan: So you joined IIT Kanpur and

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

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

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

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

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

that you take on too much to do.

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

afraid to take on all those responsibilities.

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

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

Dr. A. Ramachandran was the Director,

and we have a natural fit also,

because, he was also interested in curricular matters

in not only delivery of education,

but also in the creation of knowledge.

Therefore, we had a natural fit.

And that relationship also worked very well.

Prof. Sundararajan: Yes. Sir, before 1970

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

No, not really, I didn’t come here.

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

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

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

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

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

I had a preference for an academic career,

and as I mentioned earlier,

we had heard a lot about IIT Madras,

except that we were understaffed as usual,

and the facilities had not been established,

therefore, the people who came much earlier,

for example, the faculty members who are there now,

they owe a debt of gratitude to the

administration and the funding agencies,

before they joined.

They probably think that…that everything was

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

as…as you are talking about my brother,

they were staying in a hostel outside the Institute

when the campus was being built.

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

If you look at the AICTE requirements,

because I have been a regulator,

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

both academic as well as extracurriculars,

stay arrangements and a whole lot of things.

And the…for the faculty families, the support infrastructure

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

However, even now,

Institutes have started, announcements are made,

and then the campus is getting prepared,

that is really not at all a good policy.

What you lose is about 3 years.

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

A real case in example is the IIT in Hyderabad;

at the moment they have a very nice campus,

but when they started,

and I was the Chairman of a 3 member committee

to decide on the location of the IIT in Hyderabad.

There were three options and

we chose what we thought was the best option.

But the point is, when they joined,

it was a temporary campus,

whereas now, it is a very well designed…

probably one of the best campuses.

So you are…the…the students who join,

they are deprived of a whole lot of

necessary and desirable infrastructure.

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

in the newspaper that the faculty shortage

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

So that is at…you…you are

deceiving the students, who have joined you

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

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

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

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

Prof. Sundararajan: In AC Tech or something?

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

at IIT Madras, quite right,

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

But they had an advantage; that German

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

they were called the Madras Committee,

they had a Madras Committee at that time

and they designed the syllabus,

they designed the important infrastructure,

and, at that time, because of the importance

that Germany gave for working by hand,

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

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

you know about it also, they had

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

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

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

and then next week was workshop week.

Whole week you know, five and half days;

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

So we went through that system.

A lot of emphasis on practical work,

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

and 5 years of programme.

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

Has it diluted the programme or?

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

that in the higher secondary…

or the secondary or intermediate for example,

they learned a lot of maths and physics and chemistry,

which need not be repeated.

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

in terms of physics, chemistry, mathematics,

although workshop and drawing were different.

I think it was a good idea to reduce the…

because we also wanted compatibility between

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

whereas, the German system and the Indian system;

many, many differences because

the basic degree was a 5 -year diplom.

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

they also fell in line with the international practices.

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

Sir, one more thing is

initially as it was an annual examination system, sir?

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

and later on the semester system came.

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

going from annual to semester was an improvement or…

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

we have the semester system.

In…recently I was in an advisory committee,

to convert the conventional engineering programme from a

semester system to a trimester system.

This was an institution

which was famous for…it is in Bombay,

is famous for their management programme.

They felt that they could follow the same practice,

but then, I was one of the principal advisers

who suggested that it will not work in engineering.

The reason why the annual was changed

to semester was because,

continuous evaluation, and you could have the tests

and semester examinations

and also more subjects can be managed.

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

and the other consideration…

taking the students’ interests into consideration was

that students study only before the examinations,

they do not have a continuous study and evaluation.

I think the semester system is probably the ideal;

neither the annual system nor the trimester system.

Trimester systems used to be suitable for

the management programmes

where you have to study a large number of subjects.

Sir, when we were students, the emphasis was more

on the undergraduate programmes,

but slowly the emphasis seems to have shifted

towards PG programmes and research.

So what is your observation on this, sir?

Here I will tell you,

you see the number of undergraduates you can handle,

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

marking of grading of both

term papers as well as the final exam papers.

Now, the alumni of IIT Madras

seem to have a very strong opinion about this,

I will tell you the reason also for this:

They felt that the undergraduate students is

too valuable a programme

to dilute or reduce in magnitude or

increase the emphasis on postgraduate programmes.

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

a group of alumni met us

because we were from the same Institute, senior alumni,

they said, “For god's sake do not

remove or dilute the undergraduate programme.”

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

more for the undergraduate programmes

than for the postgraduate programmes

including the Ph.D. programmes.

I happened to meet a US faculty member,

fairly senior person in Dubai at a conference.

And, he said, “I know I have seen…”

he was…he was a…he was an American,

and he said, “Thank you for feeding

good undergraduate students to us

as course…as graduate students.

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

So, he also suggested that our undergraduate programme…

and we also know that they are the star products

for many reasons. You…you get good quality students

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

they don’t actually value it.

While…and students don’t value it.

We have had the meetings of current and alumni discussions,

and if you ask this…the current students,

“Which do you think is the most important contributor,

significant contributor for your education?” and so on.

They never used to talk about the Institute infrastructure,

nor of the faculty member for whom

they have the least respect.

But, they said it is because of the

interaction among the current students.

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

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

but it is true that you put bright students

who…if…if they want to study very hard

of course, the facilities that are available.

But the interaction among them,

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

you will know that

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

students with different capabilities

and different interests and things like that.

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

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

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

It is undergraduate institution.

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

where the star products, or the postgraduate students,

the graduate students?”

And, there is also the

feeling that we have an inverted pyramid;

the best of school leavers they become graduates,

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

And, what we get as postgraduate input

is not as good as that of the undergraduates,

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

even after the post-graduation.

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

this…this was a common perception.

Even now it is there, perception.

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

They…we find that

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

there are some good students.

I would say 10-20 percent are fairly good,

and of course, Institute as such,

its ranking, and you know whatever

the world sees you know, about the Institute,

the view will be improved only

if we get good publications and

even the…our faculty

who are selected from best among the world,

whatever output is there,

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

So, undergraduate education alone will not…you know,

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

but at the same time I think

research plays a very important role also.

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

You know, nationally, I can talk about it.

What is happening is the PG students

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

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

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

Of course, they want to get the maximum education

before they start delivering that education to people.

However, at the moment there is a real issue;

employment and employability of the postgraduate students.

As you know when the companies come to the campus,

they are not interested in interviewing the postgraduate students.

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

This this is a serious issue, and that is why

people like S. Gopalakrishnan formerly of Infosys,

he has set up some incubation centres,

entrepreneurship training and things like that

in Kerala, that’s where he comes from.

And he has given a large amount of money

for these things to be set up.

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

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

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

and IIT Madras was almost always in the first three.

And we used to be very proud of that.

The interesting…this is the magazine Asia Week;

they became more and more sophisticated,

and they…when I…they stopped doing it

after the QS and the THE ranking;

the Times Higher Education rankings.

They became famous because that was global,

it was only Asia.

They used to have as one of the parameters,

internet connectivity for student.

So they had become quite…

you know, mature and sophisticated.

And, we always used to come within the first three

and we were very happy, and I had a committee

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

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

many people do rank and…and I have done some

work on ranking the academic rankings.

And, it is very important to

benchmark your institution with the others

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

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

You know you take advertisements in our journals and

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

And they get slightly higher ranking.

But however, the methodology itself has become

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

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

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

from 1970 to about 2000 or so.

What changes did you observe

in the department, sir, during this period?

Actually to tell you the truth, not many.

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

which need not be changed.

So, a department consists of

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

The undergrad, the labs and the

experiences for the undergraduates

and the research infrastructure

as well as the climate for the postgraduates.

More and more what I have seen is that the

younger faculty members, they are not interested in teaching,

they have…basically interested only in research and

activities which promote the publication of journals.

So teaching used to get a very low priority among the

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

It was very difficult to make them teach new courses,

even though the curriculum was changing…being changed,

keeping with the changing

industrial and research environment elsewhere.

But the faculty members stuck to

their…their own in…individual research,

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

And one of the other factors here is,

you could…you could not even get young faculty members

to take on administrative positions

wardens or members of committees and so on,

because it would detract from their mainstream activity.

I understand even now it is very true.

Is that true now?

No, no there are people

who are interested in administration,

there are people who are not interested,

who would like to concentrate on the research.

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

Alright, and of course, the…the…the

the kind of that…the…the mix of

topics on which the faculty members work,

they have also changed considerably.

Because, internationally…

and usually people do not want to take up

work that involves lot of experimentation

and labs. Almost everybody has gravitated towards computer.

No, no not really,

now the materials area has really expanded,

so people are looking at micro, nano scale things,

in every area, whether its mechanical or

chemical or metallurgy or whatever.

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

and then energy related research is also going on.

And you were aware of the combustion research also,

where you have helped us really.

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

Mmhmm, yes…there is a lot of potential,

we hope it will serve the country,

we can…we have very severe requirements in combustion.

And for…for example, you know Ajit Kumar

Kolar of Heat Transfer,

he almost transferred the

fluidized bed combustion facility from New York,

because he worked there and they did not have

much interest in that subsequently

to our IIT, but I understand that

the activities there are petering out.

People are interested in…

you know they…they like to do modelling of

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

This is really something that is happening

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

Sir, experiments at the system level,

they don’t have much…

you know people don’t respect it very much.

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

you know, extremely localized measurements done

all over you know, the system

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

also compare that with predictions.

So it has become more intense.

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

but system level measurements,

so…so you take an IC engine and

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

So it is difficult to publish that kind of work.

What has happened is

the students have become very sophisticated,

we require sophisticated instruments,

lot of money has been invested,

either you do research at that level,

or you know, experiments at system level

are not getting much respect,

that is the problem.

So it has become very expensive in the process.

Yes, you are right…

my…my faculty supervisor used to say

that nature and reality

are only in experimental work.

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

theoretical analysis has to be validated

you know, by actual experiments,

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

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

I have one observation,

sir, when I came from Kanpur,

I found that in Mechanical Department,

all the labs were more or less isolated

and like water tight compartments,

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

you know, individually and not…

and most of the work is interdisciplinary.

Today in fact, you have to be doing interdisciplinary research

if you have to be counted.

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

and how things evolved over a period of time?

See IIT Madras had a great advantage;

that the German system was adopted

because of the presence of the German professors

there and their assistance with being focused on

Indo-German kind of a cooperation and so on.

As a result of which, we invite several

very desirable practices from German system;

can you imagine, in a Mechanical Department,

Thermodynamics and Combustion is a separate lab,

Heat Transfer and Thermal Power a separate lab,

Hydro Power a separate lab,

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

there was a certain culture

which was developed in each of these areas,

and I benefited from that because

Thermodynamics and Combustion are

naturally more closely related than,

let us say Heat Transfer and Combustion for example.

Therefore, there is quite a bit of basic studies

which happened in each of these individual…

they have…they are not different disciplines,

but different parts of Mechanical Engineering,

but grouped in a very…very wise manner.

So that was very good.

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

are...[indistinct] you

when you are comparing IIT Kanpur,

all the faculty were put together in a faculty

in house, therefore the interaction was very intense,

whereas, in our Institute, except for the

few labs which were around the cafeteria,

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

Aeronautical Department and so on.

Therefore, the interaction, even though

not much academic interaction takes place,

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

it helped in several ways.

For example, if you wanted to borrow some equipment,

and if somebody whom you knew

through your coffee interactions,

if you ask them, more often than not,

because at that time the pieces were just coming in,

and there were at much demand.

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

where I had some contributions to make.

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

and I felt that, you see,

I brought ISO 9000 to IIT Madras,

the first IIT to have it.

Because, I had several interactions with professional people,

both though professional societies

as well as through my personal relations.

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

it was ICI…which became subsequently the company.

They had ISO 9000

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

the place was very clean,

the quality policy was exhibited all over the place,

and each person had a sense of responsibility

and belonging to that institution.

Therefore, when I discussed having it in IIT Madras,

the faculty member of cour…of course, felt that

it was not suitable for an academic institution.

But my argument, which ultimately prevailed over

that there are many activities in an academic institution

which are similar to what happens in industry.

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

it is a shop where students are trained,

but also products can be made

and sophisticated equipment can be utilized.

Now library, administrative section,

they all have similar

you know, characteristics as the industry.

So…and for that you need a lot of

training of the technical and support staff

and not only that, you need a

certain amount of coordination among them.

So the two or three supplementary things we did,

which fell in line with what industry, it does.

For example, you have to define a quality policy,

you have to train the people in quality assurance.

So we had a lot of training programmes,

and you also printed the

quality policy because Toyota does this;

that is you print this at the

back of a calendar in a pocket calendar.

And the…that explanation for this was

that you keep it in your pocket, the gentlemen

and it is close to the heart.

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

that our faculty members were very

proud of our institution having ISO 9000,

particularly the workshop people.

Because, when they move about with other mechanics

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

they were proudly mentioning that

IIT Madras has ISO 9000.

Obviously, it is not really applicable to academic activities,

where accreditation is the important means of assuring,

now there again I was very lucky,

that our…particularly our alumni in the US,

they kept asking, “How…

what is your quality assurance mechanism?”

Therefore, we had several committees

consisting of the best of

industry people and their faculty members

in different departments,

and they spent 3 days…

2 or 3 days, I forget which one,

looking at different departments,

and for me luckily, the Computer Science Department

and the Electrical Engineering Department volunteered

to be examined by a group of peers.

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

which take place by…through MBA,

but this was not happening in the other institutions.

Subsequently, I understand

that the other IITs also did this.

So they had a very intense interaction

with the faculty members of the department.

And we were surprised in the administration that

Computer Science came forward,

because they were all very bright

and proud faculty members.

They took it very seriously

and every 6 months this happened

and at the end of the 6 months,

they had to report again back to the committee;

what changes they have made,

what improvements they have made.

Therefore, there were many good things that happened,

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

in defining a strategic plan for the institution.

And, unlike many other institutions

where the all the Heads of Department sit together,

and over a period of a week,

they evolve a strategic plan.

Because I have contacted

several academic leaders in US,

and they all told me the involvement

and the participation of the faculty member

or the concerned stakeholder is very important.

Because yes, you can define the plan,

but if you want to implement it,

you need the cooperation and commitment of

the each of the faculty members.

So that is something that we did.

And I’m glad that the practice is being continued

under the present administration, also they have

come up with two other strategic plans,

but I am little disappointed that

they did not show as…as reference

for their thinking and activities,

the plan that Professor Ananth and I had

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

And, for the first time, I use external

faculty members and industry specialists

to advise the IIT.

Normally, IIT was considered to be a resource,

where their knowledge and the experience

is transferred to the other institutions,

but never you receive the valuable inputs

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

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

Because, because one of the…

like an oxygen for you know institutions is benchmarking.

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

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

who are doing similar things,

and some of them are doing it much

better than you are doing.

And, if you want to succeed and

move forward and upward,

then you need to see what others are doing,

there’s an excellent definition of benchmarking,

and that is to find out what others are doing,

and then replicating what they are doing,

emulating them and then going forward

from what they have done.

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

and he said, “For each part of the activities

of the institution, you can have benchmark institutions.”

But now of course, MIT recently had a study,

they wanted to evaluate their undergraduate programme.

They chose about 8 or 10 institutions,

who are doing a very good job,

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

Olin University, near Boston

is considered to be the best undergraduate institution.

There is a ranking for undergraduate institutions.

And there are faculty members

with Ph.D. who come there,

they sacrifice their research work

and…in the sense that

they do not engage in research work,

but then engage in

many different ways of transferring the knowledge

and experiences from the existing faculty members and the

industry around them for…to the students.

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

and they are in great demand by

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

Sir, from the time I joined…

one small thing, sir.

The industrial and sponsored research problem…projects,

and they have really increased quite a bit

over the last 20-25 years.

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

I would say that it is because of the

leaders who led the Institute,

and the…nationally,

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

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

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

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

Therefore, because of the

pressures on these institutions

to do different things,

obviously the institutions also started promoting

these activities and creating opportunities.

In this context one of the best things that happened

was the technology development missions that we had,

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

Therefore, the inter-IIT collaboration was also…

because in different IITs, there are

people who is doing similar things.

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

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

you still do not know why.

So the planning commission which was coordinating it,

but now the NITI Aayog has come,

and they are putting some opportunities

in front of the different IITs.

the inter-IIT cooperation is very important.

Sir, some of the major projects that have been done

in the Mechanical Department…the Institute…

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

the major projects that have been done from Mechanical.

Yes, apart from the technical projects,

we were given the opportunity

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

So again because of Dr. Ramchandran,

he has interest in

academic, educational activities.

So our Curriculum Development Centre was a very active centre.

Essentially you had to provide some inputs

to the faculty members of the surrounding institutions,

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

Because, the situation between IITs

and the other institutions is rather alarming,

because many of them, they…

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

but at the same time, they do not have the

will and the…the focus on engineering education.

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

Some of the good things that happened

after I left IIT Madras,

were two or three things: one was the NPTEL.

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

behind the help of the Carnegie Mellon University

and also Professor Raj Reddy of CMU.

Now it has ultimately become swayam,

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

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

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

and under Professor Ananth's leadership,

you have those research stars,

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

the industry and the other R and D institutions,

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

And, our alumnus Ramanujachari is heading it.

So this was again something which was

actually Ananth's achievement.

We had the land, and it was a curious circumstance

where we realized we had the land

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

IIT and we did some survey and

things like that and we found out and so,

it was possible to set it up.

There were some competitive interests also

that they wanted that that particular land

because land is so eagerly grabbed by everybody,

but we had a formal agreement with the state government.

So that is something else

which has become extremely significant in IIT.

Sir, one more programme we have now is GIAN,

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

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

So every year we get about 100 faculty

or so, from different countries.

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

specific courses on very specific topics.

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

A very good initiative,

I have been involved in similar activity

through something called IUCEE;

Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education.

And I was one of the founding directors.

It is doing extremely well.

It also provides opportunities in many other ways;

guidance for Ph.D. for young faculty members,

and many other things.

That is something that is happening.

One of the concerns of the central government also

has been our lack of presence in

the international rankings, global rankings.

I have done some work on that

and I have been assisting in a very small manner

Indian Institute of Science,

through what is called ICAR:

Indian Committee for Academic Rankings.

There are many procedural matters in addition to

the existing core of their rankings

which is really the research performance.

The manner in which you present the information,

the manner in which you ask all the faculty members

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

For example, if you say Department of Chemical Engineering,

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

into a different…the different place.

IIT Madras should be available in every paper,

only then will it be counted

along with the other papers for that particular institute.

Because some similar…simple thing,

but the more important things are

publishing in Scopus indexed or…

journals which have impact factor.

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

they…they publish in several different journals.

You know this is something which will act

against the Indian journals,

because they are not counted.

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

as you know, it is the quality;

How is the quality defined?

Either through the Scopus indexing,

there may be the…some difficulty,

but that’s a different thing.

And then journals having impact factors.

Therefore, the young faculty members…because…

because I go to different institutions now,

they should publish only in journals

which have a certain minimum amount of quality,

only then, because they want to show

some publications for their promotions,

they published…and again the conference proceedings,

that is a different type of activity.

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

even though at the moment there are some indexes

which also take into consideration good conferences.

For example, IEEE conferences,

ASME conferences and so on,

but they are in a different compartment altogether.

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

we don’t consider other journals at all.

Then the question is, then

why do you want to publish in other journals?

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

then you cannot publish the same thing or parts of it

in Scopus indexed journals,

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

The…the question here, interesting question was suggested

as things for discussion CRD Narayanapuram.

See, I have gone through the origin and the

demise of the CRD.

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

For example, if you look at a faculty member,

what does he gain out of involvement in CRD activities?

At the moment the industry is doing it through CSR.

Right, because it will be counted,

it can be shown as desirable worthwhile activity.

CRD there were couple of problems: one,

a loan was taken, at one point of time,

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

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

would be able to repay.

And therefore, an exemption was sought

when P. Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.

Again, the Director who actually originated that idea,

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

to make sure that the interest

did not accumulate over the years,

and also to write off that particular loan

which was not a great amount of money.

But the activities…to some of us felt…

to what extent they enhance the

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

Secondly, there were a lot of people employed,

because there were lot of semi-skilled activities

which have to be done.

And these employees of these society, for instance,

wanted to be absorbed as the IIT employees.

That is a very serious…

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

So these two things in particular, they…

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

particularly bad experiences,

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

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

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

over the last 3-4 decades the JEE exam

also has been undergoing some changes,

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

So, do you feel these have really influenced the

quality of the students we are getting,

into IIT at the undergraduate level?

In the initial stages when I was there,

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

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

In other words, all the graduates that they produce,

they are prized products which go as input

to several places; both in India and abroad

for teaching, for research and…for industry.

And people talk about our IITs not having

many contributions for India,

that’s absolutely wrong.

If you look at the major industries

and public sector organizations in India,

many of them are from the IIT system.

Even research organizations, sir;

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

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

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

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

they are graduates, postgraduates from IIT.

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

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

that they were being criticized

for not contributing to the

national development in different areas.

And they have published a booklet

indicating their major alumni

who have indeed contributed to the

Indian industry, R and D.

It’s a…it’s a huge number of people.

Therefore, all IITs have done that.

That was one, that’s was…