Prof. Suresh Ramaswamy

        The passing away of some people is very difficult to accept for us, not only because they might have been very close to us, but also because they seemed so full of life and vigour till the moment they are snatched away from us by some cruel twist of fate.

     All those who have interacted with Prof.Suresh Ramaswamy will attest to his youthfulness both in his physical appearance, as well as his mental faculties. He never seemed to age till unexpectedly he was taken away from us on the 27th of August 2012.

   He was just 49, but he did not seemed to have aged even a single day, since I first met him in 1999.

  I met him for the first time, when I was a Research Scholar at Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore. It was the summer of '99 and he had come to RRI along with a bunch of students from BITS who were doing their Practice School-I at RRI. 

  Very soon after he arrived at RRI, I got introduced to him through a mutual friend. Even though he was a senior member of the Physics department at BITS and I was merely a student about to complete my Ph.D, he went out of the way to talk to me and the other Research Scholars at RRI.

   A few days, before the close of the Practice School-I, he advised us to apply to BITS (for faculty positions) after submitting our theses. At that time, Pilani seemed too remote to even consider.

  However,  within a short span of two years, by a strange twist of events, I presented myself in Prof.Suresh's office, to be interviewed for a faculty position at BITS.

  As I entered his room, he glanced up and exclaimed, "Ho! I know you! You are Vikram from RRI". I was amazed that he could still recollect our interaction, eventhough I must have been one of the many insignificant people he met in Bangalore.

   I got through the interview and very soon I was his colleague in the department. Many others had also joined the department and he as the head of the department took the initiative to organize a New year party in his house. It was a very cold December in Pilani and it was the first time I was experiencing sub-zero temperatures, but his warmth and zest made us forget the cold and all of us camped in his house till the early hours of the morning!

 Working with him was a pleasure as he did not impose any notion of hierarchy and was willing to listen to everyone in the department. Even though I had pestered him with a lot of questions (both academic and non-academic) both before and after joining BITS, he went out of his way to make me comfortable.

  A few years later, I felt a vacuum in the department, when he shifted to the newly constructed Goa campus. Our contact was very sporadic after that and it was mostly over phone or through e-mail. The only other time, I met him personally was when I visited the Goa campus of BITS in 2010. I had just mentioned very casually that I was interested in visiting the Goa campus and he responded enthusiastically by making all arrangements for my stay in the campus.

   When I reached Goa, I was touched by the personal care to arrange everything starting from my transport to the campus from the station. I stayed for only a few days, but those memories are still fresh in my mind. Every morning, he would invite me for a cup of coffee at his house and we discussed a variety of topics from the foundations of Quantum Mechanics to Hostel administration (both of us were Chief Wardens at our respective campuses).

   When we left Goa, he drove us to the station and dropped us there after treating us to a sumptuous lunch at a nearby restaurant. As he drove his car away from us, he was waving to us. At that time I did not realize that it was going to be the last goodbye he was going to say to me. He did visit the Hyderabad campus after that, but unfortunately I was away on those occasions.

   The mind simply refuses to accept that he is no more. The loss to his family and his young daughter is great, but BITS will also miss SuRa. At various times, he was Chief Warden and Head of the Department in both Pilani and Goa. In addition he had innumerable administrative positions like Chief, Community Welfare and more recently, Dean, Administration.

   He was one of the shining beacons, both for students and faculty, guiding them gently along the right path. All of us now helpless in the darkness which has enveloped our lives. Hopefully your memory will guide us on the right path. Goodbye

The good old days

I guess it is true that everybody has at some point of time, reminisced about the 'good old days'. In India it usually goes like this:

In the good old days, there was no corruption, people had values, respected elders....
Also prices were low.... .

It is amazing how this 'good old days' extends to all spheres of life.
In the good old days, the movies and movie songs were watchable. The lyrics had some meaning, the songs were melodious and didn't cause a headache.

Same holds true for politics. We had principled freedom fighters, those who sacrificed their lives for the country, men of 'values', able administrators. Apparently the present lot is not comparable.

Now what is new in what I am going to add? Nothing much, except for some personal experiences.
My 'good old days' are the 1970s and 1980s (which correspond to my childhood). Those days wherever we stayed (in Madras or in Bangalore), one could just walk into the countryside where there were fields, open spaces and fresh air. Now obviously the same localities are no longer pristine. The roads were free and one could walk or cycle in peace. Now, with so many cars and two-wheelers, the luxury of being lost in thought while walking, is not available to us.

TV, movies and cricket were precious because of their rarity. Now we are able to watch cricket matches whether they happen in Canada or New Zealand. Movie channels spew out movies at any time of the day.

The 'liberalization' era seems to have brought more money into our country. But where has it gone? has it trickled down to the man on the street? It has led to choked and polluted streets.

Give me back the 'good old days' of license and permit Raj. Where there were no cellphones and scooters and cars had to be booked. I would rather stay poor.