Dr
Mashelkar, the great visionary whose whole thoughts are for
Samartha Bharat gives lot of importance to the Gurus in his
life.
Let
me
start with my journey of my life. Journey of my life has been
challenging- to put it simply. So many great people have
influenced my life and given me interesting lessons in my life
and I would like to remember and recognise them. May be some
of you must have also met such individuals in your life, who
inspired you.
I
start with my greatest guru - my mother. I was born in a very
poor family and my father died when I was six. We moved to
Mumbai and my mother did menial work to bring me up. Two meals
a day was a tough challenge. I studied under street lights and
I walked barefoot until, I think, I was 12. I remember when I
passed the 7th standard and I wanted to go into the
8th standard, our poverty
was such that even to secure 21 rupees for secondary school
admission became a big challenge. We had to borrow from a
lady, who was a housemaid in Chaupati in Mumbai. That was the
tough life I had.
In
fact,
I remember, my passing the SSC Examination – i.e. 11th
Standard. Those days
it used to be not 10th standard or 12th
standard but 11th standard. I stood 11th
among one 1,35,000 but I was about to leave higher education
and find a job. What helped me was the
scholarship by Sir Dorab Tata Trust. It was just 60 rupees per
month and would you believe that 60 rupees per month from
Tatas added so much
value to my life that
I have been able to stand here today before you to speak to
you.
I
am on the Board of Tatas now and it is very interesting that
the same Bombay House where one used to go to collect that 60
Rupees per month now one goes and sits there as a Director on
the Board of Tata Motors. The turn that these 40 years has
taken is very interesting. It has all been possible because of
the chance I got to do higher studies at the insistence of my
mother. She gave me
values of my life. She
was one of the noblest parents I have met in my life.
So,
my
greatest guru was my mother. My second great guru was
Principal Bhave, about whom I made a mention earlier. He taught us Physics. Because it was a poor
school, I remember, it had to innovate to convey to the young
students the message of Science.
I
still remember one of the interesting experiences when, on a
Friday afternoon, Principal Bhave took us out into the sun to
demonstrate to us as to how to find the focal length of a
convex lens. He had a
piece of paper here, a convex lens here and he moved it up and
down and there was a point when there was a sharp focus and a
bright spot on the paper. He showed the distance between paper
and the lens and said that this distance was the focal length.
But then the paper started burning. For some reason, he then
turned to me, and said, “Mashelkar, if you focus your energies
like this, you can burn anything in the world.
My
young
friends, from this I got two lessons- first the philosophy of
my life that if we focus, we can achieve anything. And the
second about the power of science. It was so powerful. I thought to myself why
don’t I become a scientist. It left an indelible mark in my
mind.
By
the
way, if you think carefully about that story, it also tells
you about the new model for the society and for the nation.
What is the experiment? You have the lens. And what does the
lens do? It takes the parallel rays of the sun and then lets
them converge. And
what is the property of parallel lines? Parallel lines never
meet. Parallel rays never meet but the lens actually makes
them meet. I call it “convex lens” leadership by the way –
leadership that brings people together.
In
fact
I was a visiting Professor at the Harvard MIT HST
School
last year and there I gave a talk. And I talked about how to
bring the world together – we need a convex lens leadership.
Unfortunately,
in
our country, rather than finding a ‘convex lens leadership’,
we find a ‘concave lens leadership’! And what does a concave
lens do? The parallel lines go even further apart. Rather than societies
coming together, they try to divide them further – on the
basis of caste, on the basis of religion, and so on. Our elections have been
reduced to caste based voting in many places. Sounds familiar-
isn’t it? So there are deep lessons in that afternoon’s
experiment. We all
must strive for and insist on ‘convex lens leadership’, where
we become one society – one India.
The third teacher who made
a huge difference for me was Professor M.M. Sharma. He had returned from Cambridge
at the young age of 28. He
took up the position of a Professor in University Department
of Chemical Technology. He was incredible. I was among the top
rankers in Chemical Engineering. I had a number of offers of
scholarships from the United
States of America and Canada
for doing research for my doctorate degree. I had always done
things which were different, by the way. I thought where could
I get a better Guru for me and decided not to go abroad and
worked in University and did my Ph.D under young Prof. Sharma,
a man with enormous value systems. All his research was ‘idea
based’. With barely
Rs.10,000 per year as contingency grant, i.e. less than 1000
rupees per month, we did research that was published in top
international journals. He
has remained a teacher. Just
now, it was mentioned that I am the third Engineer to have got
the fellowship of Royal Society in the 20th
century. Prof. Sharma was the first by the way. Ours is a rather unique
combination of Guru
and Shishya both
getting Fellowships of Royal Society!
And
the
fourth one, and I want to mention about him in order to set
the mood and tone for what I am going to say subsequently, was
Professor CNR Rao, who came in my life little late. Prof. Rao is the most celebrated
scientist in the country. The interesting thing is that he is
approaching the age of 75 now and he still works 25 hours a
day! Not 24 but 25. And
that too day after day, week after week, month after month,
and year after year. He is really my role model and an icon.
Except the Nobel Prize, he has received all the major awards.
I am sure he will get
that too, and sooner rather than later.
What
he
did for me was very interesting and there is a lesson for you
to take home. Anytime I got any honour and I went to him expecting him
to appreciate and applaud. You know the only word he would use
would be- Not Bad! I
became a Fellow of Royal Society FRS, It’s a big honour. In
fact, I remember receiving a letter from another FRS, who said
`only two greater things can happen to you in life now, One is
Nobel prize and other is death. One is certain and the other
is uncertain’.
When
I
went to Professor CNR Rao and told him that I received FRS, he
said Not Bad! Then
I became Foreign Associate of U.S. National Academy of
Science. It was established in 1868. In 140 years or so, only
seven Indians have got this honour. Sometimes you get a Nobel
Prize first and that honour later, like Sir Harry Kroto, who
got the Nobel Prize first and five years after that he got
this honour.
I
thought surely now Professor CNR Rao would be impressed. So, I
went and told him look, I got this honour. He said,’ Not bad’.
I was really frustrated. So I asked him directly what will
make him satisfied. Then he defined for me what is called a limitless ladder of
excellence. He said, “there are no limits to the ladder
of excellence”. You
should continue to climb on this ladder of excellence for ever
and ever. Your best is
yet to come.
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