He was born as the youngest child in a family of farmers , owning agricultural land in the village of Kartora in Faizabad ,UP.Unlike his elder siblings , he developed an interest in academics from early on.Getting an education was tough , and he had to walk seven kilometers each way to the primary school. Interesting thing is that , I also lived quite far from my school , nearly eighteen kilometers , and the bus used to drop me no closer than 4 kilometers from my home. And many a times , when i had to bear the extremes of loo and monsoon , while my dad was rushing from his college to drop me and my brother home , i used to crib. He used to pacify me , by telling the hardships he had faced when he was my age.
From primary to middle and then to secondary , my father had the luxury of going to the inter college on a bicycle. Education in those times was different , India had just got independence and electricity was an alien concept in rural india. So students had to concentrate on finishing off all their work in the school itself , during day time.My father was interested in taking up science , and in those times , DAV college kanpur was the most renowned college of UP.It boasts of distinguished alumni , 1 among them being Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. My father completed his B.Sc from DAV college and then went onto complete his M.Sc in Inorganic Chemistry from the Lucknow University. Lucknow University was another great academic center in those times.Being a residential university , it had a nice academic atmosphere.
From Lucknow,my father again moved to kanpur and joined the Vikramajit Singh Sanatan Dharma (V.S.S.D) college as Lecturer in the Chemistry Department. He also started on his P.hd under the guidance of Prof Prithviraj Singh ,IIT Kanpur. In these years he rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest chemists of India like C.N.R. Rao. His research in the labs of IIT Kanpur got him the first ever P.hD awarded in Chemistry by Kanpur University.In 1969 he went to the University of Liege Belgium for a year and then moved onto University of kent , ohio for post-doc research.He came back to india in 1972 and again went to the Clemson,Pittsburgh University in 1982 for 3 years.In 1987 , he took me , my brother and my mother along to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for the summers.That was a fun time for me.No studies and lots of travel and enjoyment.We returned to India and life continued as normal.He had a great impact on the lives of his children , instilling a competitive spirit in them , which resulted in great results for the elder of the two. The third, that is me, had a mind of his own , which caused him to have lesser success at the right times.Neverthless , he respected my independent streak , and left me to do mine own many a times.I remember him coaching me for the entrance test for class1 to Jaipuria School , Kanpur. It was a prestigious exam for admission to arguably the best school of the city at that time. And when i got the rank of 43 out of 80 admits , my whole neighbourhood was overjoyed.Afterall you could count people on fingertips , who were Jaipuria students.
I had always enjoyed the trips with him to various places. Niagara Falls , Statue of Liberty, Calicut , Washington DC etc.He was a great travel guide, who had tremendous knowledge about the places.He was an avid photographer . I have enjoyed watching the slides on a projector of the trips he made to italy,france etc .He had attended and presented seminars at the numerous national level conferences.I remember once when i came to know that he was off to another conference , i packed my bag, kept a few clothes and when he sat on the rickshaw, I also got onto it , telling him that i was coming with him.I was 4 then. He had a tough time negotiating with me …as i wasnt interested in any of the chocolates or toys he promised to bring back for me !
He retired from V.S.S.D college as the Vice Principal and HOD, Chemistry in 2002.Thereafter he joined as Director ,College Development Council as Kanpur University.This was a hectic job and i used to get complaints from my mother that he was exerting himself too much. But , he guided the development efforts at Kanpur University and its a totally transformed university now , with excellent facilities. He retired from this job in May 2005.
Considering his humble beginnings, his was an outstanding academic career ,with 60 international papers to his credit . He had guided numerous students to P.hD as well. The greatest asset he had was of honesty and unbridled enthusiam for hardwork. For the last 20 years , he had woken up at 4am for his morning walk , whatever be the time he had slept. His mantra for life was “Be competitive”.
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