Almost after two long years I'm back for blogging. You must be surprised about the title, so this blog is about the part of my life when I felt to be a bird with broken wings and like this I came to Bangalore. The Bangalore journey was a life of a postdoctoral researcher and where I never thought that my life would become upside down.
I always wanted to return to India after my PhD for the love of my country and love of my people. I also had a plan to learn something new. I started with chemical engineering (undergrad), then electrochemistry (masters and PhD) and now it was time for materials (as suggested by my PhD supervisor). Now I cannot even remember that how I had suddenly introduced to energy storage. As soon as I finished PhD, reached India, life was not that beautiful as I've assumed in my UK days. I had started for internship in a small battery company and later I received a postdoctoral fellowship from UGC. Even then I didn't know that I was coming to IISc Bangalore. My first choice was IIT Mumbai, as I was overwhelmed with it's facility for research in energy storage. However, due to some official issue within the institute, I couldn't join there and which left me heart broken. Then I had approached to several places, but I was not able to get a positive reply. During this time I had questioned myself several times about my return to India, I simply felt rejected from every aspect.
In case of selecting cities other than Kolkata, Bangalore was my choice due to its various stories which I heard from a very special person (eventually who also left me heart broken). Even then I was unaware about the magical touch of Indian Institute of Science and suddenly IISc gave me shelter which was beyond my expectation. I must admit, from the day 1 to Matetials Research Centre, IISc send me a positive feeling that I belong here, all the rejection was only to reach here.
My adviser Prof. Prabeer Barpanda was a very new faculty (he had joined 5 month earlier than me) then. In lab, availability of equipment was not the only issue, even chemicals we (myself and 1st PhD student of the group) use to borrow from other labs. Once we thought that these lab people will see us in the corridor and would wrote in their lab door that nothing is available for borrowing! Though I must mention that initial days all the experiments use to happen only for the help from everyone including various departments in the institute. With all these help I had learnt ceramic synthesis, materials and within 6 month time I have presented poster in an international conference.
It was my adviser's suggestion that I should go for the conference taking place in Jaipur, as Jaipur is a beautiful city to travel for. But, alone it was no fun, so I manage to convince others and all together it was a journey to cherish and would be in my memory for long time. In my life it was the 1st time when I missed one entire session to explore the city. This journey also includes the travel to Agra,our desperation for Taj Mahal. Later we all came back with huge amount of tan due to so much travel in the different temperature region. On top I had received 'best poster award' in this conference.
Another memorable event was IISc's annual sports week when I got a call from swimming pool, where my friends was asking me to join the swimming competition. In these years, I forgot that during school time I use to participate in the district swimming meets. After long ten years I came back to swimming pool and it was my first swim marathon to participate. How can I forget what happened during triathlon! I was convinced by heavy emotion to take part in triathlon (for swimming part) and our group came 5th out of 75 groups for this event. I was almost renamed as water angel for materials research centre by my fellow juniors.
I always wanted to return to India after my PhD for the love of my country and love of my people. I also had a plan to learn something new. I started with chemical engineering (undergrad), then electrochemistry (masters and PhD) and now it was time for materials (as suggested by my PhD supervisor). Now I cannot even remember that how I had suddenly introduced to energy storage. As soon as I finished PhD, reached India, life was not that beautiful as I've assumed in my UK days. I had started for internship in a small battery company and later I received a postdoctoral fellowship from UGC. Even then I didn't know that I was coming to IISc Bangalore. My first choice was IIT Mumbai, as I was overwhelmed with it's facility for research in energy storage. However, due to some official issue within the institute, I couldn't join there and which left me heart broken. Then I had approached to several places, but I was not able to get a positive reply. During this time I had questioned myself several times about my return to India, I simply felt rejected from every aspect.
In case of selecting cities other than Kolkata, Bangalore was my choice due to its various stories which I heard from a very special person (eventually who also left me heart broken). Even then I was unaware about the magical touch of Indian Institute of Science and suddenly IISc gave me shelter which was beyond my expectation. I must admit, from the day 1 to Matetials Research Centre, IISc send me a positive feeling that I belong here, all the rejection was only to reach here.
My adviser Prof. Prabeer Barpanda was a very new faculty (he had joined 5 month earlier than me) then. In lab, availability of equipment was not the only issue, even chemicals we (myself and 1st PhD student of the group) use to borrow from other labs. Once we thought that these lab people will see us in the corridor and would wrote in their lab door that nothing is available for borrowing! Though I must mention that initial days all the experiments use to happen only for the help from everyone including various departments in the institute. With all these help I had learnt ceramic synthesis, materials and within 6 month time I have presented poster in an international conference.
It was my adviser's suggestion that I should go for the conference taking place in Jaipur, as Jaipur is a beautiful city to travel for. But, alone it was no fun, so I manage to convince others and all together it was a journey to cherish and would be in my memory for long time. In my life it was the 1st time when I missed one entire session to explore the city. This journey also includes the travel to Agra,our desperation for Taj Mahal. Later we all came back with huge amount of tan due to so much travel in the different temperature region. On top I had received 'best poster award' in this conference.
Another memorable event was IISc's annual sports week when I got a call from swimming pool, where my friends was asking me to join the swimming competition. In these years, I forgot that during school time I use to participate in the district swimming meets. After long ten years I came back to swimming pool and it was my first swim marathon to participate. How can I forget what happened during triathlon! I was convinced by heavy emotion to take part in triathlon (for swimming part) and our group came 5th out of 75 groups for this event. I was almost renamed as water angel for materials research centre by my fellow juniors.
When I came to IISc, I was bird with torn wings-broken heart and very much scared to even see the sky. IISc (specially my adviser) in this stay of 1.5 years has enlightened me, gave me a bigger dream and goal. Taught me that life is very big and events I look as a huge mistake, in a long run its very small event, even to count for. For the peace of my mind, I had invest all my energy to learn something very new and in this run many viewpoint of life has changed. In this journey I also had left many friends behind, but they are not forgotten, our paths just became parallel.
Now I dare to fly again and thank you for rejecting me.
---- Swatilekha Ghosh
(29/12/2015)
