Congratulations Mayuri!! From all of us!! For passing the most exhaustive exams that humanity faces.
It really feels a kind of weird to see our name and IICB for a different reason than what was meant to be.. I feel like sharing my thoughts on this...
It has been an overwhelming week for me. Completion of course work, beginning of skill courses, CSIR foundation day, paper deadlines, institutional administrative job, guiding students, doing paperwork for funding agencies on the work front. At the home front, running a home as a late bloomer sandwich generation where parents and child's well being are completely lying on my shoulder. My ever so reluctant playful child's exams, meeting with various societal obligations, travels - it is a super busy life. I am not complaining about any of it, since fully aware I chose to come back to India for all these only. Now maintaining my sanity and getting charged every morning with a proper exercise regime is often taking a backseat. But this is just a regular day for a PI. But there are days when one of your best students chooses to give UPSC exams a try and successfully clears it. This examination attracts a lot of publicity and media frenzy. I see a lot of activities happening around when she clears the exams and mentions the PI' s support as one of the contributing factors. While it feels good to be appreciated, I have a weird feeling. Suddenly giving so much importance to something that was clearly not in my job profile neither was in my priority list. I also feel the pressure the other students might be feeling right now.
When someone congratulates me, I have mixed feelings. While I feel super happy that my student has achieved the un - achievable and has acknowledged me, but I wonder what has it got to do with me? Apart from being plain happy when I see one of my students will probably have a good and respectable life, but as a researcher I feel it is kind of my failure that I could not keep one of my best to stay motivated to do science. What we probably need for our country at this time is to have fiery innovators with the best mind. The scientific innovators who can think independently fill in the innovation void we have. Launch products make a difference.
We spend money on research but are unable to make a dent in the global scenery. We spend endless hours at work without getting a product at the end of our time as a scientist. We are not providing the best options to our students who work so hard to get a PhD. At the end of their PhD journey, they are left with very few options that include going for a postdoc abroad and struggling further to get college and university jobs that are too few. Academic/scientific jobs are even more scarce and the recruitment procedure is extremely arduous and long. We are not creating the best opportunities for our young minds, therefore, there is a kind of uncertainty developing in them. Can we change anything about that? Can we create more opportunities where our young minds will feel secure to complete a Ph.D. and will be assured of a job? Can we have world class University and Institutes funded in public private partnerships where we have innovations seeing a clear way ahead for translation? Can we ease our purchase processes so that we don't spend 80% of our time complying with the ever changing purchase rules? Can we stop consolidating our research funds at the end of every March 31st, so spending will be meaningful? Your comments are most welcome!!
