Reflections

I became 75 years old on June 30, 2009, 58 years after I first entered a research laboratory and 50 years after I embarked on an academic career. In 2011, I will celebrate the diamond jubilee of my research career. I have had a wonderful life doing science, and have enjoyed doing research even more after I turned 60. I feel that I have done my best work since then. In the last forty years or so, I have been elected to almost all the major science academies of the world and have been recognized in various ways by professional societies and others. As I am getting older, I am getting an increasing number of invitations to lecture all over the world and to be a visiting or adjunct professor in foreign universities. I have been a distinguished visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara and Berkeley for sometime, but I recently decided not to move out of my base in Bangalore for long periods. A university in the Middle East offered me an unbelievable salary if I could go over there for a year or two (or even for a month each year). I took no time to refuse the offer, though politely. Money has not been the attraction in my life (fortunately). I have received 48 honorary doctorate degrees from both Indian and foreign universities. I have found real solace and satisfaction in the research papers coming out of my laboratory. I have had dedicated research students at the Indian Institute of Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Most of my research has been done through students who have given their best during their stay in my laboratory. I have always had 12 to 15 Ph.D students working with me. Including Masters' students, project assistants and post-doctoral fellows, the size of my research group is generally 20 to 25. Around 140 young people have received Ph.D degrees while working with me. I have also guided the Ph.D research of several students even though I was not formally their research supervisor. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with students and other coworkers. I have been writing research papers all my life (almost every day of my life), and without even knowing, I have become an author of over 1400 research papers and 42 books. The publishing virus that attacked me in my youth seems to have had a powerful effect. The virus is harmless and even seems beneficial. I am told that our papers have been cited widely (close to 40,000 times), giving me a high H-index. What is more noteworthy, however, is the way my research subject has grown over the past few decades…