NV Joshi - Session 02, 2020-01-07

(00:00:30) Follow-up from last session and what his siblings have pursued NV Joshi shares the name of the singer he was unable to recollect in the last session who was a student of his father’s. In addition to cricket and reading which he mentioned last time, he shares that in his school days he was also into physical exercising and table tennis. He goes on to talk about what his siblings pursued academically and professionally, including his brother’s time at TERI. He remarks that his brother’s command over the English language is better than his. [Archivist’s note: at the time spoken about by the interviewee, TERI stood for ‘Tata Energy Research Institute’, but the index term uses the authority record name ‘The Energy and Resources Institute’] [Archivist’s note: interviewee’s brother’s name: Yateendra Joshi; not referred to by his name in the interview; name obtained from previous interview session] [Archivist’s note: interviewee’s sister’s name: Preeti Shenwai; not referred to by her name in the interview; previously known as Karuna Joshi; names obtained from previous interview session]

(00:06:38) Time at IIT Bombay, Summer Schools as part of National Level Science Talent Search Examination and decision to come to IISc for PhD Lab work did not fascinate Joshi, nor was he good at it. He says he always felt he would do something theory based and not experiment based. He talks about his relationship with studies over the years and being unable to understand the more theoretical oriented topics while in IIT. He details the sequence of events and decisions that lead to his pursuing a PhD degree at IISc, mentioning places he specifically did not consider and those that did not work out as well when he reached out to them for recruitment. He initially applied to the Physics Department at IISc. He shares that he stayed with a friend in the hostel when he had to give the exam and interview.

(00:17:03) Decision to join MBU and knowledge of science and scientists Joshi shares that he did not do well in the admission process for the Physics Department and then learnt that he could apply to MBU too. He shares that the interview went well. Students in the morning session had shared with him the questions that were being asked and he was able to look up the answer in the library beforehand. He speaks about being totally unaware about science when he was interviewed for a fellowship while pursuing his pre-university course. The summer schools were his first exposure to the world outside.

(00:21:01) IISc interview panel, GN Ramachandran, VSR Rao and MBU Joshi mentions the Professors on the interview panels when applying to the Physics Department and MBU. He mentions VSR Rao as going on to be his guide. He also shares a bit about GN Ramachandran, the founder of MBU, and how he would recruit students for MBU and encourage them to meet all faculty members so they could decide whose work appealed to them. It was through this process that VSR Rao’s theoretical work appealed to him. Joshi shares that six months later he got a letter saying he could join the Physics Department (having previously been on the waitlist), but he chose to continue in MBU. He speaks about the initial days of the MBU when he joined- it being a very small department with few rooms, professors and students. He talks about classmates from his Masters days who were also at MBU. Joshi says that it was the way in which VSR Rao described problems pertaining to the shapes that different units take (e.g. starch and cellulose) and classical potential functions that seemed quite interesting to him. There was also some amount of elimination in the decision to join him, when it came to experiments or work that other professors were involved with which he was not interested in or the fact that they did not choose him.

(00:29:17) Decision to work on carbohydrate conformations, PhD coursework and what his research involved Joshi says he decided to work on six membered sugar rings when their preferred conformations were not well known. VSR Rao worked on carbohydrate conformations and being unfamiliar with the subject, doing what he suggested was an automatic choice in the first year. He talks about the course work that was part of the first year and what he was comfortable with and what he found difficult. His PhD research focussed on precise shapes molecules would take, their preferred conformation and whether biological activity seen is similar to it. He looked at six membered sugar rings for five and six carbon sugars. Subsequently, he worked on looking at equivalents of penicillin such as ampicillin to see how it matches with or differs from penicillin. Joshi feels that his work was least demanding on time and energy. Given its computational nature, programmes had to be written. With only one computer and times much different from today, it would take up to a day or more to get one’s results, depending on the queue and whether it was a production run. Solving a specific problem involved less work once the results came in and were tabulated and plotted. When using the IBM 360 computer at CISL (the only one for IISc at the time) was not enough, Joshi had to go for some months to IIT Madras to use the IBM 370 computer which was bigger. He describes the process he would follow after writing the programme, from go to the punching machine where different statements had to be punched in, to checking printed outputs in the department’s pigeon hole. [Archivist’s note: at the time spoken about by the interviewee, it was called the ‘Central Instrumentation and Service Laboratory (CISL), IISc’, but the index term uses the authority record name ‘Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics, IISc’]

(00:40:41) Surgery for retinal detachment and joining CTS as a programmer In 1976, when he went to Chennai for computational work, he had retinal detachment for which he required a surgery. He then went to Bombay for post operative care. He shares that halfway through his pursuing his PhD, he joined CTS as a programmer towards the end of 1979. He speaks about Raghavendra Gadagkar and becoming his roommate during the second year. Gadagkar would have discussions with Madhav Gadgil who was in CTS, and Joshi would join these. Joshi also had discussions with Sulochana Gadgil, he says. His work involved writing programmes, which he greatly enjoyed. When the position for a mathematical programmer at CTS fell vacant, he applied for it and was selected.

(00:45:40) Life at IISc and interest in computer programmes He speaks about staying on campus and staying with Raghavendra Gadagkar. He mentions which hostel blocks he stayed in. He describes his life in IISc as being easy and great. He speaks about the monthly fellowship stipend of ₹400/- making “a lot of difference”. Watching movies twice or thrice a week in the ample free time was a matter of routine, along with visiting the gymkhana and the library. His work was such that he did not require large grants for anything, unlike those dealing with experiments. It was thanks to compulsory coursework that he first became interested in computer programmes. He enjoyed writing his own programmes over using ones written by others. He mentions the names of the journals he used to read and describes his movie watching routine.

(00:51:42) Differences over time in Bangalore and IISc and social consciousness of students at IISc Joshi says he is unable to comment on differences in Bombay over time, given that he has not been there for many years but goes on to share some he has noticed with respect to Bangalore. He mentions two of his favourite restaurants from his PhD days. In reference to changes in the IISc campus over time, Joshi says though the number of people and buildings and traffic has increased, the greenery has remained unchanged. He talks about the food in the mess being particularly good when he was studying there. During the time of the Emergency, Joshi recalls IISc as being completely isolated from any of its effects. He also recalls a time when students were unhappy about a satellite launch because a huge amount of the few computers’ time was allotted to ISRO.

(00:57:51) Parents’ feelings about his choices and his own about the position at CTS Joshi shares that his parents were of the opinion that as long as he enjoyed his work, that was the best that could happen. Had it been the case that he had not got admission for the PhD degree, he says he would have looked into another source for a stable income. He was not keen to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship abroad, the norm, and was satisfied with the salary of his position at CTS. He also shared that no one treated him as an assistant and they were trying to upgrade his position to that of a lecturer. He feels lucky that no one pushed him towards pursuing medicine or engineering, giving him complete freedom to decide what to pursue. He credits his parents’ jobs as the reason for there being no financial pressure. [Archivist’s note: interviewee’s mother’s name: Pradnya Vasudeo Joshi; not referred to by her name in the interview; previously known as Sudha Govind Kelkar; names obtained from previous interview session] [Archivist’s note: interviewee’s father’s name: Vasudeo Kashinath Joshi; not referred to by his name in the interview; name obtained from previous interview session]

(01:03:01) PhD work and writing papers Joshi refers to his PhD work on the shapes different sugars would take as being “straightforward mainstream research”, unlike some of his peers at the time who were focussing on “top of the line problems” such as an alternate structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). He describes VSR Rao as being the pioneer of the drug discovery programme, stating that however he had not been given credit for it. Joshi goes on to share that he worked on drug binding capabilities of cephalosporin and ampicillin. Many of his peers, he says, went on to join the drug discovery programme in various parts of the United States. He talks about the mild ways in which his supervisor would put forth his suggestions to him. He details how a particular calculation that he wanted Joshi to include in the first paper he wrote on his own ended up being the reason the referee gave for the acceptance of the paper. He says his supervisor was one of the nicest people and that work that Joshi did with him is cited more than work Joshi has done on his own. Speaking further about writing, Joshi shares that some work from his PhD never ended up getting published after he got engaged with work at CTS. He mentions recently finding out that R Virudachalam had put his name as first author on a paper he may or may not have contributed to. He shares that he did not enjoy writing as much as doing the work itself- arriving at the results and drawing diagrams. He talks about publishing papers not being as difficult back then as it is now, and also not meaning as much then in comparison to now.

(01:10:40) Not keeping up with his field of PhD research later on, his best work according to him and time at CTS He talks about not keeping track of his field of PhD research after getting his degree, citing his difficulty of being able to visualise certain things and a comment made by P Balaram that was perhaps directed at him. Joshi regards the work he did on his own to do with sex ratios and the evolution of sex based on selfish DNA while at CTS as his best work, while sharing that although it is some other work of his that is more cited. Joshi feels in hindsight, he could have done better with regard to things like interacting more with people and using facilities available. At CTS, he realised, that with little effort on his part, he could write programmes for people which helped them a great deal. This gave him a lot of joy. He also got to interact with people who had “big ideas” and says that was “nice to see”.

(01:14:24) Professors at MBU He speaks with fondness about the teachers at MBU and recollects how they were very helpful and used to interact with students as though they were their colleagues. He shares that they also had varied interests beyond science. He narrates an incident about how once when students were onlooking, a guide found a student sleeping at a table in the summertime and just turned the fan on above him and left. He feels this went to show how good the guides there were.