Prelude: The following passage contain so
many ‘I’. Not any self promotional intent, but I think I speak for a generation
who went to public schools in the late 80’s in remote India.
I
always liked science. Physics and Chemistry were my favorite subjects in
school. But biology was mostly boring. During my school days biology means a
combination of zoology and botany. To the most part it was classification of
animal kingdom and plant kingdom. Basically one will be forced to memorize lots
and lots of dry facts. I was not too bad at that exercise, but ‘that’ biology
could never capture my (or anyone that I know of) imagination. You regurgitate
some swallowed facts into answer paper and be done with it. It would have been
more fun if there were some inspiring teachers. I cannot remember any, during
my school days, at least. I believe that I was naturally good at chemistry,
especially physical chemistry. But never really pursued my skills. In fact, I
was attracted to physics. To me it was more philosophical. It touched up on
lots of mysterious yet tangible forces that you experience every day. Laws of
gravity, thermodynamics, electricity to give some examples. In chemistry it was
electrons that at the outer rings of atoms that caught my attentions. Loosing,
gaining and sharing of electrons between atoms to make compounds with
properties that completed different from both parents. It was fun to read. But
unfortunately, we did not have any opportunity to do experiments and get
involved in science. Great teachers can make a sea of difference in students’
life. I truly believe that. I had some very good (not great, sorry no offence
to anyone) teachers in my pre-degree school. Even them had significantly
influenced me. I can only imagine if I had encountered a ‘great one’. But no
complaints. This fine moment is a sum total of all goodness of the past.
Anyway,
I some how liked science. May be because it accommodated introverts. But I
believe a child has to be given a lot of materials that attract him to his area
of interest, whatever it may be, both to spark and quench his/hers curiosity. I
did not get any such materials. To me the exciting news came in the form of
small ‘boxed items’ in the bi-weekly story books I get to read not that
infrequently. But it was good enough to spark imagination. I remember watching
‘Turning Point’ with Prof. Yashpal and Girish Karnad (if I remember correctly),
once a week in Doordarshan, (which we bought after my high school). I do not
know how I came to know about it. Well, not a big mystery, because there was
only one channel. The evening broadcast started at 5 PM and one fine evening,
when nothing else to do….. But I got
hooked to it and used to watch whenever I got a chance.
Then
I discovered this beautiful magazine ‘Science Reporter’. I first saw it after
my pre-degree in a book stall at my nearest town. I subscribed to it and became
a regular reader of it for a while. It was the only popular science magazine I
knew about. The articles were nice. I used to read most of it. Some articles did
not make much sense, since they were not ‘meant to be popular’. May be just to
add to the CV of the writer. But there were some good, simple ones. Especially
the one about forensic science, that describe the science behind some poisoning
or death as a story. And puzzles, trivia… Now the reason I wrote all of these
is because I stumbled upon the online version of Science Reporter few days back
(http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/10791). It took me back to early 1990’s. My earliest tryst with fun science! Thanks to
SR for a great job they are doing to popularize science in India.
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