Professor C L Roy....a mosaic of memories

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Professor C L Roy

(A Mosaic of Memories)

A ‘failed experimental physics’ Research Scholar from Andhra University, Waltair, I found sanctuary as a Junior Physics Faculty at I.I.T. Kharagpur at the age of 21 in 1965. The change from a mofussil sambar-slurping town to the all-India environs of KGP was sudden and painful, although my ‘orientation period’ was softened by a research scholar friend (AVS) who was already a year old at KGP.

AVS was somewhat ecstatic in describing one C. L. Roy (yet to become a Dr.), who was about 5 years older to us, does Theoretical Physics all by himself without any guide, held high ranks in his Calcutta University days, returned recently from Denmark, and was well-known as a popular teacher.

One morning when we were sitting under the Canteen mango tree, AVS pointed out CLR homing in on the Canteen. A tall, slim man with a small paunch and an urbane gait, cigarette in one hand and a twirling wayside ‘quill’ in the other for picking his ear with, in jeans pants and T-shirt (quite novel those days), a pronounced aquiline nose; CLR made quite an impression on me, and I at once aspired to try and become a ‘failed theoretical physicist’, if nothing else.

As CLR drew nearer, AVS got up and introduced me as a newcomer to the Physics Department. CLR gave me a warm handshake and asked me where I did my M.Sc. from. I respectfully replied; “Andhra University, Waltair, sir”. To my consternation, he took umbrage at it and reacted: “Why do you call me ‘sir’? I am neither your teacher, nor do I have a knighthood bestowed on me by Queen Elizabeth. You must give up these slavish British Raj habits.” That was a right Roy-al snub; and I couldn’t reply that way down South, everybody calls everybody else ‘sir’; and when they become thick as thieves, each one addresses the other as ‘guru’, quite absurdly. Nor that Pickwick took Winkle aside, away from his ice-rink tomfoolery, and snarled: “You are a humbug, SIR”.

It took me quite a while to figure out how my colleagues at KGP addressed each other. The Bengalee juniors called their seniors as ‘…..da’, while the seniors called their juniors by their first names. The North Indians preferred to address each other rather ceremoniously as Mister this or Doctor that or Professor so, as the case maybe. Everyone called me ‘Hey, Sastry’, and I decided not to address them at all if I could, but cut and run.

An year or so later, I saw a Notice saying CLR will be giving a series of lectures on QM for the benefit of interested research scholars and junior faculty. During those days I was trying to teach myself QM rather unsuccessfully and so decided to attend his lectures and absorb as much as I can. I found him a wonderful teacher, with a booming voice and clear enunciation. But, after a few lectures, it was all going above my head and I gave up; but I learned quite a few tips on good teaching while attending CLR’s lectures. (After wading through dozens of books on QM, I rested only after reading Feynman Lectures Volume 3 and the two tomes of Sakurai.)

CLR kept on publishing papers on Solid State Theory, got his Doctorate, guided students single-mindedly, and kept up his reputation as a great teacher. Not only did he pursue front-end research in Relativistic Solid State Physics, but he pondered deeply over fun topics like the Foundations of QM, Zitterbewegung, Klein paradox and such. And published papers in Educational Physics Journals like the American Journal of Physics.

In 1975, I happened to inherit a course on ‘Special Relativity and Electrodynamics’ from CLR. By then, we got acquainted quite a bit, and I found him full of good humor and easy of access. I went to him to know what topic he liked to teach most in that course. He unhesitatingly replied: ‘Thomas Precession from Moller’. It was a new topic to me and I was curious to learn it. Although I never took to Moller, Thomas Precession turned out to be an obsession with me, and I relished absorbing its implications continually to the bitter end of most of 25 years, till Sayan happily relieved me from that Course (much like Hercules did Atlas).

Around 1985 the entire IIT student community, with the blessings of the Gymkhana, brought out an Assessment of ALL the teachers at IIT for the first and only time. All the 350 teachers were graded by students and their names published in a single roster ranking each teacher with an accompanying percentage score. No doubt there was much understandable rancor and anger at the hurried way they went about the exercise; but it set a healthy precedent for an improved form of student feedback. Personally, it helped me a lot to be held accountable every semester, and kept me on my toes.

In that first-ever exercise, CLR TOPPED the Physics Department with a high score of 85, and he was much pleased with it, deservedly. It sure was one of his ‘best moments’ at KGP.

A decade or so later, CLR took over as Head of the Physics Department (by ‘rotation’). During that decade, we had a belated Emergency declared at KGP, and every HoD was forced to hold faculty meetings every month and every faculty member was forced to attend them. And CLR wanted to bring a transparent democracy into the ‘system’.

His first meeting chairing as HoD turned out to be his ‘orientation period’. There were the ex-HoDs up front trying to ‘teach’ him administration; there were his immediate juniors with their own private agenda, and there were the back-benchers like GPS and DB out to have as much free Tea and fun as they could. That meeting sure was a ‘primer’ for CLR, but he did not wince nor give up his attempts at democratizing.

Soon after that meeting, CLR summoned me to his ‘chamber’ in the top floor. Apparently, chaste Theoreticians preferred to dwell in such desolate isolation far above the milling crowd. That reminded me of a lesson we had in our Matriculation English prose by Samuel Johnson: ‘The Advantages of living in a Garret’. The impoverished artists and writers of London those days preferred to live in cheap and dingy top floor digs. Johnson attributes their love for their ‘garrets’ to the fact that, perched farthermost above the center of the spinning earth, their brains get extra stimuli from their increased centrifugal velocities and a rarified atmosphere…. And I found a curious ‘easy chair’ in which CLR was reclining and pondering seriously.

CLR told me that he was unhappy with the way his first faculty meeting went. I at once promised to abstain myself from faculty meetings then on, if I was in the way. He replied ‘No, not at all’. All he wanted from me was my presence and ‘constructive support’. I felt rather flattered and promised it on condition that he will not force me to attend the ponderous Senate Meetings, and drop me from all Committees. Both of us kept our words. No doubt CLR enlisted the support of many of his other younger colleagues, and things went on swimmingly then on. Indeed, Professor Srinivas used to tell me that the faculty meetings under CLR were the best he ever attended.

To be truthful, I did have a few personal agenda of mine. One was to make some QM compulsory for all branches of B.Tech. This materialized eventually and that course ran successfully for many years. The next was to get computers installed in every undergraduate lab. This too was achieved with the efforts of Professors CLR, M. L. Mukherjee and B. K. Mathur, who convinced the then Director. Another was the introduction of a course on Gravity and Cosmology in our UG curriculum. Those were the decades of the Big Bang, Black Holes, Quasars and CMBR; and students were raring to have such a course. However, this had to await the advent of a new Director full of enthusiasm for these topics. Alas, by then I was too old and too near my retirement to learn much from the new expertise infused into the Department.

During his headship, I came closer to CLR and we used to have mutual family visits. These introduced me to the human side of the couple and their sophisticated appreciation of the good things of life like literature, music, gardening, cooking etc. Mrs. CLR must have been very supportive of his single-minded pursuit of research and teaching. Unlike many of his colleagues, CLR continued his research and teaching activities much after his ‘retirement’, till the day he was struck down.

It feels good to remember CLR as this lonely individual, always lost in thought while on his ancient push-bike or sitting alone under the mango trees and pondering. Here was a teacher who cared for and loved his students and scholars who in their turn reciprocated most heartily.

A life worth admiring and emulating!

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