My research journey has been quite tortuous (not torturous!).  

I have always been keen about music. When it came to choosing my master's  research project, it was an easy decision: I wanted to work on physics of musical instruments. I chose violins, in particular, and investigated the role of the soundpost, a small piece of wood inserted between the violin plates. After my master's, I worked on the Indian musical drum Tabla, another fascinating instrument.

When I was finally convinced that I like research, I decided to do a PhD. I considered going abroad, but decided against it when I sat down to prepare a statement of purpose. I anyway liked IIT Kanpur very much, having done my bachelor's and master's there. So, IITK it was.

For my PhD, I worked in the field of theoretical and computational mechanics; the title of my thesis was Basis functions for residual stresses. During the PhD, I also worked on other problems unrelated to my thesis, such as COVID-19 modeling and energy harvesting. 

Although my research journey had been immensely enjoyable thus far, I had a scientific reawakening of sorts when I was writing my thesis: I wanted to do more hands-on work in order to do my bit toward the technological development of rural India. To that end, I worked in a rural science and technology NGO called Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) in Phaltan, Maharashtra from July 2021 to September 2022.  At NARI, I worked on development of a mechanized plant for production of syrup from sweet sorghum (sorghum: jawar). In this project, we developed low-cost and simple technologies using locally available products in order to keep the plant simple and affordable to small farmers. 

My time at NARI was extremely rewarding in many senses. I learnt so much more about engineering and design than I had in my academic courses. Working hands-on gave me new perspectives and changed the way I look at things, in general and research-wise. Phaltan is a beautiful little town with hills and rivulets, and it is almost always windy there. Living in a rural setting made me more receptive and empathetic towards the problems faced by people in these areas. 

I wished to continue working in rural technology, and even contemplated an initiative on the lines of "Toys from Trash" by Arvind Gupta. However, admittedly, that path is difficult and uncertain; increasingly so if one is married. Therefore, I decided to come back to academics and to the subject I love the most: mechanics. 

I worked at IIT Hyderabad for ten months, spent two beautiful years as a postdoc in Japan, and came back to India in November 2025, where I am now an assistant professor in the applied mechanics department at IIT Delhi. I hope you'd agree with the very first line of this write-up now.