My life in a nutshell

I grew up in the city of Joy, Kolkata. The former capital of British India, then called Calcutta, has been India's artistic and cultural hub in many forms. The iconic Victoria Memorial has been a landmark of Kolkata since then. Coming from a music-loving family meant I had to do my formal share of singing. However, adolescence changed my voice drastically, leading me to science.

My journey in academics has had its ups and downs. I completed high school in 2013 and thought of becoming an astrophysicist while enrolling for a B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Calcutta, dreaming about the stars. Little did I know back then that astrophysics does not mean I get to name a planet but rather solve differential equations and tensors. So, I dropped that idea and explored the field of experimental condensed matter during my M.Sc. days at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. My second-semester coursework professor suggested this field, and I am glad he did.

A summer internship at the crystal growth center at Anna University was my first exposure to the field, and that’s when I decided to get a doctorate. I enrolled in the PhD program here at IIT Madras in 2020 and was lucky enough to join a lab that let me explore the field of perovskite materials without any restrictions. In my years here, I have tried various optoelectronic applications of these materials, including photovoltaics, lasers, light emission sources, and photodetectors. I succeeded in a few areas and failed in a lot more, but all in all, I enjoyed my journey.

One important life lesson I learnt during my PhD is “Jugaad”. This Hindi word means to make use of whatever you can, and make something work. Whether it is to implement a low-temperature setup inside the spectrometers or use various tricks to make the Raman instrument work, my PhD taught me all.

In my off hours, I mostly watch every genre of movie possible or take my camera and go off to click pictures of nature.