Thank you for agreeing to speak with Rendezvous. Tell us about your early days in IIT Madras. 

I came to IIT Madras after my PhD abroad, in 1995. The campus and the country were very different at that time. I was keen to kickstart my own research group, but having gotten used to very sophisticated instrumentation at the Georgia Institute of Technology (in Atlanta, U.S), it was not clear what I could do here. 

There was no access to fancy equipment or big funding. I was restless and visited several organisations to try to figure out practical research that I could do. I managed to get a few small projects from ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and other organisations, and managed to produce results. Times were hard! There was no dark room, which was a requirement in our imaging studies, so my students and I had to work late into the night to do meaningful experiments. 

We have often heard stories that you avoid buying off-the-shelf equipment and would rather build them yourself. Are these mere legends or the truth? 

Well, because of the constraints on funding and the availability of certain specific instruments I needed for my planned research, there were situations early on when my students and I built devices ourselves, only buying components. For example, we made our own PIV (particle image velocimetry), and I worked with various technical staff to fix things when they were damaged due to the unreliable power supply. And the habit has stuck. 

We do build a lot of things in my lab even today, although the research funding situation has eased significantly since 2000. I think that the degree of control and ownership you get from drilling into the details of these instruments are phenomenal. Needless to say, the learning is immense. For students and for me.

What about computers? At that time, you had both experimental and theory/ computational research coming out of your group. Perhaps theoretical research would have been easier and less expensive? 

Computers were a rarity in those days! Every department had some computers of course, and a small computer lab, but nothing to do effective research with. I had a good hard think and blew up whatever meagre savings I had when I came back from the U.S, to buy myself computers. No regrets though, I think it was the right decision. I had come back to India to be with my family and to do good things for the country. Three decades later, that decision hardly pinches. In fact, it set the tone for my own ability to embrace many different directions in research.

So, it looks like after a few tumultuous initial years, you were on your way to fulfilling your dreams and achieving personal success (and accolades for IIT-M). Has it been that way? Smooth sailing after those initial years? 

My experience overall has been an extremely positive one. My heart is completely filled with gratitude for IIT Madras and everyone around for helping me in every moment of need. But I do want to mention a few episodes in my journey. In the initial years, I was solving practical problems by using whatever access I had to money, equipment and students (several of them were undergraduates). But I did have my internal frustrations. One day, a senior professor, Prof. Kalyanaraman, asked me, “Sujith, will the next big thing in your field come from you?” 

This wormed into my head and I have to say that it was a turning point for me. It was never my intention to go with the flow and coast along. I was hungry. I had a very long internal debate, several sleepless nights, and a few more discussions with Prof. Kalyanaraman. Ultimately, I ended up “rebooting” myself and my research. 

The path we are on today is different; a much more aggressive, trail-blazing one. The science that emerges from my group today is full of fundamentals that define path-breaking discoveries. As an engineer, I am also keen to translate those discoveries into practical technologies. You know what put me on this new path? Not some big funding or prestigious awards bestowed upon me. I went deep within and discovered that the only thing you can change is yourself; the system becomes almost irrelevant then. 

I sorted out my thoughts and ideas. I read a lot, made mind maps and started looking for money for the ideas I wanted to pursue, the ones I was convinced about. Things really fell in place. If I had waited for the world to change, to accommodate me and my ideas, it may have happened but would have taken aeons.