Only a handful of super achievers, who scale the pinnacle of human endeavour, steer clear of the crust that the dizzying altitude is so very keen to deposit on their person. Dr. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar is one of them, a rare jewel in a world where we see success and accomplishment so very easily curdling into vanity across spheres, what with scientists busy fortifying their eminence, doctors their clinical authority, tech visionaries their silicon mythology, journalists their vested interests, academicians their haloed tenures, corporate titans their enigmatic inaccessibility, film stars their celluloid image, and sporting gods their folklore of several crores.
From a modest Mumbai chawl to the highest echelons of science and technology, Mashelkar sir has come a long way but to this day, he exudes genuine warmth, the kind that makes you believe you have known him for years.
Never mind my legendary bank balance and cash in hand, I am a billionare of the spiritual realm given the trust he has placed in me, addressing me as “My dear Sudhir”, and agreeing to look back in time at my behest, despite the lack of any compelling need to do so.
Here’s the unedited Q and A in all its glory:
Do you unknowingly carry any memories of your father and the Mashel home, however blurred they may be?
My memories of my father are more emotional than visual. I lost him when I was barely six years old. At that age, memory does not preserve detail — it preserves feeling. What remains with me is not an image, but an absence. And sometimes, absence shapes a life as powerfully as presence.
Mashel, my native village in Goa, remains deeply etched in my consciousness — not merely as a geographical location, but as an emotional homeland. Every time I return to Goa, I visit the Devki Krishna temple and pray, just as I did as a child. Mashel gave me my first identity, my first rootedness, my first sense of belonging.
When my father passed away, my mother — with extraordinary courage and quiet determination — moved to Mumbai in search of survival. That journey from a small village in Goa to the relentless energy of Mumbai was not merely a change of address. It was a migration from uncertainty to possibility. It altered the trajectory of our destiny.
Life taught me very early that nothing could be taken for granted. Perhaps that is why resilience came early. Perhaps that is why self-reliance became instinctive.
Mashel gave me roots. Mumbai gave me wings. India gave me opportunity. And science gave me purpose.
What explains your almost defiant curiosity that defied the hardships of your formative years in Mumbai? Was it something you were born with, or something that poverty itself forged in you?
When you grow up amid scarcity, curiosity ceases to be an academic trait. It becomes a survival instinct. You begin asking questions not because textbooks demand it, but because life itself does. How can this work better? Can something ordinary become extraordinary? Can limitations be converted into possibilities?
Poverty sharpens observation. Constraint provokes creativity. Scarcity teaches resourcefulness. Looking back, I realise that what the world today calls “frugal innovation” was, for us, simply a way of living.
Many years later, this evolved into one of my deepest innovation philosophies: More from Less for More. But that philosophy was not born in a conference room. It was born in lived experience.
As a young boy in Mumbai, life was undeniably hard. A tiny room. Studying under streetlights. Walking barefoot until the age of twelve. Moments when continuing education itself seemed uncertain.
And yet, I never felt intellectually poor. That distinction is important.
Material poverty need not create poverty of aspiration. In fact, adversity often creates precisely the opposite — an intense hunger to rise, to explore, to prove oneself.
Curiosity eventually became my rebellion against circumstance.
Your mother was your most visionary mentor. She instinctively envisioned the architecture of a life that you richly deserved, and left no stone unturned to pave the way forward. Do write at length about her role in your life.
My mother did not give me just the birth, she gave birth to my aspirations.
When I stood first in school, she was happy — but never satisfied. Mathematics was my favourite subject, and I routinely scored full marks. On the rare occasion that I scored 97 instead of 100, I would proudly show her the result. She would quietly ask:
“Where did the three marks go?”
That question stayed with me for life.
She was not demanding perfection out of pressure. She was demanding excellence out of possibility.
One incident shaped her resolve forever. She had once gone to Congress House near Prarthana Samaj in Mumbai, where daily-wage jobs were distributed. When her turn came, she was asked whether she had passed the third standard — the minimum qualification required even for that modest work.
She answered honestly: she had never attended school. She was refused the job.
While returning home, humiliated but unbroken, she made a silent vow: “My son will receive the highest education possible.”
When I got my Batchelor degree in chemical engineering, I had some good job offers, but she refused to let me take the job. She said that she had come to know that there is a higher degree called PhD. I want you to get that degree.
When I finished my PhD, she had already found out that I could do post-doctoral research, even higher than PhD. That’s how I continued research.
When I got my 25th honorary doctorate in 1976, I gave her the good news. She said, ‘now I am satisfied, now I can go’. She left for her heavenly abode on 17 November 2006.
Today, I hold the national record of 54 honorary doctorates in the field of engineering surpassing that of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam of 48 honorary doctorates.
You can see that this would not have happened, but for my mother, who insisted on my climbing up higher and higher ladders in higher education.
These two examples are how I was personally influenced by my mother. But she became my first institution builder too. And that institution is affecting masses today.
I was Director General of CSIR during 1995 to 2006 leading 40 national laboratories. CSIR Headquarter was in Delhi. My mother was in Pune. I never left research and would come to work with my research group in National Chemical Laboratory in Pune every weekend. Before I left for Delhi again, I would give her whatever cash that I carried in my pocket. I never asked her as what she did with that money.
After she passed away, my daughter Shruti was organising her personal belongings. She found that all the money that I gave her over the years was kept in a bundle with a little note for me.
In the note, she had said ‘don’t ever forget our roots in utter poverty. With this money, do something for those who do science that benefits the poor’.
That is where I created Anjali Mashelkar Foundation (AMF). We started with the Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award for those innovators that made high technology work for the poor. Most of them are non-invasive ultra affordable diagnostic devices using breakthrough technologies. For instance take Swaasa. You cough into a mobile phone with a downloaded app and you know whether you have TB. The audiometry of the phone is trained by artificial intelligence with cough as a bio marker. Just costs ₹10 per test. Take Easy Care. You put your finger on a device, and you get the reading of haemoglobin. No pricking to take out the blood. Cost is just ₹10 for a test.
This Foundation has expanded its scope to make life-saving healthcare solutions accessible and affordable for every Indian. AMF's most promising initiative today is AffEx Healthcare.
AffEx (Affordable Excellence) is India's first completely medical-grade, point-of-care, fully digital platform for early disease detection and monitoring. In just few minutes and for around Rs. 100, AffEx Kit screens 20+ parameters — diabetes, hypertension, cardiac health, respiratory conditions, anaemia, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, cataract, and more- using AI-powered medical devices.
Registration, screening, consultation, and prescription happen within a single seamless digital workflow- putting the power of a specialist clinic in the hands of a frontline health worker. This is not a concept: AffEx has been deployed across numerous villages in Maharashtra, PHCs in Goa, and Mobile Medical Units across five states, impacting more than 35,000 lives to date.
The maid who gave your mother her life’s savings of ₹21 so you could continue your schooling is one of the most quietly extraordinary figures in your story. Has that anonymous act of faith shaped the way you think about the relationship between belief in a person and that person's eventual trajectory?
Profoundly. That one act changed my understanding of human possibility. At a critical moment, when my education seemed likely to stop, a domestic worker—herself economically fragile—gave my mother her life’s savings. Twenty-one rupees. Today, that amount sounds insignificant. But in those days, it was enormous. More importantly, it represented something priceless: faith. What she really said was: “I believe this boy deserves a chance.”
That lesson never left me. Before financial capital, there is something even more transformative: belief capital. When someone believes in you before the world does, something shifts inside you. Confidence grows. Possibility expands. Trajectory changes. I am living proof of that.
That woman invested not in certainty—but in possibility. And that shaped how I later engaged with young scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs. Many talented people do not initially need money. They need belief. Someone to say: “You can.”
Bhave sir’s counsel at Union High School built the foundation for your career and life work as a scientist. What does this tell us about what education really is, in its most elemental form?
Education, in its purest form, is not information transfer. It is ignition. A teacher does not merely deliver content. A teacher awakens possibility. Bhave Sir did that for me.
I remember going to a poor school in Mumbai. But that poor school had rich teachers. I remember Principal Bhave, who taught us physics. I remember his taking us out in to the sun to demonstrate as to how to find the focal length of a convex lens. He took a piece of paper, moved the lens till the brightest spot emerged on the paper, and told us that the distance between the paper and the lens was the focal length. But then he held it on for some time and the paper burnt. For some reason, he turned to me and said “Mashelkar, if you can focus your energies like this and not diffuse them, you can burn anything in the world !” I was so impressed with the power of science that I decided to become a scientist. But that experiment gave me the philosophy of life too; ‘focus and you will achieve’.
The sun’s rays are parallel. And the property of parallel lines is that they never meet. But a convex lens brings those parallel rays together into a single point of extraordinary power. That insight stayed with me.
Later, I realised that institutions, societies, and even nations often behave like parallel lines — fragmented by silos, disciplines, languages, religions, bureaucracies, or egos.
Leadership, at its highest level, is convex lens leadership. Its role is to bring scattered energies together into transformative focus.
When I became Director General of CSIR, forty laboratories often behaved like forty independent kingdoms. We transformed them into Team CSIR — One CSIR. This CSIR transformation is now ranked as being one of the top ten achievements in Indian Science & Technology in the 21st Century by Jayant Narlikar in his book `Scientific Edge”.
That transformation happened not merely through administration, but through alignment of purpose.
India itself needs convex lens leadership today. A leadership that can bring together diversity without destroying diversity. A leadership that can convert fragmentation into collective national energy.
That is what Mahatma Gandhi achieved. And that remains one of the greatest leadership lessons of my life.
At UDCT, you turned down fellowship offers from top American and Canadian universities to do your PhD under Professor M.M. Sharma. How difficult was that against-the-current choice, and was it the first defining professional decision of your life?
Yes, unquestionably one of the first defining decisions of my life. And certainly against the current. At that time, the aspiration for bright young scientists was almost automatic: go abroad. The path seemed obvious Prestige. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Global exposure. Everything pointed outward. But I made a different choice.
Why? Because I recognised something fundamental: great institutions matter—but great mentors matter even more. Professor M.M. Sharma was not merely an academic. He was a phenomenon. An icon with extraordinary rigour, ambition, and intellectual intensity. I knew that working under him would not simply earn me a degree. It would transform me. And it did.
Your post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Salford was in rheology. This choice of a novel field, was it a philosophy you consciously held, especially given that your leap eventually became the scientific foundation of your global acclaim? How do you look back at your phenomenal tryst with rheology?
Looking back, I realise that choosing rheology reflected something deeper about my intellectual temperament. I have always been attracted to frontiers rather than crowded highways. At that time, rheology was not exactly a fashionable field, certainly not in India. It was relatively niche, intellectually demanding, and not the obvious route to visibility or recognition.
Which, perhaps, is precisely why it attracted me. I have often believed that originality lies where fewer people are looking. Rheology fascinated me because it dealt with complexity. How materials flow. How they deform. How behaviour changes under stress. In some sense, rheology is not just about materials - it is about systems.
Even human institutions, if you think about it, have rheology! Some flow. Some resist. Some deform under pressure. Some transform. So perhaps my later fascination with institutional transformation began unconsciously there! My time at the University of Salford was profoundly transformative.
You had offers from three American universities and Imperial College when Dr. Nayudamma met you at Indira Gandhi’s behest. Was it a blend of reason and emotion, or something that transcended both, that guided your homecoming?
This was one of the most consequential decisions of my life. And honestly, it was reason, emotion, gratitude, and something beyond all three. The rational case for staying abroad was compelling. Excellent institutions. Outstanding infrastructure. Prestigious appointments. Global visibility. For any ambitious young scientist, it was an attractive future.
Then came Dr. Nayudamma. A remarkable man. He did not recruit me in the conventional sense. He inspired me. He did not say: “Come back for a job.” He said, in effect: “Come back for a mission.” That made all the difference.
I reflected on my own journey. A poor boy from Mumbai. Educated through public institutions. Supported by scholarships. All from my motherland. Could I now simply walk away? This was not narrow nationalism. It was gratitude expressed as action.
Talent creates privilege. Privilege creates responsibility. Returning to India did not feel like sacrifice. It felt like opportunity. Because building institutions in a developing country offers a uniquely meaningful challenge. If I had stayed abroad, perhaps I would have had a fine scientific career. By returning, I was given the privilege of helping shape institutions. That made all the difference.
When you became Director of the National Chemical Laboratory in 1989, NCL was fundamentally an import-substitution hub. You turned it into an institution that licensed its patents to multinational companies and became a Harvard Business School case study in entrepreneurship in emerging economies. What did you have to break structurally, culturally, and psychologically to achieve that epoch-making transformation?
Transformation always begins by challenging invisible assumptions. When I became Director of NCL, the institution had excellent scientific talent. The problem was not capability. The problem was mindset. India’s scientific establishment had been shaped by an earlier era, where import substitution was a legitimate national imperative.
But history had moved on. India could not remain merely a copier. India had to become a creator. I wanted to move NCL from: import substitution to global innovation leadership. To do that, we had to break three barriers.
First, structural barriers. Second, cultural barriers. Third—and deepest—psychological barriers. The deepest challenge was overcoming the inferiority mindset that Indian science could not compete globally. And when NCL began licensing technologies to multinational corporations, something extraordinary happened. Instead of India importing Western technology—the West began licensing Indian innovation. That transformed institutional self-belief.
You have spoken about changing the culture at CSIR from “publish or perish” to “patent, publish, and prosper.” How fiercely did the establishment resist this shift?
Changing processes is difficult. Changing culture is harder. Changing identity is hardest of all. The phrase “Patent, Publish, Prosper” expanded the scientist’s identity. Not less science. More impact.
I showed that the new knowledge generated by Indian Scientists was being used to create patents by companies abroad. Indian Knowledge was creating wealth, but for the others, not for India. I said this is not on.
Transformation required vision, accountability, incentives, and leadership by example. The deeper lesson is universal: Institutions transform not when structures change. They transform when stories change.
What is the relationship between ambition and accountability in institutional leadership?
Ambition without accountability becomes rhetoric. Accountability without ambition becomes bureaucracy. Transformation requires both. At CSIR, I wanted scientists to think not like file processors—but like nation-builders. The real divide is not public versus private. It is mediocrity versus excellence.
You won a 14-month legal battle to revoke the American patent on the wound-healing properties of turmeric. Ditto for the Basmati rice patent.
This was much more than a patent dispute. It was a matter of civilisational confidence. Knowledge that had existed in India for centuries was being claimed elsewhere as novelty.
The greatest achievement was not individual victories. It was systems innovation.
I was invited to be the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Information Technology (SCIT) of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. The winning of the turmeric patent battle turned out to be a game changer. I argued with the representatives of the 176 member states. I said how come knowledge generated in laboratories of Harvard, Caltech, Princeton, Oxford or Cambridge is knowledge and knowledge generated by my ancestors while working in ‘laboratories of life’ is not knowledge? That lead to the review of the International Patent Classification (IPC) system, which had so far excluded traditional knowledge system as a knowledge system at all. After the review , traditional Knowledge was given its rightful place with more than 200 subgroups in IPC, where hardly any existed at all.
Later on, I took the initiative to create the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. That was a big step forward in preventing biopiracy as the patent offices agreed to refer to TKDL before the grant of patents based on traditional knowledge. That stopped the grant of turmeric like wrong patents.
India moved from complaint to competence. From grievance to evidence. From emotional assertion to strategic leadership. It also showed that civilisations earn respect not by shouting. But by proving.
In a world where both heavyweight pharma corporations and developing nations claim the moral high ground on access versus innovation, how difficult has it been to hold your position advocating for robust yet balanced IP regimes?
This has never been the easiest position to hold—because public debates love binaries. One side says: strong patents are essential for innovation. The other says: patents deny access to the poor. Reality is more nuanced. The debate is not about intellectual property rights versus the rights of the poor. It is about intellectual property rights and the rights of the poor. Creating that balance.
Access matters. Humanity needs both. Without innovation, there are no new medicines. Without access, innovation becomes morally incomplete. So the real question is not: patents or patients? The real question is: Can we design systems that reward invention while protecting humanity?
I have always believed the answer is yes. But this requires intellectual honesty. Drug discovery is expensive, risky, uncertain, and painfully slow. A successful molecule may emerge after several fail. That effort deserves recognition and protection. At the same time, healthcare cannot become a luxury reserved for those with deep pockets. That would be ethically indefensible.
So, I have consistently argued for what I call principled balance. A robust IP regime. But not a rigid one. Strong enough to incentivise innovation. Flexible enough to preserve public interest. This occasionally displeased ideological purists on both sides. That is perfectly acceptable.
Your concept of Gandhian Engineering sits on the cusp of Gandhian philosophy, Prahalad’s bottom-of-the-pyramid thinking, and your own scientific instinct for frugal design. How did that idea crystallise in your mind? Was there a specific moment, a product, a person who made you see that the deepest innovation challenge of our time was about radical affordability and inclusion rather than radical sophistication?
This idea did not arrive in a single flash of inspiration. It evolved from lived experience. When you grow up in poverty, affordability is not an abstract design parameter. It is the dividing line between inclusion and exclusion. I did not learn that in theory.I lived it.
Later, as a scientist and innovation leader, I noticed something deeply troubling. The world celebrated increasingly sophisticated technologies. And yet millions remained excluded from their benefits. Innovation was becoming more impressive— but not necessarily more inclusive. That disturbed me. Then several intellectual streams converged. Gandhiji’s timeless moral compass: “Recall the face of the poorest and weakest…”
C.K. Prahalad’s powerful bottom-of-the-pyramid thesis. My own engineering instinct for efficiency. And gradually the insight crystallised. The grand challenge of our century is not merely advanced innovation. It is inclusive innovation. That led to what I later called: Gandhian Engineering — More from Less for More.Meaning: More performance. With fewer resources. For more people.
Let me emphasise something. This is not about cheapness. It is about affordable excellence. That distinction is critical.
Innovation must reduce inequality—not widen it. To me, the ultimate test of innovation is not sophistication. It is inclusion. But more so by creating affordable excellence.
The Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Awards, named after your mother, recognise innovators who make high technology work for the poor. What has surprised you most about such innovators, who value more than valuations?
What has surprised me most is not their ingenuity. It is their combination of innovation, compassion and passion. Human creativity is far more democratically distributed. Everyone is someone. Minds on the margin are not marginal minds.
In fact, some of the most elegant innovations emerge precisely where resources are scarce. Because necessity sharpens imagination.
But what moved me most was something deeper. Many such innovators were solving problems they themselves had experienced. That creates extraordinary authenticity. This is not detached innovation. It is lived innovation.
Compassion translated into design. I have seen extraordinary solutions in healthcare, disability support, sanitation, livelihoods, agriculture, mobility. Technologies born not from market analysis alone— but from empathy. That is profoundly inspiring.
In 2007, your expert committee report on India’s patent laws was withdrawn after allegations that portions had been plagiarised... How did you navigate that moment?
Leadership is not tested in moments of applause. It is tested in moments of adversity. That episode was painful. Deeply painful. Because integrity has always been central to my life.
The issue involved inadequate way of attribution, the way the references were given. In our report, references were aggregated at the end and not given where the matter was discussed, which should have been the case. It was not intellectual theft in the conventional sense—but the lapse was real.
And leadership requires accountability. One cannot demand standards from institutions and exempt oneself. So, I accepted responsibility. Publicly. Without defensiveness. That was not easy. But it was necessary.
Interestingly, the government did not accept my resignation. They asked me to correct the error and resubmit. The resubmitted report was accepted as such by the Government.
As for the media-controversy naturally attracts amplification. Nuance rarely makes dramatic headlines. That is part of public life. But I chose not to dwell in grievance. Self-pity is rarely productive. Instead, I focused on correction, clarity, and continuity.
The experience reminded me that vigilance must be constant. That leadership includes vulnerabilities. And that dignity often lies not in avoiding mistakes—but in how one responds to them. I chose accountability over argument. And moved forward.
You drafted the Pretoria Declaration that created the Global Research Alliance. Was that idealism, strategy, or something forged by your own experience of exclusion?
A beautiful question. And the honest answer is: all three. Yes, there was idealism. Science, at its best, is a profoundly global human enterprise. Knowledge does not recognise passports. Pandemics do not need visas. Climate change does not stop at borders.
Humanity’s grand challenges are borderless. So, collaboration is not merely noble. It is rational. But there was also strategy. No nation—not even the most powerful—can solve complex global problems alone. Collaboration accelerates discovery. Reduces duplication. Builds trust. Shares capability. So, this was also strategic realism.
Global Research Alliance comprised nine leading Research Technology Organisations with 60,000 scientists from Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe and USA. Global Research Alliance worked for global good for inclusion – like the World Bank supported Vietnam Inclusive Innovation Project.
Did global honours ever feel like the weight of representing something larger than yourself?
Yes. Very much so. Those moments never felt purely personal. When someone with my extraordinary humble beginnings.
It becomes symbolic. It says something about possibility. About India. About social mobility. About resilience. About what societies can enable. Did I feel responsibility? Absolutely. But not burden. Because burden weighs one down. Responsibility lifts one up.
I never saw these honours as personal decorations. I saw them as shared affirmations. Of my mother. My teachers. My colleagues. The institutions that nurtured me. The countless invisible hands that shaped my journey. And if one sees recognition as trusteeship rather than ownership, ego remains under control.
What is your honest assessment of how far India has come in integrating traditional medicine, modern medicine, and modern science?
India has made progress. But nowhere near our true potential. The Golden Triangle emerged from a simple observation. India possesses three extraordinary assets: a rich civilisational heritage of traditional knowledge, a strong modern medical ecosystem, and growing scientific capability. Very few nations possess this combination. And yet, these streams have largely operated in silos. That is a lost opportunity.
Let me be absolutely clear. Integration does not mean uncritical acceptance. Tradition is not evidence. Emotion is not validation. Commercial enthusiasm is not proof. Scientific rigour is non-negotiable. That has always been my position. But the reverse error is equally dangerous. Rejecting traditional knowledge without investigation is intellectually lazy.
Civilisations accumulate experiential wisdom. Science must ask: What works? Why? Under what conditions? India has made some institutional progress. More research. More dialogue. Greater openness. But debates too often become ideological. One camp romanticises tradition. Another dismisses it reflexively. The future is validated integration. And India is uniquely positioned to lead.
You acted as the technical assessor for Bhopal Gas Tragedy inquiry commission, investigated the Maharashtra Gas Cracker Complex accident, chaired sixteen Committees on everything from auto fuel policy to drug regulatory reform, and in almost every case, your recommendations have outlasted the controversies that surrounded them. What is the role of the scientist in a democracy? Not the scientist as expert witness, but the scientist as moral actor in public life?
This is a profoundly important question. A scientist in a democracy cannot remain merely a producer of knowledge. A scientist must also be a custodian of public reason. Science is not socially neutral. Its consequences shape health, environment, economy, national security, ethics—even democracy itself. So, scientists cannot retreat into intellectual silos and say:
“My work ends with discovery.” No. A scientist in public life has a wider responsibility. To bring evidence into public decision-making. To bring rationality into emotionally charged debates. To bring integrity into moments of uncertainty.
This does not mean scientists should become ideologues. Nor technocrats imposing wisdom from above. The role is subtler—and perhaps nobler. It is to combine evidence with conscience. Scientific rigour with human compassion. Objectivity with moral responsibility.
When I chaired inquiries or national committees, I never saw myself merely as a technical expert writing reports. I saw myself as a trustee of public trust. In a democracy, scientists must sometimes speak truth to power. But equally, they must speak truth to public emotion, ideology, convenience, and fashionable narratives.
Science often tells us what we may not wish to hear. That is precisely why scientific integrity matters. Scientists also bring habits of mind that democracy desperately needs: respect for evidence, comfort with uncertainty, willingness to revise conclusions, humility before complexity.
You have 284 research papers, 25 books, honorary doctorates from 54 universities, and the Padma Vibhushan, and yet the stories you return to most often are about your mother’s cooking, a maid’s ₹21, a teacher’s convex lens, and a friend at a bus stop. What does that say about a life?
It says something deeply beautiful about human life. That the most profound forces shaping us are often the quietest ones. When people look at a life from the outside, they see milestones. Degrees. Positions. Awards. Recognition.
But lived life feels very different. Its decisive moments are often almost invisible when they occur. A teacher demonstrating the power of a convex lens. A mother quietly refusing surrender. A domestic worker making an extraordinary sacrifice. At the time, these seem small. Later, you realise they changed everything. History records institutions. Memory records kindness.
That is why these stories remain alive in me. Because they remind me of a truth I hold deeply: Achievement is never entirely individual. Yes, effort matters. Discipline matters. Perseverance matters. But so do encouragement, opportunity, generosity, timing, and human faith. No one rises alone.
We stand on invisible scaffolding built by others. And remembering that keeps one grounded. Awards create altitude. Memory restores humility. Whenever I think of honours, I also think of the boy who nearly had to stop studying. Whenever I think of achievement, I think of those who made it possible.
Perhaps that is the deeper meaning: A life is not ultimately measured by what one accumulates. But by what one remembers with gratitude. In some sense, gratitude is the most truthful autobiography.
How and when did you meet Ravi Pandit? How did Leapfrogging to Pole Vaulting germinate? Are you happy with the response?
Ravi Pandit was far more than a collaborator. He was a dear friend. And a rare human being. Some people build companies. Ravi built ecosystems. He combined technological excellence with entrepreneurial courage, social sensitivity, national purpose, and genuine humility.
That combination is uncommon. Our friendship grew over shared convictions. Innovation. Nation-building. Technology with purpose. Sustainability. India’s future. And perhaps a shared impatience with incremental thinking. The idea of Leapfrogging to Pole Vaulting emerged from many conversations.
For years, India’s development discourse spoke of leapfrogging. Which was already ambitious—bypassing conventional stages of development. But Ravi and I began asking: Is leapfrogging ambitious enough? Leapfrogging means catching up faster.
Pole vaulting means soaring beyond. Creating discontinuous advantage. Redefining trajectories. That distinction excited us. Because India should not merely compress history. India should create new history. That became the philosophical core of the book: radical yet sustainable transformation. Not imitation. Not incrementalism. Bold reinvention.
Working with Ravi was intellectually joyful. He brought practical entrepreneurial realism. I brought systems-level transformation thinking. The dialogue was rich. The response to the book was deeply gratifying. It received the Tata Lit Live Best Business Book of the Year award. But what mattered most was widespread use of innovation frameworks we had developed.
Just to give an example. Someone had asked us as to how do you ensure that when you pole vault, you don’t break your back. In other words, how can pole vaulting innovation achieve assured success.
That is where our chapter 3 is on developing the ASSURED framework for assuring a successful innovation.
ASSURED means affordable, sustainable, scalable, user friendly, rapid, excellent and distinctive. This framework was first used by me for selection of technologies in drinking water and sanitation, when I was the Chairman of the committee that was set up after the Swachh Bharat mission was announced by our Hon’ble Prime Minister. Later on other government departments, institutions, corporates, start-ups, investors, innovation prize awards committees started using it.
Today, after Ravi’s untimely passing, the book has acquired even deeper emotional meaning for me. It is no longer merely a book. It is part of a shared intellectual legacy. And a tribute to an extraordinary mind and a great human being.
Any final thoughts? Role models, passions, books, autobiography?
This final question invites reflection. And perhaps gratitude. If I were to summarise what lies closest to my heart, it would be this: the democratisation of opportunity. Because I know intimately what denied opportunity feels like. Talent is widely distributed. Opportunity is not. That inequality has shaped much of my life’s work. Whether in science, innovation, education, public policy, healthcare, or institution building—the central question has remained.
How do we make excellence accessible? How do we create what I often call: access equality despite income inequality? That mission remains deeply personal.
As for role models—my mother comes first. Always. Then my teachers. Bhave Sir. Professor M.M. Sharma, Bharat Ratna Professor CNR Rao, mentors who did not merely teach—they transformed.
At NCL, CSIR, national committees, global scientific platforms—I encountered remarkable minds and generous hearts. Many became lifelong companions.
My passions? Ideas. Ideas energise me. Institution-building excites me. Mentoring young people gives me enormous joy. Creating frameworks for transformation fascinates me.
I have always believed innovation happens at intersections— science, technology, policy, economics, human behaviour, culture. That is where sparks occur.
Favourite books? Too many to list. Science. Biography. Leadership. Strategy. Philosophy. Gandhian thought has influenced me deeply. Books that expand possibility have always attracted me.
As for autobiography—yes. My biography has already been written by Sagar Deshpande in Marathi: Durdamya Ashavadi -The Incurable Optimist. That title perhaps captures me best. The book has had seven editions, most importantly, reaching schools in villages.
Because optimism is often misunderstood. Optimism is not naïveté. It is not denial of difficulty. It is not blind hope. True optimism is disciplined defiance. It is the refusal to surrender to circumstance.
And perhaps this is how I would like to end.
I began life with scarcity of means. But I was surrounded by abundance of belief.
PS: Pic courtesy https://mashelkar.com