Having a personal website sometimes feels like being naked in front of your physician. There are no secrets. It’s like going to confession. You pour your heart out. You’d like to record your every memory, your every feeing and also share your dreams for the future. Both shall find a place on these pages. With greater emphasis on future dreams and connecting with all you people out there who share similar passions. Without passion life is tedious. As I walk to the wicket of life to begin my second innings, tedium is the last thing on my mind. I do not want to elaborate on my past by giving all the details but pick and choose those details and facts that can clarify me, project my personality, in short, define me.

It was a long journey, which felt more like an odyssey, in the civil services.

Many citadels were breached along the way and numerous bonds were built.

It had been quite a rewarding and satisfying career with many milestones and not a few heartbreaks.

The journey thus far has been a tight-rope walk, but fascinating.

Among the numerous assignments I have undertaken I would like to remember and mention with fondness, my stints with NISIET, now ni-msme and the one with NCRI (National Council for Rural Institutes). Both these institutions have a unique place in my career graph.

Even as a youngster taking my first wobbly steps in the professional world, I always dreamt of building institutions, big, huge institutions that would have a massive reach and huge impact.

Especially fascinating for me was the dream to build and promote institutions in frontier areas of science and technology and help conduct research in the field of medical science.

These are not simple dreams, fraught as they are with numerous challenges, requiring huge financial inputs and rounding up the best talent in the business.

Many scoffed at the idea, noting the meager resources at my disposal. Come on, doctor, be reasonable, they would say. A single person taking up such a huge task, without resources, is like trying to catch the blue whale with a fishing rod, they laughed.

It’s a typical mindset of people in these parts. People won’t look at an idea until it begins to materialize and bear fruit! Having been accustomed to taking risks all through my life, I was undeterred by criticism.

I ploughed on without wincing or bending backwards and doggedly chased my dream.

One year down the line, as I sit back and gaze at the road I’ve traversed in the pursuit of my dream, I ponder on how a challenge of a different kind has gripped me completely.