The India for scientists and educators with a cause

All over the world, many fresh PhD graduates face an existential crisis, deeply despairing at their prospects. A post-doctoral fellowship can be a voluntary exercise in sapping one’s soul. We’re bursting with research ideas and energy with few outlets and sometimes nothing to show for them. Meltdowns are imminent and many have precipitated. I want to share my experiences here at home, in India, that have been personally and intellectually rewarding while shining a light on the contributions I can make.

I garnered these experiences by stepping away from the bench occasionally to teach and train students around me. Finding out new things about the world we live in, makes me tick. Conveying knowledge by sparking curiosity and thought, carries me between these often infrequent and tiny but glorious flashes of discovery. As a post-doc in a research institute, one has to seek out opportunities to teach. In the past four years, I have taught students from small towns in India online, gone out to science outreach talks to residential areas in Bangalore, taught at undergraduate lecture series we Post Docs organised at NCBS, lectured for graduate students on campus at the occasional workshop. Professional faculty at many academic institutions may disagree with the generality of my statements, which would not be surprising. People at discussions and talks which I have been part of, attend over weekends. Levels of motivation in students can certainly vary, but have been consistent in people I have spoken to. So, from this select sliver enriched with motivated and competent students from a range of backgrounds and qualifications, my observations are possibly biased. A common theme one sees amongst students (at whatever stage of their lives) here in India, is a thirst and a hunger for knowledge, that textbooks do not, and maybe cannot, satisfy.

Enter, You. We, young scientists (relative to the old ones I guess), have spent time and effort acquiring knowledge for research. We routinely think about new and effective ways of solving nature’s puzzles. We spend more time (than many others), trying to convey ideas and convince peers. Though, we try to communicate our findings through remarkably few narrow and avenues. We second guess ourselves about minutiae of our own research while writing papers. Reviewers, rightly, make us guarded and cautious with words. These are the perils of being cloistered in Ivory towers. Everyone in these towers faces similar pressures at varying degrees. Appreciation from your research mostly derives, not from its content and impact (which takes time to assess), but sadly the impact factor of its publication. Science is necessarily methodical, rigorous and sometimes tedious. Science outreach however, does not have to be tedious. 

Teaching, popular science writing, public lectures can take as much effort as doing research. Your research does not necessarily have to filter down through textbooks. To the previously mentioned audience, facts are cool but the thought processes and experimentation preceding these facts are cooler. The effort lies in dropping the jargon but communicating substance. It is a non-trivial pursuit. But when you’re able to do it, and glean comprehension from the audiences’ faces and questions, you share the joy of thought and discovery. Arguably, it brings great gratification with some sense of direct contribution. I have found much satisfaction while doing the little science outreach that I have. I feel many of us are equipped for it. We can share and enhance this experience by working in teams with curated and well-directed projects. Honestly, it has helped me connect and analyze natural concepts and processes that I never paid attention to. Teaching feeds back into my research.

This is not to say that science outreach is an exercise purely in self-gratification. When the complexities of nature and thought processes behind unraveling them are conveyed, one sparks an appreciation of nuance and reality. This may take a while to manifest. However, I think, India at the moment has now, and has had for a long time, a critical mass of people who are receptive to this. The scientifically curious demographic may be the most closeted in Indian Society. Communication skills and language may be impediments. I think it behooves us researchers, to learn non-research language. We must make science more accessible. Wallet and watch permitting, we must make the effort to spread knowledge and analytical thinking; to step outside our comfort zone and reach the willing. The potential to contribute to society by communicating science in its messy magnificence is ripe today. We are best positioned to do it. We may not see the impact now, but know that the butterfly effect exists and hope springs eternal.