Seasons in the Sun

B Sridhar joined IISc in 1986 soon after he received his Master’s degree in Horticulture from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore. For 36 years – until he retired in 2022 – he was in charge of the Garden and Nursery Unit at the Institute, and was responsible for maintaining the greenery on campus. […]

‘I was the umpire who said “Out!” when Kapil Dev took his record-breaking wicket in 1994’

AL Narasimhan joined IISc in 1965. At the time, he was 25, had just completed an MSc degree in statistics, and had also just fled from a job in Gulbarga, Karnataka, after only a month. Despite this false start, he got the chance to join IISc, and begin a lifelong career in administration. During the […]

From Glassblower to Technologist

Dwarakanathan R, a former glassblower, has worked at IISc for 47 years. Now officially retired, the 71-year-old self-proclaimed “workaholic” maintains machinery at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE). In this interview, he talks to CONNECT about what it’s like to be a glassblower, his love for the artistic possibilities of glasswork, and his […]

Memories of a Lost Art

Before computers and CAD design, depicting scientific concepts and results in graphs and sketches was challenging. CONNECT spoke to two retired draughtsmen from IISc, Sathyanarayana and Ramesh Babu, who translated these into detailed hand drawings.     How did you come to join IISc? Sathyanarayana: I was an apprenticeship trainee in Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) […]

Thirty Years of Guarding IISc

MR Chandrashekhar was IISc’s Security Chief for nearly 30 years from May 1989 until his retirement in May 2018. Before joining the Institute, he had been in the Karnataka State Vigilance Commission as a Class II Gazette Officer posted to the Sericulture Department, and had been deputed as an Intelligence Officer to the HMT Watch […]