Having returned to his home in Houston from Delhi more than three weeks ago, Dr Kumar Krishen is again looking forward to visit the Capital, which is likely to happen in May this year.
The lead technologist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas has been following the ‘ritual’ of annual visits to Delhi and barely skipped one in past four decades.
And, why not? After all, he loves the city’s parks, roads, educational and research institutions, means of transportation, shopping centers, restaurants, hotels and most recent of all — the terminal 3 of Delhi’s IGI Airport.
However, the only concern, he says, is the air and noise pollution which have grown to undesired proportions.
In his latest visit, he lectured at several colleges and schools ranging from a small private school in old Faridabad to a renowned engineering university – Delhi Technological University (DTU) in Bawana. While addressing the 11-year-olds at a school, he was heard sharing his childhood memories and drilling oodles of confidence into growing brains.
The kids were listening to him in rapt attention with broad smiles on their faces. However, the dynamic raconteur changes gears and ‘talks business’ when engineering students quiz him on the nuances of space science and remote sensing at DTU.
The idea is to inspire the young minds to work towards their goal. “Out of all the things I do (from researching in a laboratory to writing a research paper), what I like the most is to inspire the young kids,” he says.
The inspiration had worked in his case too. Hailing from Kashmir, the space scientist attended an obscure school — Shalimar Multipurpose High School – in Shalimar Gardens. He used to find it torturous to walk to the school for more than three miles every morning in the biting cold. The school didn’t have the luxury of a library.
However, his curious mind and untiring resolve opened the doors of fortune and he went on to study at Kansas State University in USA in early 1960s on the Prime Minister’s scholarship.
Those early days shaped him so much so that one letter sent to him by the then secretary to the Prime Minister of India changed the way Dr Krishen would address people for the rest of his life. “The secretary had addressed me as ‘My dear Kumar Krishen’. I was quite moved by that because the letter was sent from the most powerful office of this country. Since then, I started writing letters by addressing everyone as ‘My dear XYZ’,” he remembers fondly.
Currently, Dr Krishen pays for the education of 15 students in India and USA through his charitable initiative — Krishen Foundation.
Besides education, he has also promoted the culture of India in a significant way. Through his book, Why Me?, he tried to celebrate the idea of India when this third-world country was being looked down upon by the western media. The book got such overwhelming response that he is now writing a sequel Why You? which is soon
to get published.
Though his maiden book turned out to be a success, he however got surprised when he was asked to give a presentation on the book at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Having achieved considerable success to speak of, he is yet to meet an unfulfilled goal of helping the visually impaired person see.
“I want to devise a method of providing vision to blind by using sensors on their stick. I have not made much progress on this due to my professional commitments but I hope to complete this
in future,” he said.