Writing from Delhi, doing my PS at NPL! One would imagine, that I am here enjoying myself; that I am enjoying thoroughly the exposure I am getting to the world of Physics at a Research Level; that I am spending each moment, inspired. But things haven’t been so rosy here… until today! [All this while I had been only doing a lot of mechanical labor, very unhappily…]

Its around 12 noon, when I get a call, in the lab, from my guide asking me to come down to room no. so and so. I had no idea what that room had, or why I had been called. I enter and I am lead to another room inside. I enter and there’s a huge machine. (first look, reminded me of Vickers’ Hardness Testing Machine, that we had in Lab at coll and I had a test on using it!) and its called a TEM. But when I got closer, I fell in love with it! I dunno how and why, but it looked simply amazing and extremely lovely to me [Nothing like the Vickers’ machine]. A 25 to 30 year old machine, lots of controls all over it, lots of circuitry out in the open… absolutely awe-inspiring..[though I knew nothing about them.]

And then came the moment. The lights in the room were turned off, and slowly and steadily the beam intensity of the TEM was increased. Gradually the Greenish Fluoroscent Screen (displaying a sample magnified X27,000) came to life… with control lights blinking here and there… in the darkness of the room.It was absolutely amazing; A great feeling. Though I was in there for a very short while… an absolutely unforgettable experience; and will remain so, for the rest of my life.

Now, it doesn’t matter to me even if I don’t learn much, during the training period, I don’t mind doing any kind-of mechanical work, I don’t mind not getting any results from my work, whatever… it doesn’t matter any more. This one moment; that’s all that matters.