The Da Vinci Coda

One of the best books on Homi Bhabha I’ve read is Bhabha and his Magnificent Obsessions (University Press, Hyderabad) by G. Venkataraman, a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay. Venkataraman’s is a lucid yet cerebral masterpiece which depicts Bhabha’s scientific output in an engaging and engrossing way.

If Venkataraman’s book can be described as ‘cerebral’, you could say this one is ‘cardiac’. Deserving its own place in the lore about Bhabha, Indira Chowdhury and Ananya Dasgupta depict his life both as a renaissance figure and a colossus in the Indian science and engineering firmament. Their book contains reminiscences of his family members, friends, colleagues, fellow scientists and friends.

Casting their net worldwide, they have admirably succeeded in trawling spaces, both national and international, for recollections, letters, vintage photos, publications and notes. They have reproduced a number of Bhabha’s  paintings and  sketches to enlighten and enrich the reader. Other endearing features of the book include the fastidious attention to detail and the superb quality in editing, choice of visual material and streamlined flow of the narrative. Credit is equally due to Penguin India for the excellent quality in type-setting, layout and other aspects. Indeed, Bhabha himself would have highly appreciated these joint efforts if he were alive today.

Of particular interest to India’s scientific community and its ‘science administrators’ would be the chapter ‘An Institute is Born’. In a significant break from the prevailing method of recruiting scientists in science agencies which sought to expand their ‘empires’ by filling up all advertised posts, Bhabha recruited only talented persons wherever they were found. He started a post-graduate level training school in 1957 patterned on his UK and US experiences. Recruitment was through a nation-wide process and was devoid of any bias. Training was undertaken in physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, reactor engineering, metallurgy, electronics and so on. 

He also succeeded in persuading Nehru that, after graduating out of the school, candidates should be appointed as Class I gazetted officers with salaries at par with those entering the Indian Administrative Service, a remarkable achievement since the ics was heaven-born and the IAS heaven-sent!

On a personal note, I would like to mention the opportunity given by Bhabha to Dr A.K. Ganguly, who headed my section in Trombay, to undertake ‘criticality’ calculations for the Fuel Reprocessing Facility being built in the 1960s. This assignment was parallel to that given to the Reactor Engineering Division (RED) which plunged into acquiring the Sn code from the US and adapting it to computers in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

I joined D.V. Gopinath, a very original thinker, and V.K. Sundaram, who had decided that it would be better to start ab initio and tackle the problem than use an imported code with its attendant external dependence for support or enhancements. This led to the successful Source-Collision Iteration Technique (SCIT) and the publication of a paper in Nukleonik. This algorithm was further refined to include anisotropic scattering and the publication of three more papers in the journal Nuclear Science and Engineering, published in the US. barc was the cradle in which I grew and have very fond memories of my formative years as a scientist.

This book is not just a chronicle of an outstanding life in science and the arts. It is a collector’s item for those in the sciences as well as those involved in science planning and science administration. I would place it in the category of “must read” books published in recent times.

(The reviewer is a former chief advisor of the Defence Research & Development Organisation)