Path to Excellence- A Memoir by India's Distinguished Academician

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It gives me immense pleasure to introduce The Puth T I to Excellence: A Memoir by one of the leading lights in academics in the world, Professor Pritam B. Sharma. Professor Sharma is an eminent engineering scholar, a visionary leader, an institution builder, and above all, a human being par excellence. He has served the cause of higher education and research for more than four decades that led him to astounding success and glory. A fruitful life full of relentless pursuit to higher levels of excellence is portrayed in depth in the book published in prestigious Nirala Series. The author has interacted with children of both privileged and underprivileged backgrounds, chartering their course of lives in the making of modern India.

Professor Sharma spent his early life, as a child, in utter scarcity in a remote village named as Khamtala where no formal education existed. However, the chance arrival of a retired Indian soldier changed his fate and the life of the entire locality. Affectionately called Masterji, this soldier was a philanthropist who seemed to have descended from Heaven. Masterji ignited children including junior Sharma to pursue education with utmost sincerity and commitment for lifelong enlightenment. It is this first tryst with knowledge that set young Pritam off to the world for exploring the exciting horizons of science and technology innovations. Furthermore, it introduced him to the realm of building institutional excellence, and inspired him to wage a war against mediocrity.

I had the opportunity and privilege to observe Professor Sharma from close quarters for several years. I was witness to his scaling heights of success and glory during his days as Director of Delhi College of Engineering which later became Delhi Technological University (DTU) with Professor Sharma as its Founder Vice Chancellor. Professor Sharma graduated with a Gold Medal in Engineering in 1969 from Samrat Ashok Technological Institute located at the historic town of Vidisha in central India. He chose to join the teaching profession because for him the cultivation of knowledge and its dissemination were the hallmark of the noblest service to the humanity. He witnessed, and was a party to the thrill and excitement of engineering during his higher studies at the University of Birmingham as a Government of India Scholar which inspired him to pursue research and innovation as an integral part of education. Ultimately, he made education a powerful vehicle of national and global economic and human transformation.

The story of Professor Sharma is full of exciting and path breaking innovations and cutting edge research that made him and his students at IIT Delhi, Delhi College of Engineering. Delhi Technological University and Rajiv Gandhi Technological University reveal the rich wealth of knowledge and power of innovations so vital to the nation building in the 21st Century.

The Path to Excellence intends to appraise the current and future generations of young inspired minds of the intense urge, utmost sincerity, and humility with which education is to be pursued as the foundation for human development. Its role has become more pronounced as the power of mind has suddenly become the propulsive thrust for the future knowledge society. It should thus be absolutely necessary to integrate education with human values to create responsible citizenship that has the capability to trade and transact in a socio-economic work environment driven by amazing science and technology advances into the bliss of divinity.

Path to Excellence is a humble account of my encounter with the thrill, excitement, joy and bliss of infinite reservoir of the wisdom that becomes comprehendible on the strength of the power of mind and the grace of divinity. In life, relentless curiosity coupled with unclenching commitment to innovate and excel always leads one to success and glory. The book is a fervent sketch of a life full of struggle to walk on pathways of excellence.It also reveals that the path of excellence and glory is not a straight jacketed one, rather it is full of sufferings and sweating, but ultimately leading to success and enlightenment. The narration, though largely India specific, has a message universal in its appeal and purpose. It prepares us to pursue education as a service to self and society.

It began with my early encounter with the joy of learning in a composite class of a make shift rural school at my native village Khamtala, a village where harmony with nature and aatmiyata, empathy were the cardinal principles of blissful life. The memoir covers the exciting horizons of science and technology innovations, introduces to the adventure of building institutional excellence along with highly revealing stories of the war with evil as experienced by the author.

The narration presented herein is not intended to harm anyone but to apprise the current and future generations of the intense urge and exigency to put the house in order in the education sector. For me, education is the foundation of nation building, and a vehicle of manifestation of the immense potential within for the advancement of human society on path of excellence. It would therefore be absolutely necessary to transform the campuses of the universities and institutions of higher learning into factories of innovation and hub of creativity, providing avenues for the fullest expression of human excellence. Further, now that we have taken a deep plunge into the connected world, driven by the mind boggling science and technology advances, it would be imperative to embed education with values, akin to a responsible global citizenship.

The book has been structured in nine chapters beginning with my first tryst with knowledge, followed by the encounters with the joy of science and engineering, and my tireless engagement to the pursuits of academic and research excellence. A chapter on higher education in India is included to illustrate as how the education system of a great Nation gets derailed from the ethics and professional morals that were the foundation for the cultivation of knowledge and attain enlightenment and glory that made ancient India a "Wonder that It Was." The satisfaction derived in building institutions of excellence is portrayed in the book while narrating the relentless quest for excellence at IIT Delhi, DCE, DTU and RGTU during my professional life.

The war with evil has been included to share a few experiences of the war one has to wage against evil, even in the education sector and the price one has to pay for following the path of righteousness. The role of spirituality in education is highlighted to illustrate that the education without spirituality shall remain devoid of values that makes us humane. Spirituality has suddenly become more important than ever before because of the all-pervasive nature of technology and easy access by the masses to the vast reservoir of knowledge due to the ICT revolution.