It is a unique experience to write in reminiscence of an entity like Dr. Prasada Rao. I met him first in the interview for a research officer’s position in IPCL R&D in 1987. And I learned a big lesson in team work during my interaction with the panel.
While answering questions on my research work, I was using ‘we’ repeatedly while explaining my work, and one of the panel members sought clarification on that. I was trying to convince him that research work was a team effort and not strictly an individual effort. He kept on arguing with me. Suddenly Dr. Rao intervened and said “what ever the PhD research may be, when you work in an industrial R&D, you have to be a team player and the use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ is appropriate. That was a great lesson.
A few months after I joined IPCL, Dr Rao was invited by GSFC R&D to give a talk to their staff. When he was going to deliver the lecture he invited some of us, the new comers in IPCL R&D to go with him. We all got in to a jeep and went for the lecture. He was talking about IPCL R&D’s capabilities and accomplishments. The first slide (in those days we had OHP projection of hand written transparency slides!) was the title of the talk. The second slide had all the names of scientists of the Catalysis and Adsorption group including all of us who had just joined the place. Then he declared, “I am here and able to present this talk owing to the contribution from all my people”. That was another big lesson in leadership.
In those days, getting accommodation in IPCL township was tough. However, thanks to special consideration shown by top management, R&D scientists were given preferential allotment of bachelor accommodation. When I joined there was no vacancy in the quarters. When Dr. Rao came to know about the problem, he promptly took me to the estate office and pitched strongly for allocation of a quarter at the earliest. Thanks to his humane intervention, we got allotment of quarters ending our struggles.
There are many more such experiences about Dr. Rao. I just highlighted a couple of them to cover aspects of team work, leadership, and humane nature of this wonderful human being, who left an indelible impression with all people closely associated with him.
– Mr. Unnikrishnan, IPCL