Tributes to Prof Sharad Chandra Malaviya, former Prof. (Physics) and Dean CBSH, G.B.Pant Univ. of Agric. & Tech

RIP. Tributes. Prof Sharad Chandra Malaviya is no more. He passed away on 30-Jul-2016. He was former Professor and Dean Govind Ballabh Pant Univ. of Agric. & Tech. who retired in 1995. He was my MSc (Physics) course adviser and dissertation guide. Students used to be terrified of him as he was a strict disciplinarian. Having him as the course adviser was a huge privilege that accorded me a kind of ‘protection’ if you will. Though I wasn’t undisciplined, I wasn’t a conformist either, sporting a wild, unkempt beard, and associated with the kind of discussions and groups that were officially frowned upon by the regimented system those days. He never said a word. He taught Mathematical Physics spread across two terms. As a teacher, he wasn’t one who explained too many steps and it was not easy to keep track of the material he was covering. He would outline the content and make us discover the details from books - texts and advanced readings. He made us use some of the best books in the world. Among my most unforgettable experiences and thrills of learning was when he made us study some original papers of Einstein, Uhlenbeck, Ludwig Boltzmann, Maxwell, etc as compulsory readings. With him, each exam was unpredictable – the format, time limit, and scope. There were no limits! The exams rarely had a rigid time limit. Usually, we needed about five to ten minutes to understand each question. Questions were very few. We could seek clarifications. The format varied. Some were open-book within the classroom that could go on until the end of normal office hours. Others were very difficult library-based tests where solutions had to be found by referring books and journals, which could be submitted within 24 hours or more! Nobody else used that approach. When I chose to work on an application of the exceedingly difficult Boltzmann’s Integro-Differential transport equations for my MSc dissertation, he knew it was very risky. He warned me it is going to be very tough. However, he did not dissuade me, though I then had bitten a lot more than I could chew. In the end, he was mighty pleased that I struggled with it and somehow managed to finish it. Philosophically and politically, he was very, very conservative. While he and I were very close in the realm of Physics, a huge chasm separated us beyond that. He must have been quite aware of the unbridgeable distance. It was, however, quite uncharacteristic of him to have accepted that. I was always worried that one day he will insist on a discussion. He never did. I’m immensely obliged and indebted to him for the firm foundation in mathematical physics.