Dr. Goutam Biswas, fondly known to us as Goutamda, worked as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, Acharya Prafulla Chandra College. Today was his last day of regular service. During the many years of service at Acharya Prafulla Chandra College (since February, 2019) and at Ramananda College, Bishnupur (from 1995 to 2019), Goutamda earned the reputation of being an excellent teacher, active researcher, efficient administrator and overall a great leader. In each of these departments, even though Goutamda himself is highly skilled and experienced, he consults his colleagues and takes their help in order to complete a given task efficiently, in time and in the best possible way. In this way, he not only gets jobs done effectively but also gets everyone around him involved and aware of the process. One of the remarkable qualities of Goutamda is his disciplined approach to everything he is involved in. Under his influence, people around him rarely miss deadlines and get seemingly difficult things done with ease.
To students, GB Sir is a passionate teacher. Many departments in colleges like ours are understaffed and when topics in the syllabus are distributed, the load on each teacher appears to be impossible to cover within a semester. Knowing this limitation beforehand, Goutamda plans and makes use of available resources effectively and always completes his portion of the syllabus well before the semester is over. He connects to each student and makes sure that they have a clear understanding of the topics covered by him and also by other teachers. He spends a lot of time in the labs and even in the covid lockdown days with the so-called reduced syllabus, he tried to get students exposed to every experiment in the syllabus. He makes sure that every instrument that is a part of the syllabus is available and functioning properly. He initiates necessary purchase or repair orders and keeps track of them during the ordering process and during the delivery or execution of the repair work.
We just came to know from his past colleague, that in Ramananda College that Goutamda was known as Seminar-da. Goutamda has a lot of interest in activities that enhance the love for our subject and for science in general. Since my joining at this college, every seminar that was organized by the physics department was initiated by Goutamda and could be executed because of him. As in all other activities, he got us all involved in every step of the process. He also started a Memorandum of Understanding between our college and the Institute of Astronomy Space and Earth Science (IASES), Kolkata and unlike most MoUs which are signed in order to get some points in various ranking and accreditation schemes, Goutamda tried to keep this active by organizing two seminars involving the two institutes and a research project involving more than ten students which was a part of it.
During this last week, Goutamda graced two farewell events, one by the Department of Physics and the other by the college, on the 29th and 31st of May, respectively. We also planned a seminar lecture with Goutamda as the resource person on the 30th but this had to be postponed due to his ill health and will be organized at a later date. At the farewell events, we learned a lot about his past and about his reputation outside the department. Almost everyone in the college loves and respects Goutamda. Teachers from the science departments and those from the arts, humanities and social sciences had excellent things to say about interactions with him. Goutamda’s active research work, his passion for being a perfectionist in every task (his excellent Bengali writing skill was mentioned in this context), his cricketing and badminton skills, his time as the Secretary of a Research Scholar forum at Bose Institute, his active and frequent conduction of seminars, his bold fearless statements at various meetings, his deep connection with almost everyone in the college, and of course his passionate teaching were things that were mentioned during the various speeches given at the farewell events.
Goutamda also said good things about almost every one of us. Special mention was for Md Moinul Islam from our department who teamed up with Goutamda and conducted many practical classes. Moinul’s expertise in experimental techniques and ability to identify and solve problems arising in performing experiments impressed Goutamda the most. He also expressed his grief at the interruption of the NAAC process in which two members of the Physics Department, Dr. Ananda Sarkar and Md Moinul Islam, gave a lot of time and effort.
Goutamda then briefly talked about his past. He mentioned his hostel days in a place near Baithakkhana Bazar and then at Hindu Hostel during his M.Sc. days, temporarily at Rajabazar Science College and then at Presidency College. During M.Sc., his specialization was X-ray crystallography. In those days, students at Presidency used to walk between Presidency College and Rajabazar for practical and theory classes respectively. For his Ph.D., after a brief stint at Burdwan University, Goutamda became a Ph.D. student at Bose Institute. Goutamda’s mentor was Dr. Ashok Banerjee who is still an active physicist. Dr. Banerjee’s advisor was Dr. Bijoy Shankar Basak, former principal of Presidency College. His network of students included Dr. Priyabrata Raychoudhury, Goutamda’s M.Sc. project guide and his mentor at Burdwan University, where he did not continue after getting selected at Bose Institute. After completing his Ph.D., he spent some time at Bose Institute as a Research Associate. Through a Faculty Improvement Project of the West Bengal College Service Commission, in 1992-93, Goutamda worked at Balurghat College. He was already married during this time to Dr. Sampa Biswas, who is currently at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics. While accepting the post at Balurghat College, Goutamda did not notice that the job term was only 10 months long. He talked about his daily train journey in Gour Express to Malda followed by a bus ride to Balurghat. In the period between 1993 and 1995, Goutamda faced many financial hardships which he recalled today. After a few months without any job Goutamda joined the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow in a lab, incidentally headed by a former student of Dr. Basak. Later, Sampa Madam also joined a different lab in the same institute. During this time, Goutamda got an opportunity to go to Mexico which finally did not work out. Around this time, he also got an appointment letter to join Kurseong College which he was not allowed to join because he was not a local. Finally, he was offered an appointment letter for Ramananda College where he spent many years of his career. From there, he moved to our college in 2019. Goutamda recalled his illness in 2010 and 2015 after which he even contemplated retirement under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme. He also recalled the loss of his parents. Thinking about his unstable health, Goutamda has not visited his hometown for many years.
We hope that Goutamda visits his hometown, takes a vacation and finishes all his adventurous plans and then gets back to post retirement academics with a renewed zeal and energy. We look forward to listening to his postponed seminar talk and having him around as a guest teacher and possibly as a research collaborator.
