The temples of new India, as Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned them, were to include temples of learning as well. Or so the story goes about the birth of the Indian Institute of Technology. But if one is to go by Rohit Manchanda’s book, we owe more to the British than we may have thought.

Monastery, Sanctuary, Laboratory: 50 years of IIT- Bombay, is Manchanda’s tribute to an institution he has been associated with for the past 18 years.

As the IIT celebrates its golden jubilee year, Manchanda launched his book at Crossword, Kemp’s Corner, to an enthusiastic audience, with former ad-man and theatre person Alyque Padamsee reading excerpts from the book.  

Tracing its little-known history, the well-researched book dispels myths about IIT’s founding. Begun as an initiative by a British viceroy to instill more self-reliance in Indian technology, Manchanda clears the myth about a Nehruvian dream, saying “ideas have a way of floating about as popular folklore”. 

The book has a personal touch, with anecdotes from friends and professors who have drifted through the corridors of the institution. Many of them were present at the reading and shared their experiences as a theatrical Padamsee handed them the mike in between passages.

Professor Rama Iyer (quoted in the book) shed light on the students’ weekend getaways to the racecourse and the secret transactions across the pipeline for booze, prohibited on campus. Setting up radio broadcasting stations and floating public sector companies were among some of the pastimes at IIT.  

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