Like many others, V Kathiresan received a lot of advice from the then director of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Hyderabad, one Dr Abdul Kalam, in the 80s. Whenever he got the occasional chance to ferry the long-haired scientist, the Class X-failed driver-cum-clerk of the Indian Army heard about everything from elementary education to a new marvel called the ‘computer’.

Years later, as Kalam rose from the stature of a top scientist to arguably one of the most popular presidents of the country, Dr Kathiresan, MA, MPhil, PhD, was taking classes on history of science and technology. He is now teaching students about the progress India has made in the field —with his lessons liberally peppered with personal anecdotes on the role of DRDL and ISRO — at the Government Arts College, Attur, in Salem district.

Born in Sankarapandiyapuram village in Virudhunagar, Kathiresan lost his father Vellaisamy when he was a child. For the poor farmer’s family, education was not a priority. “My mother wanted me to work in the fields. I can’t blame her, though. We were too poor to afford losing my labour,” he recalled.

In 1979, Kathiresan did what many teenagers desperate for a job did in those times: he joined the Army in the under-18 rolls. The tenth-fail candidate was appointed as trainee driver-cum-clerk, and was soon off to Bhopal, for training, and later deployed in the Northeast.

It was in 1984 that he was posted at the Defence Research Complex at Kanchanbagh, near Old Hyderabad, and met Kalam who was the director of DRDL. By then, Kathiresan had cleared his Class X English paper, in which he had scored only 29 as a teenager. This time, however, he studied during his spare time during work and also after returning home.

... contd.