Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

17
150th Birth Year
to check their roots and grew flowering plants to observe, to question, to Tribute
and closely observed their growth. Jagadish experiment and to innovate, without depending
passed the School Final examination with a First solely on books or teachers. After three years,
Class.
the college Principal Twany and Director Croft,
After graduating at the age of 19, Jagadish impressed by his brilliance, jointly recommended
had a strong desire to go to England and sit for full salary for him from the date of his joining the
the Indian Civil Service Examination, but his fa- college. Bose realized that the best way to face
ther would not allow him to do so. He told his son in the English was to face them with courage and
no uncertain terms that he was to rule nobody but will power. This he did all his life.
himself, was to become a scholar, not an admin- In 1887, Bose married Abala Das, daughter
istrator. Hence, in 1880, Jagadish did go to En- of a leading advocate of the Calcutta High Court
gland but to study medicine at the University of and a political leader. Bose’s wife was his con-
London. There, he suffered repeated attacks of stant companion and helpmate, accompanying him
malaria, which he had contracted prior to his de- on his trips to religious and historical places in
parture for London and had to move to Cambridge India and on many excursions to the Himalayan
on a scholarship to study Natural Science at peaks and glaciers. Later in life, she joined her
Christ’s College. At Cambridge, he came under the husband on all his lecture tours abroad. Bose dedi-
influence of such illustrious teachers as Lord cated his book Plant Autographs and ‘their Rev-
Rayleigh, Sir James Dewar, Sir Michael Foster and elation’(1927) to Abala Devi with the note, To
Francis Darwin.
my wife, who has stood by me in all my
Jagadish passed the Tripos examination with struggles.
distinction. In 1884, he was awarded a B.A. de- When Bose first joined the Presidency Colgree
from Cambridge and next year a B.Sc. delege, there was no laboratory worth the name.
gree from London University. Once he got his de- However, Bose went ahead with his research, in a
grees, he did not linger abroad but returned to serve small enclosure adjoining a bathroom that he
his motherland. In 1885, he was offered the post converted into a laboratory where he carried out
of officiating Professor of Physics at Presidency experiments on refraction, diffraction, and po-
College, Calcutta. He was paid a salary half of what larization. Bose would stay on in the laboratory
the British teachers were paid, so Bose refused to after the classes were over and carry on experi-
draw his salary at all as a protest. He worked in ments. He met the expenses for the experiments
an honorary capacity for three years, not missing himself. He even fabricated the equipment he
his classes even on a single day.
needed by sheer ingenuity.
In England, Bose had appreciated the ‘hands The experiments performed in the makeshift
on’ approach to science. Back in India, he carried laboratory finally resulted in the invention of a
on in the same spirit. Instead of boring verbal lec- device for producing electromagnetic waves. In
tures, he enlivened his classes by holding exten- November 1894, Bose gave the first public demsive
demonstrations. This was quite an innovaonstration of wireless transmission using election
in those days and Bose became extraordinartromagnetic waves to ring a bell and to explode a
ily popular with his students. He encouraged them small charge of gunpowder from a distance. He
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna