QUARTERLY BITSIAN
Dr. Adil Mistry: back to the home turf
Interview by Satish Polisetti & K. K. Prasad
Having left the Pilani campus in ’79 Dr. Adil Mistry displayed his love for it by choosing to do his sabbatical at Pilani. Satish and Prasad caught up with him for a tête-à-tête.
Revisiting one’s alma mater is an experience every graduate looks forward to. Like old wine the experience would be fantastic if you return to the place where it all started, after a long time. For Dr. Adil Mistry it was no different, having left the Pilani campus in ‘79 he displayed his love for it by chosing to do his sabbatical at Pilani. A multifaceted professional, he is one of the few who have tried their hand at a range of professions. Having worked in India after his graduation, Dr. Adil moved to New Zealand seeking to expand his knowledge. His work in New Zealand and Australia spanned across engineering, business, sales and teaching. A fairly emerging area in the mid 90s, “Multimedia” caught Adil’s attention which led to him getting a diploma in the same. His experience at teaching evening classes coupled with his interest for it lead to a career in teaching and currently he is a faculty at Western Australian University. He graduated with a major in EEE (74-49, back then it was for five years). We had a chance to speak to him during his recent visit to India and here are a few excerpts from the interview.
Sandpaper (SP): Hi Adil, first of all I shall start by
thanking you for your time for this interview. I am sure our readers would like
it.
Dr. Adil Mistry (AM): No Problem.
SP: Shall we start by speaking about your journey from
Pilani to your current position as faculty at Western Australian University?
AM: “After graduating from Pilani, I worked with Siemens India,
MN Dastur Consultants and Mahindra and Mahindra in India before leaving to New Zealand
where I worked in many different areas related to engineering, teaching and art.
I tried a hand at business and sales in Sydney which did not grab my fancy too much.
I took a complete turnaround at this point and got a diploma in Multimedia which
was a fairly new area in the mid 90s. At this point I had the opportunity to teach
evening classes which ultimately led to a full time teaching in this area.”
SP: How has the experience been teaching a course on Multimedia
to students at Pilani? How was the students’ reaction towards it?
AM: That has been extremely rewarding and wonderful. The students
can speak for themselves but for me personally it was far more than I expected.
Introducing something like Animation generally pursued as hobby after you graduate,
in a semi formal way proved to be successful. Analytical studies like engineering
and creative courses like multimedia provided the right balance. It seems there
are students enrolling to take this course next semester which is good news.
SP: Can you give us an overview of how the course was
structured? What was the lab components like?
AM: I tried to keep it as practical as possible. I stuck to the
most sought industry software in this area: ‘the Adobe Creative Suite’. We compressed
a course that is normally taught over 4 years to six months. Hence it is more of
an introductory course and I think it worked as students who were novices at the
start came up with something that can be displayed as a finished product, by the
end of the course. The students had 4 – 5 assignments which they had to finish over
the semester. There was one theory paper testing theoretical knowledge in compression
techniques and multimedia aspects. However, the major component was the project
where they had to work in teams of 3 – 5 people where majority of the class chose
to shoot and edit video while some of them worked over animation. I was impressed
with some of the class who prepared flash games; they went beyond what was taught
in the class.
SP: We’re going to pick your memory: can you compare for
us the BITS of the 70s to the one at present? Do you miss anything?
AM: “What do you want me to say (smiles). Prof Maheswari
invited me for a three day trip to the Pilani campus and it was like going back
home. I was on a high that I found it difficult to sleep through the night. Goa
for it’s similarities in the course structure with Pilani is quite different actually.
We didn’t have things that students today take completely for granted. We didn’t
know what a computer was. Technology is obviously different but the inquisitiveness
of the students has remained reasonably intact. My experience has been extremely
rewarding. It is a wonderful idea to give students a broad based education. Some
of the textbooks and teaching hasn’t changed which was a surprise for me.”
SP: So How did you spend your time at Pilani? Did you
have time to catch up with the changes, go around the campus and meet people?
AM: “I think Prof. Maheswari and Nattu (Dean Dr. B. R. Dr. B. R.
Natarajan). My batch mate planned it well for me. I had just two meetings and spent
the rest of the time catching up with stuff. I arrived in Pilani at 1 in the morning,
couldn’t sleep (laughs) and I went to Budh Bhawan where I stayed for two years.
Lot of things have changed, new wings have been added (the pi wing), the Woodstock
(the used to keep a pile of wood over there) at the back of the bhawan
is gone and we can’t directly stare into the desert anymore (which they apparently
did 30 years back). I sort of unwillingly accepted that the kind of ashram life
we had is not there anymore.”
SP: Were you part of any departments / clubs when you
were in Pilani?
AM: “I spent a lot of time in the green room. Ours was a great
musical batch. Some of the old labs had storage rooms where there was a lot of US
army junk that was left in Pilani after the war. We discovered that there was enough
equipment to build a transmitter with some parts from the Friday markets at Jama
Masjid in Delhi. For the very first OASIS (’74) we build a transmitter as people
involved in organizing hardly had a chance to have a feel of the functions. Things
went well until the police in Chirawa picked up the signal (laughs) and we had to
dismantle it. We were one of the first batches to build the structure in front of
the clock tower (the current Art n Dee structure). Back in those days OASIS was
called Mayuri and we build a peacock. I remember we had some 400rs to do it. We
had pets back then. There was a monkey called Minki who used to ride with us on
the handles of the bicycles. These are some of my nicer memories.”
SP: So Adil, any plans of returning to Pilani or Goa to
teach courses?
AM: “After this experience, I would definitely say yes. I would
also recommend alumni to do something like this as it is extremely rewarding”.
SP: There is a general perception that courses taught
on campus do not have any practical application. What is your take on this?
AM: “This is something that you would realize only years later.
I don’t regret doing any of the courses that I did. In retrospect it is a part of
the process of learning and there are no complaints. It is not the actual course
content but everything that goes with it, the whole homogenous process is what is
important. However, I feel some of the courses are not given sufficient importance,
but that would just be a matter of sitting and deciding on what is the correct way.
”
SP: So do you see any scope for improvement in terms of
curriculum, infrastructure etc?
AM: “Keeping up with cutting edge technology and ideas is not an
easy task and Pilani or any other college would face a challenge. It is not about
lack of resources but it is the inertia that a person who has been an expert in
a particular area for the last 30 years. People need to be encouraged to go back
to industry and familiarize themselves with the latest technologies. We desperately
need higher connection speed (smiles). We don’t have the speed that cutting edging
universities function at. However it is a huge credit to the students that they
are doing what they are doing despite those setbacks. We have the money and ability
to upgrade ourselves. However, we can have cutting edge equipment and still let
it rot without having the proper expertise to maintain them. This is definitely
an area of concern.”
SP: Any chances of collaboration between western Australian
university and BITS-Pilani?
AM: “I would be definitely looking into it once I get back. Our
biggest asset here is our students who have a work ethic which could sell them anywhere.”
SP: How do you compare students from Pilani to students
in other countries like Australia?
AM: “Our students can hold on anywhere in the world and our alumni
have found it. It is a lot of hard work to make our students ask questions. They
end up wasting the class time by being reticent about asking questions. That is
something that I think we need to improve upon. Otherwise, our students can compete
with the best anywhere in the world.”
SP: Did you get a chance to interact with any other alumni
associations; their activities from BITSAA could take lessons? You might know of
many initiatives by BITSAA.
AM: “Not any direct observations but I have a feeling that IIT
alumni are very active. They have far more resources than we do and we as an alumni
association can look into it. Our greatest strength is the feeling of a family that
we have. We have shared 5 years of life in a place like Pilani where there was nowhere
else to go. So that is a feeling that remains dormant.
RAPIDFIRE ROUND
Favourite Pilani hangout place: Backstage in auditorium
And why: you get a chance to see girls closely?
(Laughs) We did not have girls; there were 4-5 girls in entire engineering
stream, but we hung out nearly equally at museum lawns, just go there to chill irrespective
of what happened,
Favourite food in Pilani:
Redi food. Aaloo tikkis. I still owe some redi walas money!
Number of make ups:
Zero, but many of my friends lined up before exams for prescriptions
Number of BITSian girlfriends:
Zero. Ratio was like 600:1, but in our fantasy world, all the 4 girls were our girlfriends!
Your favourite BITSian lingo: Fundas, everything was a funda, everything was shortened: all places and names. The director was diro and his daughter, diri (smiles). I think she still remembers
Your BITSian name:
Mistry
Craziest activity:
We made lot of noise for good food, Also, before elections we used to paint streets
for campaigning.
Message to the BITS fraternity:
I’d say, develop the ability to look with one good eye and one bad eye. Don’t be
too optimistic or too cynical.
