Ajay Chauhan alias Wangru 3 Idiots has been a massive hit. Many people have liked the character played by Amir Khan, the one who was so much persistent about actual learning than cramming and who refused to join the rat-race despite all the possibilities that he had. Many of us think that such characters are there only in the story books. But is it? Ajay Chauhan is a batch-mate of ours from IIT Kanpur. We were not much of a friend at IITK. I was generally a studious chap, who believed that mugging up and cramming must be done with all sincerity. I was slightly introvert in nature. On the other hand, there was this boy (yes, at that point of time we could be called boys), whom people used to call Chau and who had a pugnacious and bull-doggish appearance. If I remember correctly, he used to have some kind of fascination for boxing. I had never seen him reading and the general reputation about him was that he was either allergic to studies or was disinterested. Thus, we lived in different worlds and hence the paths hardly crossed. Then after many years, thanks to Internet, we got in contact and then I started realizing how different this man actually is. In our group iitk89, we often got to read his mails many of which were so profound and information-packed that I got bewildered. This was so particularly because of my impression of this person as someone who enjoyed life and was more of an outdoor activist than an intellectually and scholarly oriented one. In fact, in response to one of his mails, which was quite profound, heavy and long, one of our friends quipped- "Chau, do you have a software program that churns out words?" I had recently gone to Bhopal to attend a Conference on Electoral reforms where I got an opportunity to be at Ajay's residence for a dinner. I went there with my family. It was certainly a very happy and pleasant evening for us because of his wife's wonderful hospitality but the show belonged entirely to Ajay. Here was a person who had grown slightly old, like all of us have but the pugnacious, mischievous and naughty look was still very much there. From the exterior appearance, he would not give any kind of intellectual halo. Instead, he comes up as one who is engaged in some routine mechanical work of ordinary nature. But when he starts talking of things and ideas, the only effect it has is to mesmerize the audience. He completely sways over the other person's mental processes with his multitude of works, depth of knowledge, streamlining of information, the collation and practical implantation of state-of-the-art technological and scientific developments. I have forgotten most of the things we were taught at IIT. I can certainly not use any of those technical knowledge for any practical applications. I am completely out of sync with so many rapid advancements being made in the field of science and technology. And I am one who did nothing but study (or cram and mug) during IIT days. This man , on the other side of the fence, was hardly seen in the company of books. But today Ajay has achieved a level of scientific and technological capability where I can call him a one-man laboratory. Whether it is computers, software programming, electronic devices, boat mechanism, aircraft mechanism or things like CAD/CAM/CNC, he not only knows about them, he actually uses them in his day-to-day life to develop so many newer things. He showed me his small laboratory where he is often engaged in thinking ideas and actualizing them. He showed me an electronic gadget which has such immense capabilities that as per his version, there are very few of its kind in India. In fact, he told me a few things that made me shiver. And he does not work with a tram, in some hi-fi laboratory with millions of dollars budget. He has an average earning, some of which he uses for the purpose of acquiring, assimilating, imbibing and developing knowledge. Scientific and technical words flow out of his mouth in such an effortless manner as condemning the rival comes to a politician. I salute Ajay Chauhan alias Chau who has proved to be one of the rarest of us who has truly withstood with the name of his Alma-mater, Indian Institute of Technology. The majority of us are there in some unknown rat-race or mediocre affairs either selling soaps or producing some routine soft-ware program or maintaining status-quo. It does give me immense pleasure to see that there is at least one B Tech from IITK who still is loyal to science and technology and whose life is but an extension of this. I wish him all the good wishes and hope that he will be able to produce something truly spectacular, both technologically and commercially.
Amitabh Thakur IPS, Currently at IIM Lucknow # 94155-34526
