LIFE IN THE USA

Mani Bhaumik won the prestigious Sloan Foundation Fellowship to conduct post doctoral research at the University of California in Los Angeles. Even though the scholarship amount of USD 6,000 per year was significant, he would not get any of it until he would appear at UCLA. He faced an irony of acute shortage of funds when it came to paying for his airfare to the West Coast. He knocked on the doors of wealthy acquaintances in Calcutta, but the city’s elite let him down. Then the money was raised from least expected quarters—fellow villagers were so proud of Mani that they decided to pull out money from their measly savings and help him. Every small pie counted, and finally there was enough for Mani to buy his ticket to the USA. His life was about to change once more.

At the UCLA, he opted for electronic energy transfer as his area of research. This was to open up the world of lasers before his eyes. Laser was a relatively new subject and had come into reckoning only around 1960. Remembering his father’s enduring wisdom of being the best that he could be, Mani notched up as many as 12 patents in the field. One of them was the patent for the Excimer laser for Lasik, which is used extensively in eye surgeries. He started working with Xerox in the firm’s quantum physics laboratory in Pasadena, where he became the head of the chemical physics laboratory to work on liquid lasers. He then moved to the Northrop Corporation and became the Director of their corporate laser technology laboratory. His scientific peers honored him by electing a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers in recognition of his valuable contributions to the field of lasers. For his path-breaking research he was given stock options in both the companies. He would soon become one of the richest scientists of the day. His mud hut story was now a reminder of how the wheels of fortune could change. He also was dating a girl for the first time in his life.