Rest in Peace, Banerjee Sir.

TL; DR

This is going to be very very long.

Prof. Asim Banerjee. Where do I even begin? There are so many small and beautiful memories with him over the period of last 6 years that I have known him. Some, where he has shouted on me, few where he was angry on me and the rest where we were discussing about studies, education system, bureaucracy and life. Prof. Asim Banerjee was the first professor I interacted with at DAIICT on Day 1 where I did my Masters’ in ICT. He had been with the university for over 12+ years then. In that first hour, he was selling the idea or the thought of being a DAIICTian to us (the students who were going to start their journey) and to their parents. Among many other things, one thing I specifically remember from that day was and I loosely quote : “DAIICT is an institution where students come from different places and institutions, work together, exchange ideas and become a unique version of oneself. The experience is like a uniform filter, where all the resources and the ideas shared by the professors will be same for all students, the uniqueness will however come from what you pick up and what you don’t. So, choose very wisely and welcome to one of it’s first kind of experiences.” How can I not be in awe of that person after listening to that? It was something that was so motivational (at least for me) that I decided that I wanted to talk to this guy, I wanted to discuss things with him. Apart from his exceptional vocational quality, he was tall, well-built with an impacting personality.

Moving on, I got used to the university in the first couple of months and learned that he did his PhD from IIT Bombay. He basically taught three to four courses namely Software Engineering (SEN) - the most dreaded subject for Bachelors’ and MScIT students and Image Processing (2nd Semester) and Soft Skills (summer semester) for Masters’ students. So for the first semester, I was not much in direct touch with him apart from the jovial smiles we used to exchange while crossing paths as he knew me from Day 1 as a new masters’ student. Enter Niyam (senior MScIT batch) in my first semester, the first person at DA who has impacted my life at DA and afterwards, but I can compile whole another chapter to talk about and it may require pages and pages to describe, so we will skip that part for now. Niyam told me stories about Banerjee sir, how strongly he supports the student community and how he listens to what you have to say. I also heard stories about him from other folks whom I used to interact with. All in all, he had a fearful image across the campus and people liked him but usually stayed away from him, which perplexed me a lot.

My direct interactions began with him from 2nd semester, when he started teaching the Image processing course. His teaching style was very different from the usual professors, he used philosophy, thinking and communication over math in his discussions and talks to explain image processing. He casually used to laugh it off saying, “Math to kya hai, tum kar lega 2 din me, sabse jyada zaroori hai – us math ke piche ka reasoning (What’s there in Math? You will do that in 2 days, the most important thing is to understand the reasoning behind that math).” Boy, Oh Boy – that moment flashed the Day 1 for me. I was absolutely in awe of this person which my fellow mates already noticed. Many of them had alternate opinions about him and his style of teaching, which was fine with me. In that one course, he taught me couple of things which I will note down as follows:

1. Never lie to him, or for that matter anyone. No matter how painful it is at that point, it only gets worse with time and trust me that it’s definitely gonna come out.
2. Trust your guts. There’s a reason why they are your guts. You need to strongly believe yourself and your truths, as there is no such thing as the right or the absolute truth.
3. No alternate to Hard work, he said he liked smart work – however it was often mistaken as an alternate to hard work.
4. Discuss and share. One of the most important things that he promoted. Never reinvent the wheel, he said. Team work is a must in any phase and form of life. (Addition : Marriage, work, family and friends –> abstraction as “Team”, sizes vary😉 )

Time flew, due to my medical reasons I could not attend the first 6 weeks of the Soft Skills course, however I did request him that I do the assignments from home. He was generous enough to allow me and he did correct those sheets for me and gave me feedback. He could have just ignored it, could have told me to rest and that would have been one less work for him, but that was not Banerjee sir. He respected a student more than he respected a teacher (there was no comparison, but he said that a teacher is also a student, the moment you stop being a student, you start losing yourself as a teacher).

Post that, we never had many courses, but than began the journey of my Masters’ thesis. When I rejoined the final few weeks of the Soft Skills course, I remember us walking towards the cafeteria talking about the things I have missed about and the first report submission of the thesis, which I was doing with Prof. Manjunath Joshi (a super technical professor - typically a nerd in millennial language). Banerjee Sir knew this and one day while walking back towards Faculty Block 1 (his office), he was like, “Kis topic pe kaam kar rha hai? Prof. Joshi ke sath kar rha hai? Theek hai, fantastic. (3 seconds pause, with his typical smile that says a storm is coming) Paper likhe bina nai jaane dunga me tujhe. (Which topic are you working on? Working with Prof. Joshi, I will not let you go without a paper).” At that point, when you’re in the initial phase of your masters’ thesis, where even you don’t know what and how you are going to do things, that sentence was a lot of pressure to begin with, especially coming from someone whom you think of as very high. The confidence that he had in me, was something probably even I lacked at that time.

Weeks passed, and soon we were presenting the so-called phase 1 report and you were introduced to your committee (panel of faculty members who evaluate your work) for the 3 phases over the period of next 6 months. Ofcourse, Banerjee Sir was on my committee and not only that, he identified as a co-supervisor, which I was not aware of. Again, Day 1 strikes with a smile on my face. I present and things move ahead to Phase 2. Phase 2 was challenging, this time he was all pumped up. He asked some very challenging questions. The answers to which I did not know, I basically shitted during the presentation. He knew and he had this smile of his face like Krishna had throughout Mahabharata knowing what is going on exactly. To be honest, I was very furious on him (foolish student mistake, which is quite common across student community) and in my stupid innocence I walked into his trap. Few days later, I went to his office and asked him what went wrong there? He smiled and simply said one thing, “You know what, you don’t ask the question ‘Why’ enough to yourself. Start doing that and it all will fall into place. Samjha (Got it)?” Obviously I did not, so I said sir could you please elaborate? He asked, “Tell me how does Google super-resolve images on Google Maps?” I was dumbfounded by that question. I did not know the Google Maps algorithm and had never thought about it connected to my work and somehow he knew I did not know the answer. He waited for 2 mins till I tried. After one or two stupid answers, he said - “You know what, Google does not use Super resolution at all. It captures images at various resolutions from satellites. But, you did not ask this question to yourself. You should have and that’s the problem. You guys are so much involved into how, you just miss the jackpot of why? Focus on why and the how will come automatically.” I was literally smiling even though I failed miserably in his test as I realized it was a major learning curve for me. Next 2 phases went well and I did an average job in his view and the final talk was quite alright, so that I was allowed to have my degree. Outside of the room, once Prof. Joshi went to his cabin, he just walked with me a little towards the cafeteria for his beloved chai and the conversation went something like this (I loosely remember it like this)

(Asim Banerjee) AB : Paper ka kya hua? (What happened about the paper?)

Me : Reject ho gaya sir (It got rejected, Sir). They said they did not find enough novelty.

AB : (with a broad smile on his face) To ab kya karega? Degree kaise milega tujhe? (Now what will you do? How will you get the degree?)

Me : Sir, I tried, but it did not work out. Ab to job bhi start ho jayega (Even job will start soon now). I have interviews for InFoCusp soon, will have to prepare for that.

AB : The ML company that comes to the campus? Deloitte nai jayega (Won’t go to Deloitte)?

Me : Don’t know that sir, if this works out then nai (NO). Personally this one is a better opportunity both financially and professionally.

AB : Acha, ek baat bata (Ok, tell me one thing) How was your experience throughout the M.Tech Programme and how do you think we can improve this? I want to know from a student and a teacher perspective.

Obviously, we talked for more than an hour about my points, he crossed them very politely and accepted a few very honestly saying that he will make sure DA works on them. The whole point of sharing this dialogue was that this was my last conversation with him as a DA student and we have had couple of conversations on similar topics over that last year. We did a workshop for ISRO scientists where he forced me to learn a little C++. He literally told me that you are doing it and if you don’t know then learn things and I did. It was like an instant impact, he would tell and I will do it but it never felt like a force coming from him. He also pushed me to take the workshop that he was offering on “Math with MS Excel” where he along with his friend/colleague taught math via excel formulas and the understanding. We had a lot of chai (Tea) + samosas then during those workshops. He also supported our placement committee head Sunil Jain Sir with everything he could do. He was also a major helping hand in supporting IIIT-V (Indian Institute of Information Technology, Vadodara) whose campus was tentatively in Gandhinagar. He made instant jokes, some he knew were not funny but he still did it and laughed it off. He was always direct about what he wanted to convey, never beating around the bush. He actively participated in various cultural events and once I saw him doing ramp walk too, that was the highlight of my interactions with him. Before I left, we did go for a dinner, him, Ananya (his daughter), Rupsa, Ainish, Ritu (fellow colleagues) and I for dinner and I am lucky enough to have at least one picture with him and I will cherish till memory of him for my life.

Post my Masters, I was working for InFoCusp and used to visit campus in the first year quite often to work on the paper which we were submitting as a book chapter. He somehow came to know about this, probably from Prof. Joshi and I made a habit of visiting him every time I was at DA. I could see the proud in his eyes when he said that great job on working with the paper to submit it somewhere else. Again Day 1 flashback, from wanting to discuss things with him to being happy and content to get his appreciation for the first time in words, which usually was by his smile😄

I still have missed couple of anecdotes, but the list goes on with him. I am still not able to digest that he is gone. We all lost him to the pandemic of 21st century AD, the COVID-19. He fought it, yet his organs eventually gave up. I know nothing and nobody can replace him for me or for my fellow DAIICTians. We all love you Banerjee Sir and we are going to (or atleast I am) forward your teachings and let the students / people decide and choose what they like to move ahead in their life. Wherever you are, I hope you have that smile on your face, and now I think, I have a fictional character for you as well, you were my Gandalf.

Love, Prathmesh.