Why am I doing Science ?

Just the other day, after a not-so-pleasant meeting with my boss…I started asking myself the following question: Why am I doing science?

It’s a question that many have asked me, the list includes the closest people I know. Some have said, and continue to say that I should have taken up literature or any form of liberal arts. Some of them have said, I should have just taken up engineering and led an easier corporate life (I don’t mean to say that my engineer friends have a much better life). Others have said that I am just meant for management. A few have also ventured into music and painting. Only one or two had said that a career in science would suit me.

As far as I remember, at first I wanted to be a pilot, and pretty soon it changed to being a leg spinner who was also an engineer. That was sometime in class 6-7. Ever since that only two things had stayed with me…a footballer (that was a dream) or a scientist (the more realistic). I did not know then what in science interested me. I think it’s more about the pride involved…What I mean to say is that I would everyone say “That my dad is a doctor, or my mum’s a journo…”, none of them would ever leave a mark on me, but if someone said “My father is a scientist”, I would always wonder “What’s he like!” That always interested me. Then in Class X, I read about genetic engineering and cloning…and I was fascinated. Was it really possible? Can people actually do that. I would tell myself that when I grow up, I would want to do that kind of work.

Meanwhile I grew up, read a little more about science. Chemistry interested me a lot…I would say that I was natural with theoretical chemistry (please don’t read that “I got a lot of marks in chemistry”). Then slowly slowly genetic engineering started leaving me and chemistry started to take more of a centre stage. I changed my interests now, I told myself I would want to do something that involved both chemistry and biology. I tried in several places and after several rejections, I went to study pure chemistry further and further and further. Ultimately while doing Masters I came close to doing a bit of genetic engineering and I did routine cloning experiments and realized that, since I couldn’t quite see what exactly is happening, it is not my mug of beer. Then came the idea of doing medicinal chemistry.

I was indeed very happy when I joined for PhD at JNCASR. But soon I realized that I wasn’t quite tailor-made for life at JNCASR. I was not happy initially and by this time I started doing real science. As I went along, failures and frustrations kept adding up. Several times I felt like quitting. But why is it that I did not? The truth is I just wanted to do science. I want to get a PhD. I am sure initially my boss had very high expectations from me. But may be slowly he had to come to terms with my several limitations. But with all his frustrations with me, and my frustrations with myself, I could never leave it entirely.

So why am I doing science? Is it just because I want a PhD? A part of it is true, I always wanted that degree. But is that all? See the work that I do always has some promise. The promise of curing something. The promise giving something to the world that nobody has yet given. It doesn’t have to be the next penicillin or the next Taxol. But even if it is small, it will be still novel. I always believed that whatever you do should be different. I am not saying everyone has to know about it and you have to become an instant celebrity. But it should create some impact somewhere. May be by looking at  the failure of my drug, someone else would be able to create another. That will eventually contribute towards the progress of science. And that’s what keeps me going.

There are days when I feel terribly low, there can be several reasons, sometimes I feel I am not up to the mark, sometimes it’s the boss effect, sometimes I miss the people closest to me and sometimes I feel jealous of everyone around who has a smile on their face (silly as it may sound). But nothing deters me from going back to the lab and painting pictures of new potential drug designs (almost 99% of them can’t be created). But those designs keeps me afloat. I feel great, I feel I have done a lot of science. But the actually I have not even done 1%. The challenge is to do the next 50%. I try and fail and land up in misery, but when I tell myself that it is my design and may be my intuition is right, I start working on it again. This feeling of belonging towards a molecule is another reason why I do science.

I know most of us do not always like to sit in a seminar. But sometimes I find it fascinating. As many of you might know (some with a little bit of disregard for this liking of mine) that I enjoy talking and I enjoy talking about my interests, I always wondered how it would be if I could go up and talk about my path-breaking work (currently it is breaking my path towards achieving a PhD)! I don’t know how good or bad I would be but still if there is even 1% of the audience appreciating me, it would give me immense pleasure and I would believe that yes my science is not a complete failure. This lure of taking up stage and lecturing people (admit it, we all like to do it, not necessarily in front of an audience though) also contributes to my interest in doing science.

Through your research you can reach to the world. You get to meet different people with a common interest. Most importantly you get to taste a lot of grey matter and sometimes that gives me immense pleasure. I believe the biggest challenge for a young scientist is designing a new experiment and for that your knowledge of the field and a little bit of grey matter is necessary. And for people like me who are fooled into believing that they have a little bit of grey matter, that’s the most relishing part. (Mind you, I still haven’t done any of the things that I have mentioned.) The hope that one day I would be able to design a very nice experiment to prove my hypothesis, urges me to do science.

The last part is silly but interesting. Every successful scientist gets to travel a lot. I always had wanderlust. I hope that one day I would be a little successful and get to see the world. That is another reason why I do science.

I know I might have bored a lot of you. I might have irritated a few too. But if I have shared any of your thoughts through my writing, I would know that I am not too bad a scientist.