User:Tukaram kumbar

Tukaram kumbar:

In1951, born in Hochaknalli village, in Bidar district of Karnataka. Studied in the neighboring village Kheni-Ranjol up to SSLC and passed SSLC with first class in 1969. I scored 67% marks in SSLC. Mathematics was my favorite subject and in the 7th board exam, I scored 90% marks in Maths without any special effort. Both my parents Gundappa and Tippamma were illiterates. I was awarded a merit scholarship of Rupees 50/ when I was studying in the 8th class. But I lost my dear father when I was in 9th class. It was a suicide. He was cheated in a land acquisition process. This changed the equation of our family, as we lost the bread-earning member. Mother was suffering from ill health. Mother forced me to get married after my matriculation exam, in the summer1969. I was dreaming of going to college for higher education. I sold 10g gold that was offered in my marriage and secured admission to the BVB College Bidar as a PUC Science student in June 1969. I became a roommate of my brother-in-law, Shri Gundappa, a BA final-year student. we together used to cook our daily food.

Of my poor financial conditions, I was given free-ship, after my PUC Science examination, and the money that I gave to the college as a tuition fee was refunded back by the college. This same money, I used for next year's admission to B.Sc. part-one course. Then I applied for a National loan scholarship and was selected for this. I used to get 720 rupees per year and completed my science degree in 1973 (Mathematics and Physics) with a second-class merit.

I was appointed as a Telephone Operator, in the Post and Telegraphs department. In the month of July 1974, I was posted to work from the Bhalki telephone exchange in the Bidar district of Karnataka. I worked there for five years and wrote a departmental competitive exam for promotion to the Phone Inspector post. I was selected and trained for six months at RTTC Hyderabad in 1980. I worked as a Phone Inspector at Sandur Telephone exchange in the Bellary district for two years.

Then I again wrote the competitive exam for the post of Junior Engineer and was selected and posted to the Raichur Telephones, after 14 months of training at RTTC Trivandrum Kerala. After serving for a period of 12 years at Raichur, I was again promoted to Sub-Divisional Engineers grade and worked at Bidar Telephones for a decade, and opted for voluntary retirement in 2009 at the age of 58 years.

My Hobby: The Nature and Science

“The field of knowledge which we call science”

It was a fine day in 1994, when I was in the telecommunication office, in Raichur, for almost ten long years as a junior engineer. There was a Kannada Sahitya Sammelana arranged at Raichur. I being a book lover, casually visited the place to find any book to read in my mother tongue. I encountered G. T. Narayana Rao's book, The Vaigyanika Manodharma, and purchased a copy of it. It was a book written in Dakshina Kannada style of the tongue. Mr. Narayan Rao was an M.Sc. Maths background man. He worked with many responsibilities in journalism. Once he interviewed C.V. Raman, the first Indian Scientist. Raman was also called the scientist from the East in the Royal Society. I was busy with my duty and I could not realize that I was holding something very special in my hand. Later, this text became a cause of changing my life. It removed all my false beliefs. It changed my notion of God. It opened my curiosity toward Nature and Science.

The book contained all about, How the heliocentric universe was confirmed. How the speed of light was enumerated by Romer and all. How Galileo Galilee confirmed that the earth rotates around the Sun as other planets do. I was enlightened with Newton’s universal law of gravitation which fascinated me, as it relates to supernovas, the science of destroying atoms into an enormous amount of energy, and the death of stars. The true story of nature started revealing itself before me. I questioned myself, “Does the so-called God really exist?” The probable answer was no, there is no God as we define it. But the notion of God was needed, for the peaceful co-existence of social human life as a society.

                To me (in my mind), there arose a question, “what would be the height, at which the clouds form above the earth's surface?” With some reference, I came to know that temperature falls by two degrees, at the height of every 1000 feet above the ground level. By some calculations, I could guess that probably at the height of about 5 to 6 kilometers height above, the temperature falls to zero degrees Celsius. Therefore the clouds should form at that height. I found that my argument was roughly good. I attempted to calculate the diameter of the Sun by some experiment, assuming that the distance to Sun from the earth is 150000000 kilometers. I applied the Trigonometric formula and radian measure to do so. I calculated the geostationary orbit of satellites as 36000 kilometers above the earth's surface.

Thus my journey started in that direction. I calculated the speed of the earth around the Sun by applying elliptical motion to the earth. This result was almost nearer to the actual one. Most of the superstitions vanished from my mind. I became a thinker in a new direction. Started reading to understand nature in a better way. Every day I used to spend some time reading and taking notes on science, after my duty hours. The journey is still in progress even after two decades.

I taught high school students:

It was an accident, that I became a teacher. When I was passing by the government school, I saw a strike was going on, by the 10th-class students. They were demanding a mathematics teacher. There was no person available to teach them that subject. I thought to myself, “Let me try a little”. The very next day, I went to school and started taking mathematics classes. “Something is better than nothing” was the policy. The headmaster allowed me to conduct the classes. Slowly I picked up on the teaching process and I used to take classes regularly to 8th, 9th, and 10 classes, as per the school timetable. This practice went on for almost two years. I was not a professional teacher. I was never trained to teach. Yet, my enthusiasm worked and made me a teacher.

Students started to visit my residence, to learn basic skills in mathematics. People started to address me as a teacher. One fine day, a regular mathematics teacher was posted, and I was relieved. But a science teacher was pregnant and went on maternity leave for six months. I started teaching science as science was my hobby. It helped 10th-class students to clear their SSLC results. I was not asked to work as a teacher, but I did all this as a voluntary service without taking or demanding any salary or honorarium. I used to live in my sister's home and would get my food there. While teaching I was also learning. It benefited me too. When the science teacher returned after her leave, we both used to discuss mutually interesting subjects, like biochemistry. Thus, for almost four years I was at that kind of work. Thus, I too became a teacher. Sometimes I used to take classes on English grammar. English teacher encouraged me to carry on the practice. She appreciated my effort in teaching English grammar. My retired life was well utilized to serve the needy in a rural environment. The Science teacher was reading for her Ph.D., and she was in need of my experience in science, especially electronics and applied science like communication and all. We used to sit together and read and discuss related topics. She was very much pleased when she cleared the theory portion of her Ph.D. course.