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Carving out Ph.D's
Motivating Research

Way back in 1973 when I was a student in the second year B.Sc. class, the Head of the Department of Statistics of the Madras Christian College, Dr.Gift Siromoney gave an assignment of cutting some symbolic characters from a printed page and pasting them in small cards. I was wondering what these symbols were. To untie myself from the mystery, I asked Dr. Gift "What these symbols were?". He told me that they were Tamil characters used in olden days. To my surprise, I could immediately recollect that I had seen some writings containing similar characters on the walls of Lord Shiva Temple in the nearby village called Madambakkam. I told him about that and he said it could be possible for me to read them. He asked me to take an eye-copy of the inscription on a piece of paper. Along with my classmates R. Srinivasan and Abdul Huq who were also interested, I visited that temple that weekend and we came back with a hand-copy of the inscription. Dr. Gift helped us in reading the text and gave us a small book, which would help us to know further about the inscriptions. This was how we got involved in the area of Epigraphy and Character Recognition. Along with Dr.Gift we had visited several nearby and far away places and collected the estampages of the inscriptions on the temple walls, which had not been read before. Such inscriptions were reported in the Madras Christian College Magazine from time to time. As I was also interested in computers at that time, Dr. Gift made us work on Computer Methods of Dating Medieval Tamil inscriptions, which was submitted as our M.Sc. Project work in the year 1976. Later, this led us to work on two Projects funded by the Department of Science and Technology on preservation of ancient monuments.

Dr. Gift Siromoney had helped me a lot in learning more about the ancient monuments and inscriptions. We also worked in the areas of Pattern Recognition with special reference to Character Recognition Techniques. This includes Computer recognition of an ancient Tamil inscription of the Chola period.

We have travelled together many times to attend conferences and seminars. He was always enthusiastic and used to give some new thoughts and instill interest in various fields. He was more a friend than a professor. I had many opportunities to work with him on different areas of interest from the Statewide Public Opinion Surveys that were conducted every year in our Department to the special studies on the nomadic tribes 'The Narikoravas'. When it came to doing a certain work, he would persuade everyone to be involved in it and would sleep only after the work was complete. He used to visit our houses to convey or inform some important message any time in the day or night. All our family members knew him as Gift uncle. He moved with children like a child. His arrival was mostly recognized by the rhythm of his motorbike melody, whether in college or elsewhere.

About one and a half decades ago, there was a total solar eclipse that created panic in almost everyone. There were rumors that people may lose their sight if they came out. Birds would get confused and return to nests. As usual Dr.Gift said, "We are going to the bird's sanctuary Vedanthangal to observe the behaviour of birds". He took me and two of my colleagues, Dr. S. Govindaraju and Dr.M.Chandrasekaran in his car. The road was totally empty. A police party chased us near the Palar Bridge and enquired about us. There was no one else to watch the strange behaviour of birds. We were really gifted to experience those remarkable phenomena.

As per my association with him, I noticed that Dr. Gift Siromoney was enriched with the qualities of simplicity, calmness, dedication, honesty, hard work and perfection. I will be happy if I am able to acquire some of his qualities in my career. Last but not the least, what I am today is all because of Dr. Gift Siromoney who helped me throughout my studies right from the undergraduate course.

Chandrasekaran R. (B.Sc. and M.Sc. 1972-76, Ph.D, 1982, Colleague: 1976-88)
Currently: Professor, Department of Statistics, Madras Christian College.

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