Tapan Roy Chowdhury – rare breed earth scientist
Saswati Bandyopadhyay
Indian Minerals published a paper in 1996, named a vertebrate fossil, Gondowanodon tapani, discovered from the Tiki Formation of Rewa basin of central India and Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh carried another paper in 2011, naming another vertebrate fossil, collected from the Maleri Formation of Pranhita-Godavari Basin, Nambalia roychowdhurii. The names of the fossils were after an illustrious geologist, Prof. Tapan Kumar Roy Chowdhury and these were named by his students. Having worked for six decades in the fields of palaeontology and stratigraphy at the Geological Studies Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, he left indelible memories to scores of earth scientists as a mentor and teacher, leave alone some of his pace-setting discoveries that heightened the image of Indian palaeontologists in the global arena. He breathed his last on 18 March last. He would have completed eight decades of life on 15 June this year.
TRC lost his parents in his early childhood and was brought up by his aunts at Bhowanipur. After doing his master’s in Geology from the University of Calcutta in 1958, with a first class, he joined as a lecturer at Ashutosh College, where he did his graduation also. A turning point was a call for an interview from the Indian Statistical Institute in 1958. On the other side was Dr. Pamela Lamplugh Robinson of University College of London who was offered a Visiting Professorship in ISI by Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the founder of the Indian Statistical Institute and the father of Indian school of Statisticians, for the initiation and development of a geological research centre in the Institute. TRC joined as a Research Assistant at the ISI and never looked back thereafter. For his Ph. D. he worked on a new metoposaurid amphibian from the Late Triassic sediments of the Pranhita-Godavari (P-G) basin under the guidance of Dr. Robinson and received doctoral degree from the University College of London.
After returning from UK in 1963 he began working on Indian Gondwana geology and Mesozoic Gondwana vertebrates. His research mainly revolved around the Triassic and Jurassic amphibians, reptiles and mammals of the Indian Gondwanas. He used to spend months together carrying out rigorous geological fieldwork including excavations of fossil vertebrates in the P-G basin and took a leading role in finding and excavating several new and important fossil vertebrates including the Jurassic dinosaur Barapasaurus tagorei, mounted in the Geology Museum of ISI. Apart from the P-G basin, he also worked in Rewa, Satpura and Damodar Valley Gondwana basins. He endeavoured to solve many of the unsolved problems of Indian Gondwana succession on the basis of recovery of latest fossil finds and detailed geological mapping of the succession. He continuously upgraded his ideas and was deeply involved in this problem.
In ISI, he was instrumental in developing a leading school of vertebrate palaeontology and Gondwana geology and played a pivotal role in developing the Geological Studies Unit (GSU) into a major research centre in Geology comparable with the best in India and abroad. He supervised several Ph.D. students producing next generation vertebrate palaeontologists and now it is continuing in its fourth generations! Apart from the students of ISI he also guided students from other Universities and actively involved with researchers of other organisations. During his six decades of academic tenure he had published several scientific papers and monographs which became benchmark references among all the academic fraternity of palaeontology and stratigraphy. However the number of his publications or the number of his Ph.D. students do not speak about his contribution to palaeontology and Gondwana geology; his most significant contribution is his way of grooming and inspiring a number younger researchers who have now spread their wings in several research centers of India and abroad. The tea-room in GSU used to be a meeting point of several scientists to stimulate their scientific acumen as well as a session of intellectual “adda” where he used to accommodate anyone from any sphere of life with a broad smile. He loved to interact with younger generations of researchers and was never tired of discussing any topics on Gondwana geology with them. His teaching proficiency was well known not only among the students of ISI but to other Universities; he taught vertebrate palaeontology and evolution for twenty years in packed classrooms of Jadavpur University even after his retirement. He used to introduce modern and latest concepts of vertebrate palaeontology to his students thus initialized research on taphonomy, biochronology, functional morphology for the first time in India. Tapan used to encourage and enthuse his students both graduate and doctoral level to give their best. His decision to donate his body after death for the students of anatomy department of SSKM hospital shows his concern as a teacher.
His passion for evolutionary biology was such that even a few months ago while admitted in the hospital for radiotherapy a newly published book on palaeobiology became his instant relief and he used to be totally engrossed in that book and discussed about it in length with his students and colleagues sitting in the hospital bed. His commitment and dedication to palaeontology and Indian Gondwana geology is evident when he instructed his students and colleagues in his last days to complete certain works on Indian Gondwanas “after his death” or when two large hand-written drafts on Gondwana geology were found from his working table after his death.
He was strongly committed to Marxism and had been a leading member of the undivided CPI since 1950. He used to follow its basic tenets in his personal life also. While working in ISI, he received a Fulbright scholarship in 1959 but he was not given a visa from the US Consulate because of his leftist association. However, we are fortunate enough that later on he got an opportunity to carry out his research work in the University College of London.
One of his off-beat but significant contributions is proliferation of horticulture in the barren lands of northernmost Telengana area (Adilabad district) of Andhra Pradesh for the weaker section of the society. A bold experiment aiming to uplift the poor farmers through planting of mango and cashew horticultural crops involving 6000 hectares of land belonging to 5000 weaker section families became highly successful and their income just increased tenfold. Behind this successful enterprise was the moving spirit of Mr. N. V. A. Raja Reddy, a progressive farmer and philanthropist of Bhimaram village in Adilabad dist. who became a good friend of TRC during his heydays of fieldwork in P-G basin. While leading a team of researchers he identified the sandstone ridges which were ideally suitable to horticulture especially mango. These sandstone areas look dry on or near the surface but in reality hold a lot of moisture at a depth of 9 inches even in the hot summer months. This proved to be the key to success and survival of extensive orchards belonging to the poorest of the poor. This application of geology in the public domain brought prosperity to these farmers and he was very happy as his training as an earth scientist and research therein had a socio-economic direction in the interests of subalterns. Little wonder Andhra Pradesh state government felicitated him in recognition of his outstanding contribution; The Hindu carried a detailed report on this on 30 March 1984.
Apart from his academia, TRC with his broad ever smiling face with a tobacco-pipe will be long remembered for his cool-temperament, simple, humble and polite nature. His thought provoking discussions on nitty gritty details of palaeontology or stratigraphy or debate upon several topics were real source inspirations to think about some new ideas on geology. During the long tiring fieldwork in scorching sun he used to keep on telling several humorous anecdotes of his earlier field experience to keep up the spirits of others. He was always found to be beside anyone in distress with a helping hand in their problem – be it personal or academic but never uttered a word about it later. He made no distinction in his behaviour or activities towards people from very low background to higher ups – never believed in “class”. His family members, relatives, students, colleagues and friends were totally shocked when he was detected with lung cancer a few months ago. It is extremely unfortunate to know that his x-rays of 2009 did show an opaque spot in left lung which was completely ignored by the doctor upon enquiry! A phone call at 4.10 am on 18 March 2013 brought news of his sad demise. But he was and will be with us till the rest of our life and we salute our teacher, friend, philosopher and guide.
[The author is grateful to Ritabari Roy Chowdhury, widow of TRC, Urmila Pingle, Soumen Sarkar and Sankar Roy for providing significant inputs.]
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