I was in the last semester of my engineering career when the lockdown was imposed. I had chosen to write a series of letters to my teachers.

In that context, the following letter is dedicated to Dr. Sibarama Panigrahi, who had taught us:

DEAR SIBARAMA SIR,

I congratulate you on the accomplishment of your doctorate degree last year, by adding one more feather to the cap of your academic brilliance. In this context, I thought like addressing you with a letter of gratitude before we move out of the institution in next few weeks for all your contributions to our engineering journey.

The lockdown duration at home has enflamed the creative incandescence within me to step aside and make this moment special for all those generous faces who’ve touched my life in some ways or the other. Kindly go through the paragraphs written below.

It goes back to 2016, when we both had joined the institute and were neighbours on the 1st floor of the Aryabhatta hostel and been part of many cricket matches together! It’s truly a rare moment for us to have an humble person like you amidst us, who becomes more than happy to connect with people around!

The bonding grew stronger with the trip to the NIT Rourkela techfest in November just a day before the demonetization got imposed by the ruling NDA government. We get touched with your insatiable curiosity to listen and validate the students’ point of view.

The only regret for our batch would be, we never had the privilege to be a part of your classroom teachings except that one class of JAVA you had taken in the second semester. We still remember that!

I had the proper scope of interaction with you in September 2017, when I was pursuing my 3rd semester studies and you were involved with your research works. In those days, during the evening hours you had allowed us to come along with you in the PL-4 computer lab to conduct experimentations on Big Data.

In addition to that, you had made the provision to come every day with a self-study of the topics and put forth the lessons in the shape of a presentation and that’s where my life literally got changed!

Till that point in my life, I had always been scared of facing the audience, just like the famous quote goes:

Death is the number two fear that people have and public speaking is the first!

But, I don’t know, what happened to me that day, but your friendly and encouraging words fuelled me with the energies and intrinsic motivation!

The presentation on that day went fine and I could recall you of taking interests in my works and putting the words of appreciations in front of my peer groups.

And, that’s what the magic a teacher holds! Since that point to this day, I’ve appeared nearly 7-8 public speaking performances in SUIIT at various occasions and always found myself growing with time and getting more sincere with my efforts.

In fact, I’ve kept few of the video recordings of my performances to analyse them, find the errors and move on with an improved version. All of these credits go to you and only you, for instilling that hope in a student like me!

Apart from these, we had the moments of conversations during our preparation phase for Smart India Hackathon last year. Although we couldn’t qualify for that event, but I remember, you had invited us to your home to discuss on the project and prepare the submission document accordingly. Such a treatment is rare for us!

Thank you for that timely help. I must admit one more thing, the minor project submission was a moment of reality check for all of us earlier this year in the month of January, where we realised our shortcomings.

I’d appeal you to introduce concepts like this along with the scope of presentation and technical solutions developments for the benefits of the institute in the curriculum in every semester, so the students could have enough opportunities to test themselves through the parametric of being an engineer before they graduate and they’d stand fit for the industry standards by that time.

On a final note, I’d like to say… We always feel blessed for being in touch with you, for your concern for the better future of the students and supporting them in all possible manners. With all the best wishes for your health and family, here I rest my writings…

Thank You!

With Respect,

Sourav

Sir's Response:

I had received a WhatsApp response from sir, which goes as below:

Thank You. Very nicely written.

Dr. Sibarama Panigrahi: A Letter to My Engineering CS Professor

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