"Tales of Geology" by Exploring Geology
Tale #01
Geology Professor W.D. West: A Britisher by origin but Indian by heart
Prof. WD West (Pic credit- wikipedia)
Professor William Dixon
West, my Applied Geology teacher at Sagar University, Sagar (MP). He was
Director in Geological Survey of India at Calcutta (now Kolkata), retired in 1952, went back
to England, returned back to India on an invitation by Dr. R.P. Tripathi, the
then Vice-Chancellor, University of Sagar in 1955 & founded Applied Geology
Department at Sagar University in 1956 to start a 3 years M. Tech. course (I
passed out in 1973 as a 16th batch graduate).
He used to take M. Tech. 1st
Semester students to teach Geological Mapping techniques in the field around
Sagar town every Saturday Forenoon. Our departmental bus would leave us to a
point from where we would walk and complete a field traverse with him.
Surprisingly, One day I
noticed him speaking in Hindi to Rajaram, our bus driver: "राजाराम नक्शा लाओ"
(Bring the map)
Another Saturday, we saw a
fox crossing our way. We all stopped for a second, he uttered "Lomri (लोमड़ी)” at
that time Sagar was situated in a reserved forest area.
The field work used to
commence at 7.00 AM and end by 12 Noon. He would buy bananas from a ठेला (Trolley),
give 2 to each one of us & the driver. He also ate with us saying "this
fruit has not much food value"
By 1 pm the bus would drop
us back to campus & he would then take hostellers up to hostel hill -top in
his old Chevrolet car.
He was popular not only
among students but also in the geological community throughout India. He was
also a nice human being so as If, by chance, any student of the department was
hospitalised he would visit him in the Hospital.
At Calcutta, he was the
first Director to give employment to Ladies.
He died at Sagar in 1994. His
body lies buried at the local Seminary Hills premises.
Narrated
By:
Dr. Shrenik Kumar Lunkad, Former
Professor and Founder Chairman, Department of Geology, Kurukshetra University,
Kurukshetra, Haryana (India)
Note: Sometimes small incidents becomes the inspiration for many to do better and even exceptionally great work, therefore, experienced people of almost every domain (sports, cinema, politics etc.) shares their experiences & memories with young aspirants; so ‘Exploring Geology’ would be happy to share anecdotes of Geology with young minds of geoscience in catchy way and with due credit to you.
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