Dr. Mashelkar’s persona exudes certain aura, certain spiritual augmentation, certain inner strength that almost mesmerises anybody. It is futile to talk of his simplicity. For, one would like to use the description the legendary Yehudi Menuhin used for Pandit Ravi Shankar -- ‘burnished gold’ -- for Dr. Mashelkar. Burnished gold gives away its glitter, so to say, but assumes a muted hue of a high mesmeric value. The tall and handsome man just defies his age with his energy that has a celestial tinge. His perpetual smile does take one to another level of affection.

Continuing his assertions in simple words, Dr. Mashelkar adds, “We are far from the culture of genuine innovation. That is because we are yet to inculcate the core process of education -- learning, doing, and being. We do not encourage the Tod-Fod-Jod (Break-Blast-Rejoin) culture in our children. Look at how the children play with their toys -- Tod-Fod-Jod. In our education, we insist upon one-question-one-answer. We do not realise that there can be 42 different ways of taking water out of a glass. Thus, we negate the concept of innovation. “This must happen in homes and schools. As a society, we must focus on education as a route to value-enhancement. We must insist upon encouraging our young ones into an active engagement with innovation,” Dr. Mashelkar suggested.

With his face inflamed by wrong definitions being foisted on human thought, eighty-year-old Dr. Mashelkar speaks animatedly about misinterpretation of the process of science and technology: “It is unfortunate that we have built a twisted narrative of Man versus Machine. Much to the contrary, we must have a Man-and-Machine ideology that will help us utilise science and technology in better service of humanity. For, when the concept is right, right action, too, follows. “I have raised these issues at right forums. I have often insisted that the spread of our education should encompass Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and then Mathematics -- in that order. Our education must also have strong teaching and learning of logic, economics and social philosophy”. Obviously, Dr. Mashelkar is talking of a much bigger canvas of education than India’s educational planners and thinkers missed rather for too long. “Of course, things are changing now with the New Education Policy. We have reason to believe that our country would be on the right path,” he says.

A practical -- and rather shallow -- question comes up: Do his massive administrative responsibilities at the topmost level of management of Indian science and its institutions allow him time for his own research work? Promptly comes the answer: “Of course. Every Saturday and Sunday, I am at work in serious research”, as if he wore the burden of his Himalayan responsibilities lightly on his sleeve, as if his rejuvenation of the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) and then the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) were easy-to-handle tasks, as if his heading the national body for innovation does not claim his energy and attention, as if his iconic work of creating a compendium of over 3 crore pages of information in the form of ‘Traditional Knowledge Digital Library’ whose use has been mandated globally ...! What an engagement of lifetime, one wonders. That can be possible only with certain divine energy, one feels. Therefore, the discussion invariably leads to the question of presence of God in science or in the mind of the scientist. How does he look at the idea of God? Dr. Mashelkar smiles and states simply and matter-of-factly, “I am a worshipper of Lord Ganesh. Ganeshbhakt.” For Dr. Mashelkar, obviously, science and spirituality are two sides of the coin of human presence. That explains everything -- and, Brand Mashelkar!