On a Royal Enfield to Create Ramans

Like any other kid, Srinivas Chamarthy told his classteacher that he would become a scientist when he grows up. Unlike other kids, who aim to be an astronaut, pilot, dog trainer etc as a kid and later end up venturing into another  profession altogether, Srinivas lived up to his childhood ambition of being an innovator. Well, what makes him news worthy is that this engineer-cum-innovator is yearning to generate more CV Ramans, Abdul Kalams and MS Swaminathans to create scientific and economic revolution.

What makes him stand out is that he adds the contemporary swag to his attempts. He goes around on his Royal Enfield to engineering colleges, to motivate, shake and wake up the inventor in every student.

“I had created ‘A Journey To Realize Self’ group to create a useful change in society which can promote innovation in our country. To innovate efficiently we should know our capabilities and limitations and areas in which we can improve. Hence the name ‘A Journey To Realize Self’ was coined. It is a journey of rides, interactions, learning, sharing and above all self realisation of our capabilities to innovate. This is a socio-scientific goal. Whatever I learnt in my experience I am going around sharing,” informs Srinivas with a smile.

He started the initiative informally in 1999 when he was still a student. However the scope was limited only to his juniors and fellow students in his college. He formally started it on July 14, 2015. So far, he has visited more than 4,500 engineering colleges, MBA colleges and uncountable number of science colleges. His only aim now is to converge young minds to think towards innovation.

“Social Revolution is a continuous process. To ensure proper social revolution, we should have efficient economic revolution. There is never pure social revolution in the world history and economic revolution can be obtained only through efficient scientific revolution. I want to be a part of this process of adding value to our country,” explains the bio-medical engineer who holds a MTech major.   

“I left many lucrative opportunities to travel abroad and did not want to travel outside India for a job. The social challenge I accepted internally is that I will stay in India, work in India for innovation. Well wishers say that this a costly mistake but I have evolved from my socialistic thoughts so want to continue on that,” the man, who innovated a few products for the defense and other locomotives.

“Many of the students whom I molded in that past 10 years are in very good creative work profiles so this itself speaks about my goals. A few are working for DRDO and many more research places,” he explains.

Talking about his biking, he says, “Riding a Royal Enfield was a personal choice. I just mentioned the goal, rides and the community, head of Royal Enfield Sachin Chavan immediately offered the bike. I have limited financial resources to do this activity and biking is the best and cheapest method of travel. Also added advantage of this is, I can feel my country, stop where I want, talk to people, understand culture, life style and be a part of them. This does not happen in any other modes of transport,” he laughs.

Srinivas has covered 17 states so far. “I will cover 35, 300 km from July 14, 2016. Total lectures delivered in all spots are 139 lectures till end of previous phase, which was completed on April 2, 2016. There is no sponsor for this activity.  I have to earn and spend. I run a micro technology firm and whatever we earn out of it and some personal savings are used for this activity,” he elucidates.

“I fell from the bike a couple of times. Once, I got delayed after a lecture in NIT Sikkim. It was dark at 5:30 pm. Due to a landslide, I slipped and almost slid for 100 feet downhill. I was lying under the bike for more than 40 minutes until the locals helped me. I was affected by dengue and malaria in my journey. I faced problem not knowing the local languge in a few places and some people wondered why this stranger is traveling to their town. But everything ended with a simple smile and a note of courtesy after a talk. People loved me,”  Srinivas concludes.