It was a chilly November morning in Pune where I arrived last night from Chennai. I had just finished my end semester examinations and was in a "vacation" mood then. Alas! I had to start my project that day itself. After a smooth ride from Pashan, I reached the University of Pune campus where we started searching for National Center for Radio Astrophysics. The campus is quite huge and beautiful and my institute lies at one end of the lush green area. After an introduction with my supervisors, I sat on the bus and started my journey towards the GMRT observatory in Khodad village- an array of 30 radio antennas about 100 km from the city of Pune. One of the best 2 months of my life had just begun.
The journey from Pune to Khodad village is amazing with breathtaking views of the Deccan plateau at regular intervals. The highway is quite small and consists of just 2 lanes. But since the traffic is quite less, this is not much of a trouble. After about 1 hour, the bus takes a detour to a small village road and I knew I was now near the antennas. A 20 minute ride in the village road leads to a group of one storey buildings with the name Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at the entrance. It was nine in the morning and I was already very hungry, so I took off for breakfast at the canteen where I had some informal discussions with my supervisors. The entire day thereafter was spent on understanding what the project was about, the technical things that I would have to know, theories I have to read and I was given an analysis code which I would be using for the entire duration of my stay. So to be short- I was testing the new Broadband feeds there using pulsars- highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Neutron stars? - they are remnants of a supernova explosion. Supernova explosion? Ah! forget it! Just google "pulsars" and you'll get to know everything if you're interested.
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| One of the antennas of GMRT |
So, for the next 2 months, I kept wandering around the campus during my free time and once even I got a guided tour of the campus where we were taken inside the antenna. The electronics are kept at low temperatures to reduce thermal noise. The landscape around the campus was breathtaking a each day I was pleased with myself to have chosen to do a project here. There were some downsides to this "vacation" as I was not allowed to go home and I terribly missed my family and friends sometimes. But everything was worth it when you wake up to a very clean village air every morning with no noise of buses or cars to annoy you. There were sugarcane fields all over the place and at least once I wanted to have the sugarcane beside the crop fields during my stay there. We got strawberries at very cheap rates from a person working at GMRT who had a farm nearby. The sunrise at GMRT were one of the most beautiful scenes from the entire day and one would be short of words to describe the serenity and calmness in the landscape.
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| Sunrise at GMRT |
The nearest busy area you'll get is about 14 kms from the campus at a place called Narayangaon. The GMRT jeeps run every hour to this place for people to do shopping etc. I used to go there almost everyday to use my cellphone as inside the GMRT campus you are strictly not allowed to use cellphones as they might interfere with the radio data. That was one of the challenging things at GMRT as living without a phone these days seem next to impossible. I am glad that I maintained that rule for nearly 2 months of my stay and in fact learned to live without phone after this experience. Couple of food items I like at Narayangaon are misal pav - a very very spicy dish and the ladoos there for Rs 5. The fruits you get here are quite sweet as well. The main landmark in Narayangaon is the bus station where you can get buses to Shirdi, Nashik, Pune and quite a few more places. As the highway is quite small, the junction of this village is always crowded and full of traffic. If you are unlucky, you can get stuck in traffic for hours sometimes. But that is rare.
The moment you leave the highway and enter the road for Khodad village, one can see couple of hills, one of them pretty huge - Narayangad. I always wanted to trek there and got the chance twice with some friends I made during my stay there. Both the times, I went to a different part of the hill and got a different view of the whole village.
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| The antenna array as seen from Narayangad during my first trek. |
During my first trek, it was quite foggy but it gave a nice appearance to the antennas as they seemed to be in a bed of clouds. It was early in the morning on a Sunday and there could be nothing better than climbing at the top of a hill and for what its worth- it was one of the best views I have had during my travel there. We were back soon as we did not find an appropriate track to go further up. But we found the correct way during our second trek. This time the group was bigger and it took us nearly 2 hours to get to the top where there is a temple. And I got my wish! I ate sugarcane beside the crop field after we came down from the hill. The farmer had kept open the water for irrigation. To my surprise, this water was safe enough to drink and I never thought that water could be this tasty.
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| Narayangad hill |
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| Me (left) with the farmer |
One of the best thing in GMRT is the staff here is very friendly and helpful. Due to a delay during the second trek, they saved some food for us and served it even after the lunch hours. the rooms were very clean and comfortable lodging facilities were in place. The hostel here had many games to play and there was even a cricket tournament while I was there. Staying at the observatory itself is a very hard job as it gets lonely sometimes, but I have seen a different sort of life here. The observatory provides a very healthy environment to do fruitful research and I have no doubt that some day I would like to come back here and make my own observations. I remember a meteor shower that was supposed to take place during mid-December and some of us stayed awake the whole night to catch a glimpse of the event. My friend at managed to capture one of the shooting stars in his camera. The sky here is clear like a crystal. There are countless number of stars and one would really wish for a romantic night with his/her partner :D
I used to go away for weekends to the city of Pune and traveled to Lavasa, Mumbai, Shirdi etc and I would say it was a pleasure working in GMRT. I have not talked much about my work in this post so it might seem like I just had a vacation. But I did all the fun only during the weekends and free time of the day. I am very grateful to every staff and professor at the observatory who made my stay very comfortable and I would really suggest people to visit this place and if you chose a career in the field of astrophysics, GMRT would be a very good choice to do a PhD or research or even internships.
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