CV (html)
Me
The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Solitude of Latin America
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
Steven Weinberg
The First Three Minutes
I am presently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, IIT Madras, where I joined in 2012. I did my schooling from Amravati, a small city in the central Indian state of Maharashtra. I finished my Bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and Masters in Physics, from BITS, Pilani (2000-2005). Subsequently, I joined IUCAA, Pune for Ph.D., which I completed under Prof. T. Padmanabhan in 2010. I then joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Brunswick, Canada, as a postdoc with Prof. Viqar Husain, from 2010-2012.
A more complete record of my academic journey can be found in my CV.
Publications
Talks
Research Themes
Thus far I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by
the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power ... I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity
from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses (...) have no place in experimental philosophy...
Isaac Newton
General Scholium, Principia
My research interests mostly include topics in Classical General Relativity (GR), Black Hole physics, and Quantum Field Theory (QFT) in non-trivial backgrounds, with the aim of probing the role of spacetime curvature on quantum dynamics of ordinary systems. Such analyses are key to a better understanding of, and a clear distinction between, the essential and non-essential features of any candidate framework of quantum gravity and its (semi-)classical implications. Clues for quantum gravity might be hidden in plain sight, one just needs to probe deeper the emerging connections between gravity, spacetime, thermodynamics, and information.
More details in links below.
Port
The Universe
नास॑दासी॒न्नो सदा॑सीत्त॒दानीं॒ नासी॒द्रजो॒ नो व्यो॑मा प॒रो यत् ।
किमाव॑रीवः॒ कुह॒ कस्य॒ शर्म॒न्नम्भः॒ किमा॑सी॒द्गह॑नं गभी॒रम्
॥१॥
Then (in the beginning) there was neither existence nor non-existence. There was no space nor was there anything beyond. (In such a situation) what should encompass (what)? For whose benefit? Was there the dense and deep water?
को अ॒द्धा वे॑द॒ क इ॒ह प्र वो॑च॒त्कुत॒ आजा॑ता॒ कुत॑ इ॒यं विसृ॑ष्टिः ।
अ॒र्वाग्दे॒वा अ॒स्य वि॒सर्ज॑ने॒नाथा॒ को वे॑द॒ यत॑ आब॒भूव॑ ॥६॥
Who will tell in detail how and from where came the expanse of the existing? Who knows for sure? Even Gods came after creation. So who would know wherefrom the creation came?
Nāsadīya Sūkta
Rigveda X. 129
(English translation from J. Narlikar, Origin (?) of the Universe, Resonance 1996)
