"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
‘Audacity to Aspire’ is a story starting from the last leg of colonial rule in India and covering over eight decades of anecdotes narrated in a lucid style by Dr. Jafar, a reputed Geologist/Palaeontologist. It is a memoir starting with a childhood spent in the countryside of the Avadh region of north India with fireflies, sparrows, and the song of the bulbul and the koyal; reaching the highest echelons of scientific achievement and culminating in the free spirit of a true intellectual unfettered by boundaries of subject matter or even by what is popular.
Readers, who may not know several ideas cited in the book, will be delighted as this memoir is laced with scientific information in simple language. For billions of years, the planet earth experienced only peaceful tiny life in the sea without sound. The first sound was probably generated by bony fishes about 400 million years ago. The pictorial documentation along with the emphasis on the power of now and small should inspire others to achieve a better and blissful life.
Syed Abbas Jafar
Dr. Jafar, a reputed Geologist/Palaeontologist trained in Austria and Germany, was the youngest son of Syed Hamid Hasan, a Tehsildar who was forced into retirement as his eldest son fought the British in India tooth and nail.
Jafar’s intense love for nature nurtured in his childhood made him learn varied disciplines of science. He was a middle-class boy who climbed up the ladder of academics to carve out for himself an illustrious career in science. His abiding love for nature made him ponder over the geometry of the cosmos. It also matched his passion for the micro-cosmos which he observed over several decades of engagement with the high-power electron microscope.
This memoir is an interesting read about times that remind us of what life was like more than eight decades ago, scientific work that goes back millions of years and reflections from a curious mind about problems that will stay relevant now and in the future.
Dr. Jafar lives in Bangalore with his wife, Ann Satwatara Jafar. They have three children and four grandchildren.
