Cells, shutters and soundwaves

She is a biologist who once headed the National Institute of Immunology, but she has also been a cricketer, a photographer, a radio commentator. Meet Chandrima Shaha

- Bhanuj Kappal

Think of her as the Renaissance woman. Biologist Chandrima Shaha, 72, has headed the National Institute of Immunology (NII) and was the first woman president of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA; appointed in 2020).

She has also been a professional cricketer, a radio commentator, and an award-winning photographer. She has been a relentless champion of gender equality in the male-dominated pure sciences.

She has lived her life in a spirit of "nothing is impossible", says Suprakash C Roy, co-author of a new biography of Shaha.

Roy, a physicist and former editor-in-chief of the journal Science and Culture, worked on the biography for years, with co-author Rajinder Singh, a science historian at the University of Oldenburg in Germany and professor emeritus at Chandigarh's Punjab University. This is their tenth such collaboration; most of their previous ones have also been the untold stories of Indian scientists.

Today's young people need to know the rich history of research in India, Roy says. And it could help them to know about the challenges they will likely face.

Back to Shaha, she was born in a forward-looking, cosmopolitan Calcutta, in 1952.

Her father Shambu Shaha was an accomplished photographer. Her mother Karuna Shaha was a feminist, painter, singer and freedom fighter. The legendary theoretical physicist Satyendra Nath Bose was a family friend, and was among the artists and scholars who frequently visited the Shaha home.