I have been part of the team for a long time, and have seen our leader very closely. Kshitij once described him as a person who will boldly walk into a street of fast moving cars and take care of the challenges when he is halfway across the road, and still come out to the other side successful. People often question his methods, while some others retort saying that as long as he is successful, it doesn't matter. I believe that his method, irrespective of its success, was the most appropriate for the case at hand - which was conceptualizing and developing a satellite with a team of extremely limited technical expertise and exposure (with the exceptions of stalwarts like Chintal and Saket), and guiding a team most of whose members did not have the satellite as their primary commitment. He is an out and out optimist. Anything lesser and we would have ended up nowhere.
The whole mission had its share of ebbs and flows, and at some points the members lost faith, but everytime I talked to him, I again started to believe. It is quite impossible to demoralize him, as he always has a solution to every adversity. And the solution comes from his strong belief that there is always a solution.
At times, when given a task, if I faced any difficulty, and I thought of going to him for help, I generally found him buried in a thousand problems, and he attended to each of them one by one. I generally returned without posing my problem, not because I would have to wait, but because I felt pity for him that he has to manage so many aspects, and I convinced myself that I sure would be able to take care of my part.
He is now the candidate for many '10 minute' jokes. He smiles sheepishly when reminded of his heroics over the past 3 years..... He is Shantanu Agarwal and he is a legend.
The whole mission had its share of ebbs and flows, and at some points the members lost faith, but everytime I talked to him, I again started to believe. It is quite impossible to demoralize him, as he always has a solution to every adversity. And the solution comes from his strong belief that there is always a solution.
At times, when given a task, if I faced any difficulty, and I thought of going to him for help, I generally found him buried in a thousand problems, and he attended to each of them one by one. I generally returned without posing my problem, not because I would have to wait, but because I felt pity for him that he has to manage so many aspects, and I convinced myself that I sure would be able to take care of my part.
He is now the candidate for many '10 minute' jokes. He smiles sheepishly when reminded of his heroics over the past 3 years..... He is Shantanu Agarwal and he is a legend.
