A tall, well-built man, with pepper-and-salt hair, wearing a safari suit and walking with long strides in a Mayapuri colony every evening, his wife trying to keep pace with him – that’s the image one has in mind of Dr. Tribhuwan Nath Upadhay. The Hindi litterateur was presented the Indira Gandhi Raj Bhasha Award for his path-breaking book, Brahmand Aur Telescope ( Universe & Telescope ) last week by President Pranab Mukherjee. The book was co-authored by Kali Shankar, who received the award along with him at the Vigyan Bhavan function.
Born at Mau, UP, in 1949, he got his Ph.D degree from Chaudhury Charan Singh University, Meerut, and worked as a scientist in the Defence Institute of Physiology and Applied Sciences, a part of DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) in Delhi, from where he retired.
He has done research work in the field of high altitude physiology and environmental science, authorized several research papers and published five books on scientific subjects. Among the awards he has won, besides the recent one, are Rear Admiral M. S. Malhotra awards for 1982 and 1994 on gastro-intestinal function in humans at high altitudes. He also won the cash award at the February 2000 AIBI conference in Vellore for the best paper on biochemical changes in human blood after long-term consumption of brackish water and the second prize awarded by DRDO in 2010 on human existence in the high mountains. All his works have been in Hindi, a language sorely in need of more publications in science.
Upadhyay’s grandfather, Hari Shankar, was a famous poet and writer as are two of his uncles. Though a man of science, he is deeply religious and a yoga enthusiast influenced by Osho and Shri Yoganandji. A fond grandfather, he still continues to write and shares his interests with wife Lakshmi, a former principal, along with whom he visits lonely colony residents in his spare time.
