ISRO Chairman S Somanath commenced his session at the 5th edition of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters with his childhood memories about reading. “I began to see the world from the books my father brought home along with the sack of ration”, he said.

On the dias, it’s not the  ISRO Chairman we saw. We witnessed a simple man instead, a boy born into an ordinary family with a thirst for knowledge, a graduate from Maharaja’s College, and a fellow Malayali merely engaging in a casual conversation with his peer V J James. 

He delved into a discussion outside the world of numbers and rockets and talked about his love for reading and music instead. 

“Reading has always been a passion for me. It was the only source for me to know the world. I used to read the translations of Russian classics, travelogues of S.K. Pottekkatt, and stories of Nandanar. “Fyodor Dostoevsky was my favorite. I used to read across all genres”, Somnath recalled.

He also talked about his love for music. 

“I always sing while I work. I enjoy singing. But I have a problem. I look into the engineering of music. The frequencies in the swaras and how the arrangement of swaras makes us happy or sad. It intrigues me,” Somanath said. 

Returning to his forte, Somanath also spoke about the current research in the field of Indian space.

 “The new era calls for the privatisation of space programs. We should have our own space station. There should be more explorations on the moon”,  he opined. 

He also noted that if space programs are to surge as an economic activity, they need to be opened up to the outside world. “Then there would be real growth," said the ISRO chief.