Interviewer:
Shortly after your 21st birthday, your doctors diagnosed that you had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a rare disease for which there is no known cure.
How did you react to the diagnosis? How did you manage to cope with the situation?
Interviewee: My initial reaction was shock and disbelief. I went into a depression. I did not know what to do and what my future would be. But then I told myself that there was no point in spending time worrying about something that we can’t change. In English, there is a saying “What can’t be cured must be endured.” So I decided to live with my disease and continue working as best as I could.
Interviewer: What made you think that life was precious? Can you recollect any particular instance in your life that has become crucial?
Interviewee: I dreamt that I was going to be executed. Suddenly I realized that there were a lot of worthwhile things to do, if I were given some more time to live.
I wanted to do some good things before I died so that people would remember me even after my death. I started thinking that life was precious. My meeting with Jane Wilde was crucial. She liked me in spite of my eccentricity and disease. Her optimism helped me a lot.
Interviewer: It is said that you wrote a book to make science understandable to nonscientists. Is that so?
Interviewee: Yes, that was my plan, I wanted even non-scientists know something about cosmology and the quantum theory. Everybody has heard about Einstein’s theory of relativity and his famous equation E = me2. But how many people know what it means? So I decided to write about science in a language understandable by the common man. But of course, you will find a lot of seeming paradoxes in my writings. But then life is full of paradoxes, isn’t it?
