Here’s The Inspiring Story Of The Scientist Who Left His NASA Job To Become A Film-maker

Most of us crib about meagre salaries and restrict ourselves from following our passion. Think about it. Making a whole lot of sacrifices, following your dreams and doing something you truly love are the most fulfilling things you can ever do.

The NASA scientist-turned inventor-turned filmmaker, Dr. Bedabrata Pain, is different and he falls in this category.

Bedabrata Pain is the inventor of the sensor technology that we use in cameras now. He had a career at NASA, worked there for 15 years but left it for the sake of filmmaking, knowing that he won’t be earning 10% of what he used to earn there.

Why?

Because, if you want something, dive into it and the world will make it happen.

In the 1990s, Bedabrata Pain joined NASA and used to teach courses on CMOS imaging at many reputed institutions.

Not just that, he had chaired international conferences and was invited as the speaker at several conferences.

 

Later, along with his 4 friends, he went on to invent the active pixel sensor technology that produced the world’s smallest camera.

It has been inducted to the US Space Technology Hall of Fame.

 

Now his technology that enables cameras to capture light digitally, at a very low cost is used in almost 95% of all the digital cameras.

…from cell-phone cameras to movie cameras to those in space telescopes.

 

At the age of 45, he took a huge risk and left NASA.

His life motto: What’s the point of living if you don’t challenge yourself continuously?

No human being can stay away from art and that too good cinema. This was like jumping from top of his field to a point where he was scraping the bottom of an unknown barrel.

 

He didn’t have the slightest idea of what life had in store when he embarked on making the movie Chittagong in 2008, with all the money he had saved up from his inventions.

It was set against the backdrop of the Chittagong uprising in the 1930s, where a group of schoolboys and young women, led by a schoolteacher, Masterda Surya Sen, took on the British Empire.

 

Chittagong released on 12 October 2012 and won the National Film Award for the Best Debut Film of a Director.

Not Tarantino and Scorcese, but his inspiration are Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.

Taking up cinema as a profession when you are doing it independently takes a lot of courage. Also, it’s not easy to balance rocket science and filmmaking.

You sir, are an inspiration! 🙂

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