Very simple & humble, sensitive but tough, different but very natural, an extraordinary person, a genius… These are a few words used to describe late Dr. Amith Munindranasa, well known as "Amith Sir". We would like to reveal the person we knew during the past years as he was so unique & different from other great personnel.
"He is a simple, noble and humble man…"
On his first lecture back at our university after his PhD, he was waiting in the corner of the lecture room, in a t-shirt and denim as he usual. No one realized that he was a lecturer. Someone said, "Machang, switch on the fan"; he thought it wasn't for him. The same person shouted this time; "Ado, daapan fan eka, kan ehennnedda?" Then sir nodded his head and switched on the fan. After a few minutes he went straight to the podium and commenced the lecture. As "Amith Sir" mentioned later, the person who scolded was sweating all the time although he was seated under a fan, and he was so careful not to look at him or otherwise he would have fainted.
"A living encyclopedia from quantum physics to philosophy through nature…"
He was a strong & confidential character. He loved arguments. At times he gave a hint on a topic and leads us to a discussion; seated on a chair at the corner; watching and listening to us carefully. For us, he was a person who knew almost everything, not slightly but very deep. Sometimes we were afraid to talk as we didn't know the subject exactly. But it was very interesting listening to him. He was a person who knew exactly what he was talking about and an innovative thinker who saw things at a different angle.
"A man with a fourth dimension…"
He never locked his defender as he believed it won't be a big deal for someone with a sense of a fourth dimension to break up into the three dimensional space we have locked (i.e. a person with the sense of the fourth dimension can easily get into the locked jeep!). Then he asks; "so what's the use of locking it?"
"He saw the invisible angle in all things that aroused curiosity…"
Once at Sinharaja, "Amith Sir" was very curious about the mechanism of a spring knife which belonged to one of his friends. He believed that the mechanism used to manufacture the knife had to be a special one, and started dismantling it to discover. Ultimately he succeeded in understanding the principal behind its manufacturing process, but couldn't fix it back to the original state. Another friend of his volunteered to fix it back, and then he explained that the force needed to compress the spring could not be given by hand but in a test lab. The rest of the work at Sinharaja had to be done without that knife!
He once gave an interesting and realistic answer for a question raised at a seminar. The question was on "why engineers are unable to invent things at present". His answer was "the simple reason is that parents today do not allow their children even to break their own toys!!!"
"A man who believed on Nature…"
"Amith Sir" always loved and regarded the natural phenomena. He never was concerned about his health, saying that "We have to accept any matter which is natural to anyone". Our dearest sir would have had thought the same about his demise but we couldn't, because loosing him is a loss of a guide to a whole new world for us.
"All human beings and nature will sing in harmony of your great service…Dear Sir!"
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compiled by: "WUS" & "Nature team" members in 2007
