Dr. V.V. Peshwa, Geologist Extraordinaire, 1939-2024

My Guruji, Dr. V. V. Peshwa passed away on August 27, 2024. He was my thesis advisor during my Master's education in Pune. His career as a faculty with the Department of Geology, Pune University (now Savitribai Phule Pune University), was full of distinction and dedication to the noble cause of teaching. Field geology, remote sensing, and mineralogy. He had a mastery over these subjects and taught them with extraordinary clarity. His lectures on mineral optics, delivered without the aid of notes, remain some of the most lucid explanations I have heard on any aspects of geology.  

Dr. Peshwa also set up the remote sensing lab at Pune University in the early 1970's,  having received a specialized Master's degree from the Netherlands. Over the years he amassed a vast collection of aerial photographs and satellite imagery of Indian landscapes, teaching with great panache the fine skills of image interpretation. He was a formidable researcher too, with publications in igneous and metamorphic petrology, remote sensing of the Deccan Basalts and Proterozoic sedimentary basins, and on geohazards. 

I will recount two incidents from my association with him. I had to choose a thesis guide at the end of my first year of Master's course at Pune. I asked Dr. Peshwa if he was willing to be my guide. As was his style, he promptly said no! I was unsure how to persuade him, but fortunately my senior, Anand Kale, came up with a brilliant plan. I was told to sit on a chair outside his room and poke my head inside every few minutes until he said yes. I agreed, and like a security guard sat outside his room all morning. Towards early afternoon Dr. Peshwa had given up trying to ignore this motionless sentry outside his door and agreed to my request, but on one condition. I had to go and map an area in Andhra Pradesh in the Cuddapah Basin.  He had some aerial photos of this place and wanted someone to study a fold structure that was spectacularly exposed near Nandyal town. The imagery below is from ISRO Cartosat.

Folded Cuddapah Group and Kurnool Group sediments south of Gani.

Dr. Peshwa accompanied me during my second trip to the field area. It was mid January and one early morning we set off to the low range of hills, about an hour walk from where we were staying. We worked till the afternoon, and by around 3 pm decided to call it a day. We were running out of water and were famished. We thought we should walk to the next village which was just 15 minutes away, have a snack and then turn back to our camp in Gani village. To our surprise every shop in the village was closed. Dejectedly we started walking to Gani. After a while we spotted a man on a bicycle coming in our direction. We recognized him as a shopkeeper from Gani. He stopped and explained that it was the auspicious day of Pongal and everything was closed. He slipped his hand into a bag and gave us two round dry buns to eat and cycled away. We tried to bite into them, but they was rock hard, harder than the Cuddapah quartzites we were trying to break with a hammer. We collapsed with laughter and trudged along, where our host was waiting for us with a hot sumptuous meal! 

For all his exuberance and light heartedness, Dr. Peshwa never compromised on the quality of work he expected from his students. He supervised with an eagle eye my petrographic analysis, read every word of my thesis, and even sent me back to the library because he thought my literature search was not exhaustive enough. He gave me full independence to follow my interest in carbonate sedimentology, but cautioned me to remain within the bounds of data. He did not like grand theorizing or explanations by 'arm waving'. Some might call him conservative, but it made us into careful researchers, and brought a rigor to our work. 

He remained active in geology long after his retirement, accompanying younger faculty and students to the field and acting as their mentor and advisor. I live near his house and used to stop by once in a while for a chai and long conversations about geology. He will be missed greatly. The picture below shows Dr. Peshwa, seated center, on his 80th birthday.

Now, only all those memories remain to serve as inspiration and to help us stay true to what the rocks are telling us.