London, April 23: Indian scientists are known to be excelling overseas, none more so than senior astrophysicist Madhulika Guhathakurta who has just been projected across the world on BBC television as the Nasa spokesperson explaining dramatic new footage of explosions in the sun.

Speaking from the Nasa headquarters near Washington, DC, Madhulika assured The Telegraph: “All my relatives are in Calcutta. I am a Bengali — I am puro Bangaalee akhono (I am totally Bengali even now).”

Commenting on the dramatic footage of loops, flares and sunspots taken from Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched in February, Madhulika explained the significance of the “Living With a Star” mission on which she was the lead scientist.

“If we can understand the physics of the processes taking place, we can issue an alert, ‘Beware, particle radiation is going to increase’,” said Madhulika, who was born in Calcutta, lived there till she was nine and came to the US at 22 to do her PhD at Colorado after finishing her master’s in Delhi.

“It used to be fun for me to do this (science research at Nasa) and share it with them. I knew Kalpana Chawla (killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. She was one of the instrument specialists on one of the missions I was co-investigator on.”

According to Nasa, “Dr Madhulika Guhathakurta --– also known as Lika --– has had the opportunity to work as a scientist, mission designer, instrument builder, directing and managing science programmes and teacher and spokesperson for Nasa’s mission and vision in the ‘heliophysics division’. Occasionally, she performs all of these roles in a single day.”

Her father, Suchandra Guhathakurta, passed away in 1995 and her mother Rani in August last year.

Her parents, she recalls, were always encouraging. “My father was a banker by profession but a poet and very much a philosopher at heart ---– like all Bengalis. I am what I am as a consequence of my growing up in India. You are shaped by the culture around you,” she said.

“I used to sing (in Bengali) --– I still have that deep philosophical connection to the language. I still remember when I was in Calcutta at that age of seven or eight I would drive my father crazy by asking these questions, ‘Where did we come from?’ and look at the stars --– it was just bewildering. He did not shut me down. ‘Sometimes some questions do not have answers,’ he said, ‘Think of a circle. When you see a circle, can you tell me where the beginning or end is?’”

Madhulika said: “I married an Irish American. Robb (Gilford) is a mathematician. I have two children, a son who is 22, Tristan Guha-Gilford, and a daughter who is 15. Her name is Kiran but it is spelt in the Gaelic way --– Ciaran. You take the best from all cultures.”

Madhulika, 53, does not find the sari practical for the lab. “(But) I wear the salwar kameez sometimes. (Former President) Abdul Kalam was here last Sunday and the Indian embassy invited a few of us. I wore a sari after a long time. It was fun meeting this man. I told him, ‘You have influenced me’.”

Perhaps she would similarly influence little girls?

“Why little girls only?” Madhulika responded. “Little girls, little boys (too). In Calcutta, especially, I never felt that I was a girl doing science. In India I never felt that. Don’t you find that fascinating?”