Fulbright scholar’s dream was to take kids to Antarctica

Panaji: Three days after academic and researcher Gauri Achari was brutally murdered by a gym trainer in her car outside her residences, teachers who worked closely with her are still in a state of shock. Her colleagues say her death isn’t just a loss for Goa, but for the field of microbiology as a whole.
Achari was a teacher at the Government College, Khandola.She had approached Gaurav Bidre as her trainer, and the two struck up a friendship. However, last month, Achari told Bidre she wasn’t interested in continuing the friendship.
On Friday, Bidre waited outside her house as she returned from college, and when she didn’t entertain him, he accosted her, entered her car, and strangled her, brutally cutting short a flourishing academic and research career.
Just last year, Achari was given the senior scientist award by the Microbiologists Society of India (MSI).
She was not only a Fulbright scholar, but on Sunday, she was to leave for Serbia to present her research at a conference of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). The scholar was then to head to Sydney for another project, and she would be based there for six months.
A year-long stay at Antarctica was lined up next, to study Antarctic soil and how the vegetation there is able to survive the cold stress.
“Her dream was to take her Goan students to Antarctica. She strongly believed that her postgraduate microbiology students needed to be given that kind of exposure. She wanted to go to Antarctica first, which would pave way for students,” said principal of her college, Purnakala Samant.
After her post-doctoral fellowship at BITS-Pilani’s Goa campus, Achari had joined the microbiology department at the Khandola college only in May last year, but left a deep mark on the students and colleagues there for her unmatched dedication.
“Achari taught both undergraduate and postgraduate students at the college,” said Samant. “She was very professional, very focused, and so dedicated to research that I had only posted her for research without involving her in any other committees. Her visit to Serbia was sponsored by the department of science and technology, government of India. She was really talented.”
Dilecta D’Costa, head of the department of microbiology and coordinator of the postgraduate programme, remembers Achari as always engrossed in her laptop, busy applying for some conference or research project in India or across the globe.
“She was an excellent academician and a very good teacher, and she would go an extra mile to show the students through example,” said D’Costa. “She would not only use lectures but other modes of teaching like visual aids. Microbiology also involves bioinformatics, and so she even did a Swayam course, so she could teach that subject very well as it is one subject we offer for the PG programme.”
Achari, said D’Costa, was known to be strong-willed and extremely disciplined.
“She had vast knowledge in the subject and her research is par excellence,” D’Costa remembers. “She would not waste a single minute. I cannot understand how such a thing could happen to her. She was someone who could meet any challenge. Only recently, she informed me about her selection for the 42nd Antarctica expedition after presenting her paper at the National Centre for Ocean and Polar Research. Her death is a loss of an asset.”
Passionate about yoga, Achari was known to be a fitness freak, for whom running a 25km marathon was a cakewalk. In April 2020, she volunteered at GMC’s virology laboratory despite the risks involved, at a time when the virus terrified most people and much was unknown about it. At the time, industrialist Shrinivas Dempo too tweeted his praise for the scientist, saying “proud of our very own #CovidWarrior... for her service to Goa and India”.
Between her fitness and research schedule, a nature lover, she would make time for trekking, camping and birdwatching, remember her colleagues.
“She was always very professional, but on June 20, she called me to tell me that she wanted to speak to me about something personal,” a colleague told TOI. “She told me it is a long story, but in short, she was being stalked by a man. I advised her to file a police complaint and I was later told that she filed the complaint. The gym trainer had first threatened to kill her mother.”
At her funeral on Sunday, the attendees noticed the bruises on Achari’s face, possibly indicating a brutal assault before she was murdered. “It is very hard to believe she was there one minute and the next minute, she is gone. She was very daring, and it is hard to believe what happened,” said a colleague.