Asoke Chandra Das Chaklader

After a long, fabulously successful and very consequential life to many, Asoke’s eternal spiritual journey entered a new realm on August 27th. He passed peacefully in front of friend and family at 94. He leaves behind his wife of 65 years Baby (Radha) and sons Anjan and Aloke (Chuck). He was born in rural Bengal, India in 1929 or 1930 (he’s never been entirely sure when). During his childhood he contracted cholera and typhoid and nearly died more than once. At the urging of his father, Asoke entered the Bengal Ceramic Institute in Calcutta after high school and excelled. However, as he entered adulthood he lost both his parents suddenly, who left behind a family of 5. Being the oldest son he looked after them as best as he could and got a job in a laboratory. There, his work was noticed by a visiting British academic who recommended him to several prestigious universities in England with scholarship offers, as he was virtually penniless. In 1954 he entered Leeds University and in just 3 years received his Ph.D in Ceramics. His work was recognized throughout the world as he was the recipient of the highest academic awards in the UK.

Major universities around the world came calling to recruit him to their faculty when he decided to leave Leeds in 1959. He was torn between returning to India to take care of his siblings and taking advantage of these opportunities. University of British Columbia, a rather obscure institution globally at the time, was desperate to start an advanced ceramic program in the Department of Metallurgy and gave him a financial offer he couldn’t refuse with a promise to pay his full expenses to return to India after 2 years if chose. He arrived in Vancouver in 1960 and hit the ground running with his new ceramic program. It flourished under his founding and leadership and he never left UBC, an institution he came to love. He had numerous lucrative offers to leave for private business or more prestigious academic institutions but never seriously considered them. He was proud to be, he believed, the first South Asian full time UBC faculty member. Affectionately known as “Chak” to his colleagues, he received more than a dozen patents and published 140 journal articles. Notably, he was involved in the design of ceramic components for the NASA space shuttle. He made numerous close, lifelong friendships in the UBC Metallurgy Department, which was unusually (for an academic department) collegial during his time there. He retired in 1995 and was proudly Professor Emeritus until he passed.

However, he was much more than just a world renowned academic scientist. Although he never returned to India he was to make sure his siblings were taken care of and arranged for 2 of his younger sisters to settle in the UK. Today, multiple generations of Chakladers all over the world talk about him reverential terms. He was a proud Bengali and a founding member of the Lower Mainland Bengali Cultural Society. Despite his Indian heritage, he was a proud Canadian, prominently wearing his maple leaf lapel at international conferences. He was also a founding member of the spiritual Vivekananda Vedanta Society of British Columbia, which promotes harmony and recognition of truth in all major religions. Asoke embraced spirituality in middle age and it became increasingly important in his life. He was known to meditate for hours per day and he credited this with being able to cope with workplace stress and living into his 90’s. He firmly believed in the eternal soul, continuous reincarnation and karma. Living a long life was not his objective, or even desire, but he did so with class, generosity, tremendous accomplishment and humbleness. He always credited divine intervention for his success opposed to his own doing. Warm thanks to the staff at St. John’s Hospice, a wonderful institution that provided him with as an enjoyable final 7 weeks of his life as he could have imagined. Also thanks to the many doctors and nurses that treated him over the years through a myriad of health issues, who somehow kept him going into his 90’s.