Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is the 2014 recipient of the SPIE Dennis Gabor Award. He is a Fellow of the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), and a Distinguished Fellow of the Optical Society of India (OSI). He was Editor-in-chief of the international journal of Optics and Lasers in Engineering (Elsevier, Oxford) between 1999 and 2019. He was the founding Swiss coordinator of the Indo-Swiss bilateral research program in science and technology (S&T) between the years 2004 and 2011. He is also a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar, India.

Prof Rastogi is also a poet. His poems have been published in international journals like Muse India, Contemporary Literary Review India, Verbal Art, Phenomenal Literature, Mediterranean Poetry, The Beautiful space, Borderless journal, Indian Literature, and Soul-lit.

Pramod Rastogi

---

 

Day Dreaming

Slightly off-color, she stood with her umbrella
On the corner of a street when I first saw her.
The day was grey, and winds were high.

Our eyes met by chance. The arrow was at its mark.
A life had felt the pain. She wore a tender look.
Still, her eyes looked sad, and I could only sigh.

Spring in the throes of autumn, I was petrified.
No footfalls echoed on the street. It was asleep.
I was the lone man present as the clock struck one.

My shadow left me to envelop her in its arms
With its dreamy eyes clinging to hers.
A dog with a rose on its collar passed by.

Her eyes lit up. I fell under their spell.