Deblina Sarkar is not keen to tell her story. She is not disinterested either. Over a Zoom call from Boston, US, she comes across as matter of fact, pleasant and rooted in her work — she cannot wait to be done with this interview and return to the lab.

The story of her journey from rural Bengal to Boston is full of silences — studied, not awkward — and shorn of specifics as if she has already measured the distance she wants to maintain between her story and audience.

But when she does talk, she doesn’t do platitudes. When I ask her what it is she wanted to do as a girl, she replies, “I wanted to create knowledge, add to the production of knowledge rather than just implement what already exists.” She says it simply, self-assuredly and in a non-self-important tone. If I slip into Bangla, she too replies in her mother tongue, but switches to English whenever she is discussing her work and the specifics of it.

And, yes, the only time she shows emotion and smiles a wide smile that rises to her eyes is when she talks about her parents, Barid Baran and Asima, and nephews Qubit and Quitron.