The more I attend seminars and gatherings related to welding, the more I get the feeling that welding is at the risk of going the Sanskrit way – a scenario where there are far more number of scholars than speakers.

This is not to diminish the contribution of scholarly and academic work to the field of welding. To increase the impact of these scholarly works, we need to ensure that there are enough practitioners of welding out there who would benefit from the scholarly work.

At the moment, there is a huge shortage of actual welders. Something has to be done on a war-footing to address this, including usage of simulators, and running awareness campaigns on welding as a career option. Last but not least, all of us need to work towards eliminating the stigma normally associated with work done with hands.