Curiosity is the catalyst. I just lower the activation energy.

I fell for chemistry at eleven, when a teacher dropped potassium permanganate into glycerine and the bench caught fire in the most educational way possible. I finished a Ph.D. in organic synthesis, spent two years at a pharma bench, and then admitted what I'd known since that fire: I wanted to be the person holding the demonstration.

Fourteen years on, my lab runs like a kitchen and reads like a courtroom — everything gets tested, everything gets logged. My students have standardised their own solutions since Grade 9, run a soap-and-ester micro-business for the school fete, and walked out with 278 NEET and JEE qualifications. The board average sits at 95%; the safety record sits at perfect.

If your school wants a chemistry department where the lab is used weekly instead of photographed for the brochure — where children argue about mechanisms at lunch — mix me in. I bring my own flame-test kit.