After many childhood struggles, Damodara, an outstanding and excellent student passed his matriculation examination with a first class in 1957 and joined the prestigious D. M. College in Imphal, Manipur. He obtained his Intermediate Science Degree in 1959, and graduated with First Class Honors in Chemistry in 1961. He later acquired his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology in 1963 and further obtained his Master of Technology degree with First Class in Pharmaceutical Science from Calcutta University in 1964. Shortly thereafter, Damodara was awarded an overseas scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Government of India, to further his studies in the United States of America.

Damodara obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, USA (1974) under the able guidance of the famous inventor of “Taft equations” in Physical Organic Chemistry, Prof. Robert W. Taft. His Ph.D. thesis was on “Base Catalysis and Activation Parameters of the Aminolysis and Methanolysis of p-Nitrophenyl Trifluroacetate in Aprotic Solvents.” Based on his observations, he stated in his thesis an extraordinary phenomenon of an increase in the rate of the reaction with a decrease in temperature. Subsequently, he also worked as a research fellow at Emory University for two years (1974 – 1976) and published many papers in the Journal of American Chemical Society and the Journal of Organic Chemistry in the field of fast proton transfer kinetics in model biological systems using stopped-flow technique and NMR spectroscopy.2 He also worked on gas phase reaction mechanisms using Ion Cyclotron Resonance (ICR) spectroscopy.