Tattva

“Here was the pride of India, the man whom the English had moved heaven and earth to bring to Cambridge” - says Robert Kanigel, the author of the book “The man who knew Infinity”.

He was talking about a towering mathematical figure, Srinvasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a self-taught mathematical prodigy from the small town of Kumbakonam in southern India. Despite being from a poor family, Ramanujan carved a niche for himself in the world of mathematics through sheer persistence and belief in his ability. Lack of formal training did not prevent him from reaching the highest echelons of the mathematical world of his times, Trinity college - Cambridge University.

Those were very productive years when he made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. He also published a total of 21 major papers during his time at England.

The most remarkable aspect about him was his intuition. Even today mathematicians are baffled by his leaps of intuition. His theorems have found application in areas such as polymer chemistry, computers and some claim even cancer.

The mathematician in Ramanujan walked hand in hand with the devout Hindu in him. His religio-cultural beliefs were never an impediment to the world of his work which demanded hard proofs for everything. He was at ease with his religious conviction as he was working with numbers. In fact he attributed his gift to the divine. For all major decisions in his life he took counsel of his family deity ( “Thaayaar of Namakkal” - for want of better phrase it translates as Goddess of Namakkal) and there is enough evidence to suggest that he never felt the need to question the practice. As a matter of fact, he simply grew up with it. Like any other Hindu child he grew up listening to the stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Being a lad from a temple town, all aspects of the Hindu religion were permeated in the culture around him. He was comfortable in the mathematical as well as the mystical realm and often intertwined them. He once said ” An equation for me has no meaning, unless it expresses a thought of God”. “

Like Achilles he died young, like Achilles he won everlasting fame” - writes Robert Kanigel in ” The man who knew infinity”. Ramanujan died young. He was only 32 when he died of tuberculosis. But by then he had achieved rare honors as a mathematician. He completed the Bachelor of Research degree which is the modern day equivalent of a PhD, from Trinity college, Cambridge He was elected Fellow of Royal society as well as Fellow of Cambridge Society. Most importantly the recognition meant a lot to him. They assured him that he was success in his chosen pursuit. He was hailed a hero in the Indian mathematical circles for his achievements.

Despite all the deserving fame he received, Ramanujan was forgotten for decades, sadly in his own country, India. Not until 1962 a stamp was released in his honor. His widow lived an anonymous life and the State of Tamil Nadu provided her with a pension only in her twilight years. For most of her life she earnt a livelihood by stitching garments. It was as late as 2003 when Ramanujan’s house was converted into a museum, thus dedicating it to the nation. Even today there is no academic chair in his honor in any of the leading universities in India. Most of the honors bestowed upon were initiated in the west. Today there is a journal in his honor, ‘The Ramanujan journal’ but it was not an initiative from the mathematical circles in India, rather it was an initiative based in the US.

There have been many plays and documentaries on Ramanujan. But again all of those are based in the west, such as ‘ Letters from an Indian clerk’ a documentary by Christopher Sykes. More recently there was a play in UC Berkeley, called ‘Partition’ whose main characters where G.H.Hardy and Ramanujan. Recently it was reported that some British filmmakers plan to make a film on the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute’s ( based in Berkeley) money raising arm, Archimedes society even has a donor number in honor of Ramanujan where donors giving $730 or $1729 are called Ramanujan donors. The Ramanujan prize is given annually to promising mathematicians from the developing world and it is sponsored by the Niels Henrik Abel memorial fund. While honors are being heaped upon in the west why we in India are parsimonious in bestowing honor upon our own? The efforts of the Ramanujan mathematical society and Srinivasa Ramanujan center based in Kumbakonam are a start but we need to do lot more.

Ramanujan was a small town lad, and also from a poor family. His life is a genuine inspiration and hope for those of disadvantaged background seeking to make their place in the academic world, especially in the field of mathematics. His is a story that deserves to be widely told and his achievements widely celebrated.

Sources: (i) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan(ii) The Man who knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel

Sashidharan Komandur is a PhD Student in the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Washington. You can reach him at sash.kom@gmail.com

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