Exactly a week ago, the day it rained most unexpectedly and with such intensity in our city, I was at the Ramanujan IT Park, or the Ramanujan Intellion as it is named. For those who do not know, it is one of the IT SEZs in Taramani. Going for the inauguration of the new office interiors of Latent View Analytics, one of the occupants, I could not help noticing that the four towers in the complex had been most creatively named. The IT Park itself is named after the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
The Four Towers and Their Names
Not just that, this had been done by someone with deep interest in and awareness of the brilliant mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s short life. The four towers are named Carr, Hardy, Neville and Littlewood. All four were mathematicians who were at Cambridge and played important roles in ensuring that the world recognised Ramanujan. Commending silently whoever it was that had thought of these four men, I could not help thinking as to whom I would have named the towers after, had I been given such a choice.
Janaki, the wife of Ramanujan
The first would undoubtedly have been Janaki Tower, after Ramanujan’s wife, who was with him for a very brief while and led much of her long life in straitened circumstances. That she cared deeply for her husband is clear from several accounts but what is amazing is the dignity and independence with which she led her later life, taking in an orphaned boy of the neighbourhood and bringing him up as well. Janaki was a tower herself, of strength.
R Narayana Aiyar – who believed in Ramanujan
My next name would be R Narayana Aiyar, Senior Accountant at the Madras Port Trust who was also Treasurer of the Indian Mathematical Society. While there were other members of the latter body who also helped, it was Aiyar who made sure that Ramanujan was given employment at the Port Trust – as a clerk drawing a monthly salary of Rs 30. But more importantly, he also managed to get Sir Francis Spring, the powerful Chairman of the Port Trust interested in Ramanujan.
The Chain Reaction Set Off by Spring and Griffith
Spring’s involvement it was that made sure that Ramanujan’s notebooks, beyond the comprehension of most people, were shown to important visitors to Madras. A man who collaborated closely in this was CLT Griffith of the College of Engineering, Madras (then not yet moved to Guindy). Together, Spring and Griffith would make sure that the notebooks were seen by Dr GT Walker, then Director General of Observatories, Simla and it was he in turn who suggested they be sent to Prof GH Hardy in Cambridge. The subsequent history is well known and so I will just say my third tower would be named jointly after Spring and Griffith.
Thatikonda Namberumal Chetty Tower
My fourth and final tower is reserved for the man who practically adopted Ramanujan especially in his final years when he was desperately ill, short of money, harried by his mother and ostracised by the orthodox for crossing the ocean. That was the builder baron Thatikonda Namberumal Chetty. It was in Crynant, his palatial home in Chetpet that Ramanujan spent his final days. The death happened in another of Chetty’s residences in the same area – Gometra. Today Crynant still stands, a vast empty house while Gometra has long gone. It is said that Namberumal lit Ramanujan’s pyre.
A Thought About Ramanujan’s Museum
I also wondered if those who run the Ramanujan Park are aware of a museum for the mathematician that exists in this city. It was the dream of PK Srinivasan, a mathematician himself and made reality by ATB Bose, a businessman. This fine tribute to Ramanujan is in Avvai Kalai Kazhagam, Royapuram. It would be great if IT Park and museum could collaborate.
I have been closely studying Ramanujan’s life for a time now, with a purpose of establishing what Kanigel got wrong or did not cover and I find some details you present in error. On his return to India, though ill, Ramanujan was financially secure, as he had ample fellowships, an offer to teach from the university and could count upon a number of patrons. In fact, he had written to the university, before embarking for India, to set aside part of his income for the education of poor students. The consumption he was suspected of, no doubt meant a lot of expense, but, unlike a decade ago, he was not in want. The Chetty’s aid surely would have helped him and his family but there was not the direness of need.
Carr may not be lined with the other three as a mathematician, in the professional sense, i.e., someone who advances the field. He was private tutor for the Tripos and his book was intently compiled for that purpose. He was thus a math educator. Ramanujan never met Carr btw. Carr died at 77 within a few months of Ramanujan’s arrival in England. May be E.H. Barnes had a better claim, as Ramanujan’s official tutor at Trinity, than Neville; Neville did a lot of good to Ramanujan in vetting him for Hardy and persuading him to make the trip west. But, it is not likely that Neville directly influenced Ramanujan’s direction or output in math. Perhaps the tower-builders should reconsider?
Do you have a valid source for the Chetty cremating him? I have only come across an infirm or indirect hint that his younger brother (likely the second son) who did duty. Would like to know if something’s more solid.
I can see why you want Janaki in your list. But, I think it is unmerited. Though she did much after his time, she played little part in the “Making of Ramanujan”, as she was too young, and remained in India during his Trinity years. If you must name a woman, whatever the faults biographers may see in her, it must be his mother Komalam, as it was she who condoned and abetted his independence in the years before he was discovered that expect, like has happened with countless families, that he firstly get a steady income and provide for his family as the eldest son, than be lost in math idylls as if a king.
Anyway, we, as a people, have a torrid history, don’t we, with the widows of men of attainment, snatched when young? Ramanajuam and his Janaki, Bharati and his Chellammal… a long list.
If you wish to compare cultures in contemporaneity, a good example is Scott of the Antarctic. His widow, continued sculpting and eventually remarried. In some irony, Amundsen too was lost at sea and not to a ripe old age.
By the way, my family’s connection with Ramanujan goes well past the regard one may hold for a renown countryman. Sarangapani Temple and its Sannidhi Street played such a part in his life. We trace our roots to the selfsame place, were patrons of the selfsame temple with first rights at its high services. I am advised that some remnants of our clan, well, remain in the area even to this day, and have enough claim to say, “He was one of us.”
-HTH.
P.S. I think Ramachandra Rao, the civil servant of some clout, who gave a big push to Ramanujan and helped till the end, arranging his funeral and writing a flowery obit, if he may not have a tower of his own, must at least be hyphenated into your last one. Success has many fathers – even the Chetty came in, when Ramanujan had already become a hero in a nation being swept by nationalistic pride. Rao opened doors to an unknown supplicant purely for the love of math, as the president of the IMS, not knowing where it would lead, and merely to foster a home-grown mathematician. This, I think is a nobler act. Pity, if you hyphenate for this worthy, your tower’s name will look like a Park Avenue law firm: Goldberg, Goldstein, Goldfarb, Goldblum & Goldsmidt.