Srinivas Ramanujan: A Rare Genius

Tamil Nadu has had its quota of great geniuses. I need only mention Nammalwar, Tirugnanasambanda Nayanar, Ramanuja, Vedanta Desikar, Kamban, Thiagaraja and Subramania Bharati. We have yet to produce geniuses in modern mathematics and sciences. S. Ramanujan of Kumbakonam (1887-1920) has given us a great start.

He was a rare genius. Though Mathematics may be claimed to be the most intellectual and logical of all the modern disciplines, Ramanujan’s approach to it was largely intuitive. So far as Mathematics was concerned, his brain seems to have been like a modern electronic computer in which we pose the problems and get the results without having any inkling of the complicated processes connecting the two. For him, numbers, arithmetical and algebraic forms and formulae were almost real-life companions in the same manner as Mother Kali. Rama and Krishna were companions of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

It is no wonder therefore that even distinguished professors of Mathematics in India were unable to recognise his genius. Ramanujan’s preoccupation with Mathematics was so concentrated and complete that in other respects he was hardly developed. Nearly five years of stay at Cambridge did not do much to help him master the English language. Nor was he fluent in his mother tongue, Tamil. But as soon as he entered the field of Mathematics, he became the great master. Mr E. H. Neville wrote as early as 1914 after a perusal of his notebooks: “His name will become one of the greatest in the history of Mathematics.”

The two handsome volumes of the Ramanujan Memorial Number brought out by the Old Boys’ Committee of the Muthialpet High School, Madras, give some interesting glimpses of Ramanujan’s life. Though he was known to have an extraordinary passion for Mathematics while he was in the Kumbakonam High School, the teachers there did not consider it a part of their task to encourage or help him find his fulfilment. In Madras also he found no one to appreciate him till reluctantly forced by the importunities of his nephew, Diwan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao came forward to help him. It was with great difficulty Ramanujan could get the post of a clerk in Madras Port Trust. It was due to the Cambridge mathematicians Neville and Hardy that Ramanujan’s genius became known to the world.

Looking back, it appears as strange as it was unfortunate that even distinguished Professors of Mathematics in Madras like P. V. Seshu Iyer, V Ramaswami Iyer, and T. K. Venkatarama Iyer did not recognise his genius. “Mr Ramanujan’s genius was not recognised at that time by any of the Professors,” says Mr Anantharaman. “and in fact I remember him telling me that Mr T. K Venkatarama Iyer brushed him aside, Mr P. V. Seshu Iyer was indifferent and Mr K. V. Pattachariar evinced some interest, though all these later claimed to be their student and to have in the early years seen the genius in him.”

But it has to be remembered that these professors like many others of today took up Mathematics only as a subject of study for the university and their knowledge was strictly limited to their class text-books. They were naturally confused and perplexed when they were confronted with a genius towering far above their heads.

It may now be questioned whether even Hardy and his Cambridge supporters were wise in taking Ramanujan to England. His letters do not indicate that he had a happy life there. he could not acclimatise himself to the climatic and social conditions of Cambridge. I wonder whether it would not have been a better arrangement if a special post had been created for him in the Madras University and he had been left to work in a library with occasional help from visits of personas like Hardy. He might also have been taken on short visits to Cambridge and other centers of Mathematics. He might then have lived longer.

But Ramanujan is not the first genius to die so young. Nor will he be the last. We can therefore endorse Hardy’s conclusion that “The tragedy was not that he died young but that during five unfortunate years, his genius was misled and side-tracked and to a certain extent distorted.”

I wonder whether our educationists have learnt the lesson of Ramanujan’s life and death. Every teacher from the primary school up to the highest professor of a university should keep his mind open to detect extraordinary talent of any kind. Once it is found that a boy or girl has special abilities, the teacher and his institution should be enabled to provide conditions for the development of those abilities irrespective of the fact that the gifted student may not come up to the average standard in other respects.

In other words, a nation-wide vigilant search for genius and talent should become one of the most important functions of our educational system. It is the most useful lesson that the country has to learn from Ramanujan’s life. If it fails to learn it, there should be no surprise if other geniuses have to suffer and wither away with their potentialities unrealized.

While I congratulate the Old Boys’ Committee for patiently collecting all the reminiscences in Volume 1 and getting some interesting mathematical papers for Volume 2, I cannot help remarking that the materials in both volumes could have been arranged much better. It looks as if the matter available had been printed in the order they were obtained without any attempt at editing or re-arrangement.