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Quiet and contemplative, Ramanujan was fond of asking questions like, Who was the first man in the world? Or, How far is it between clouds? He liked to be by himself, a tendency abetted by parents who, when friends called, discouraged him from going out to play; so he’d talk to them from the window overlooking the street.
Indian higher education’s failure to nurture one of such undoubted, but idiosyncratic, gifts could serve as textbook example of how bureaucratic systems, policies, and rules really do matter. People, as individuals, appreciated and respected Ramanujan; but the System failed to find a place for him.
Ramanujan would sit working on the pial of his house on Sarangapani Sannidhi Street, legs pulled into his body, a large slate spread across his lap, madly scribbling, seemingly oblivious to the squeak of the hard slate pencil upon it. For all the noisy activity of the street, the procession of cattle, of sari-garbed women, of half-naked men pulling carts, he inhabited an island of serenity. Human activity passed close by, yet left him alone, and free, unperturbed by exams he had no wish to take, or subjects he had no wish to study.
Neville learned what it was: “In a vivid dream his mother had seen [Ramanujan] surrounded by Europeans and heard the goddess Namagiri commanding her to stand no longer between her son and the fulfillment of his life’s purpose.”
