A student recently sent me this passage following my Storytelling class. It tells of a young man’s struggle to have his mathematical gift acknowledged. It’s a true and poignant lesson evoking strong emotions at personal and professional levels. Events took place over one hundred years ago, just before the outbreak of World War I, when Britannia ruled the waves and the intellectual elite served only themselves.
‘An equation has no meaning to me unless it expresses a thought of God.’ Srinivasa Ramanujan
Ramanujan found himself in trouble on his first day at Cambridge. Unusual for a somewhat shy young man who was dignified and well-mannered. His skin colour was darker than those of his classmates, creating a problem of cultural identity. Cultural identity is a euphemism for racism.
Young Srinivasa came from a humble Tamil home in Madras, southeast India. It’s a hot and humid city. He washed with a jug and a bowl of water each day. His three younger siblings died before twelve months, which made his maternal relationship even closer. Ramanujan married as a teenager, and his wife Janaki moved in with him and his mother as was the tradition. They slept on a mattress on the floor. Theirs was a typical life of poverty, hard work, and God-loving humility combined with incomparable faith.
Ramanujan was partially educated but had total belief in his mathematical abilities, so much so that he abandoned studying other subjects, a decision that hampered his academic progress. The requirement for most white-collar jobs was a degree. Day after day, he knocked on company doors looking for work in accounts departments where his extraordinary skills would excel. India was under English colonial rule, and the English staff threw him out and verbally abused him for wasting their time and not obtaining the pre-requisite qualifications. One day, a trading company accepted him as a junior clerk, where he worked sixteen hours a day without needing the office abacus. He did it all in his head.
It made him popular with his employer but not with his Indian colleagues. The employer observed Ramanujan’s remarkable potential and contacted several English institutions to proclaim the young man’s genius. In 1913, after several letters and mathematical theorems exchanges, Ramanujan was invited to study with G.A. Hardy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He left Janaki in India, still living with his mother, with the promise that he’d send for her once he had established himself in England.
Ramanujan’s colleagues at Trinity recognized his exceptional nature but did not make him popular with the faculty staff, some of whom racially abused him and fought to have him removed from college. They were jealous of his abilities. They questioned his intuitive methods and felt insecure around him. They used racially motivated language to discriminate against him and derail his efforts.
Ramanujan battled on. He was desperate to be published. Hardy recognized his abilities and urged him to concentrate on less speculative work that would focus on the proofs for his already outstanding intuitive contributions. Hardy would not recommend its publication without the supporting evidence of his theories.
Janaki was illiterate, and the local scribe penned letters to her husband. Having no income, she gave the letters to her mother-in-law to post. Those letters gathered dust under his mother’s wardrobe.
In 1914, with the declaration of war, many of Ramanujan’s peers went to France in search of glory as the politicians decreed that the war would be over by Christmas. Trinity College’s hallowed green lawns became a field hospital for battlefield injuries, a sobering reminder that there was no glory in war. During this period, a uniformed mob attacked Ramanujan and summarily beat him on racial grounds.
There were food shortages and rationing. Day by day, Ramanujan became physically weaker. His health suffered, and with the early diagnosis of tuberculosis, he became depressed. Ramanujan was lonely and didn’t understand why he only received letters from his mother. His mother never sent Janaki’s letters; she was afraid that if her daughter-in-law left for England, she would never see her son again. Ramanujan attempted to throw himself under a train on a trip to London.
Throughout his career, Ramanujan submitted over 3900 pieces of mathematical innovation and was widely published. Post-war, he became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society, following in the footsteps of Sir Isaac Newton. In 1919 he returned to India and tragically died aged 32.
Ramanujan’s story is a metaphor for beauty, humility, and resilience. He could have given up at any stage, returned to his young wife in India, and settled for obscurity. Spurred on by his faith and his mathematical revelations, he continued his battle against the discrimination of the English establishment. Who knows what he could have achieved had he lived an average life span? We will never know what he could have achieved had he been born in another world?
In 1976, Ramanujan’s lost notebook materialized, causing a colossal celebration in the mathematical world.
Mathematicians on all continents revere Ramanujan. One hundred years later, his work assists modern-day scientists with projects like understanding the behaviour of black holes.
‘Every positive integer is one of Ramanujan’s friends.’
‘An equation has no meaning to me unless it expresses a thought of God.’ S. Ramanujan
From the feature film – The man who knew infinity
If you're looking to enhance your professional skill set or want to help an employee on the road to success, enrol on our 2-day train the trainer courses The course is ideal for new trainers coming into the industry as well as experienced trainers looking for opportunities to improve their CV and career prospects. Book a place on this career-enhancing 2-day course for just £795 + VAT.
