Living with Ramanujan for 40 years

Abstract

As was customary at that time, Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in the home of his maternal grandparents on 22 December 1887 in the south Indian town of Erode. After a few months, his mother brought him home to Kumbakonam (figure 1), approximately 120 miles east of Erode and 160 miles south-southwest of Madras (now Chennai). A brother, sister and brother were born in 1889, 1891 and 1894, respectively, but each died within a few months of birth. The two surviving younger brothers (1898–1946; 1905–1978) wrote an interesting but somewhat disconnected account of Ramanujan’s life that contains personal information that we would not have known otherwise [1]. At the time of Ramanujan’s birth, Kumbakonam had a population of about 53 000. The family was quite poor; Ramanujan’s father worked for 20 rupees a month as a clerk for a cloth merchant in Kumbakonam, and his mother took in student boarders from the local high school and government college. Ramanujan’s family home was small and humble, much like the other houses on the dirt street in front of their home. It had essentially one room flanked by a very small kitchen at the back of the home and a small storage room at the front. When the author visited the home in 1984, the only visible sign that this was once the home of the most famous mathematician in Indian history was a picture of Ramanujan cut from a newspaper and taped above the home’s entrance behind a small porch in front of the home. Although the author did not ask how many lived in the home, it appeared to him that a set of grandparents, two parents and seven children lived there. Facing Ramanujan’s home and turning to the left, one sees the famous Sarangapani Temple only about two blocks away. Kumbakonam is famous for its many temples. Ramanujan’s home has now been converted into a museum dedicated to the memory of Ramanujan.