I think a lot has been said about Professor Raja Raman but I think I will probably add a few extra points.
See, first of all, he was very humble, very simple. Anybody who actually could approach him -he was very approachable and anybody could approach him- will become at ease with him very quickly and can talk to him about anything. I was one of those students of his who actually had big opportunity to talk to him like many others. He was equally at ease in talking to whether it's minister or -you know- anybody else, he would actually speak out his mind with such a clear understanding that people would appreciate his work. And yet at the same time, we are actually talking of in 60s when he actually went around looking for, you know, like in 70s, looking for starting a program, a B.Tech in computer science program. A separate computer science program.
Just around that time, people obviously would not see computer science as an independent entity. And there was a natural resistance to change and he would go around patiently talking to everybody why it is good, okay, and he will win friends.
When he started this program, nationwide program on MCA, I even remember talking to him once and he said “there are computer engineers and there are computer technicians and the country needs both, okay”. And he went around, there was huge amount of opposition saying MCA, “how can MCA be taught, where are the teachers and all that” and then MCA was started and with time MCA became such a big success that entire Y2K problem was solved because of MCA workforce, okay. I mean, if MCA students were not there, MCA trained engineers were not there, I think India would not have been the IT force the way it is actually considered today.
In IISc Bangalore, when he was trying to install supercomputing, again there was a big issue, the US government was not willing to let him do that and let India work on supercomputing, they stalled everything and I think Professor Rajaraman even at that time very patiently, very calmly, he would actually circumvent all those problems and IISc supercomputing center was established by him, which is not just a computer center, he just changed the way computer center was, it converted into an academic program. It started with operator training and today CDS, which was the computer center to start with is offering M.Tech, PhD and all kind of programs.
And all these hurdles he crossed without offending anybody and that is the virtue that I want to put in on the table, never ever got angry with anybody, no matter what people said, no matter what people did, there was hardly at any point in time you would hear a word of shouting from him, a sense of being angry, yes he would be not happy about certain things, he would actually say that he is not happy. But angry? No I never saw him angry!
In fact, I met him in September this year, he was physically weak, mentally very strong even at that time, he had just come out of his salt imbalance problem from the hospital and I was talking to him and even at that time he was talking about I am working on this book and I am correcting which is fundamentals of computing that book, he was making those corrections in that book and not only he was making those corrections, he made those corrections, the book was sent back to publishers for the next edition, that was perhaps the last work that he ever had in the book writing.
And you know to say this, Professor Raja Raman didn't, as many of you have said, he didn't want to start a book, it was Dharma who pushed him, Dharma not only pushed him to write the book, supported him, made the drawings, sit down with people in graphics art, worked with French curves and black ink, India black ink with draftsmanship and all that and that's the kind of support that was given by Dharma to Professor Raja Raman which continued till the time when Professor Raja Raman was in SERC and subsequently even after his retirement.
I think in my, in fact this new book that he wrote, this is the last book that he wrote which is Anecdotes from the History of Modern Computing and I was talking to him in September about this book and I said this is so well written book, such a good compilation of anecdotes and history that I actually wanted to teach a course in IIT Gandhinagar on the history of computing and I said this could even serve as a textbook. So, he said “have you read it?” I said “not only I read it, I really enjoyed it” and then Dharma came to my rescue and said “no, don't ask him all these things, he has com”e but I must tell you he was so disciplined in his life, in his food habits, in generally, you know, I mean I have enjoyed being in their house eating idlis, demanding idlis to start with and I think his 92 years of his age, slightly more than nine decades of his contribution to this computing is in my opinion a celebration for Indian computing. That's the basic thing that I would like to say, the celebration of Indian computing is his life and I think that's the way we would like to remember him. He has touched many hearts, he has touched many students' future and today, I mean I think everybody actually talks of him very very positively.
In fact, I want to actually tell you about an anecdote which Professor Seswude did not talk about. Professor Sahasrabuddhe actually sent him a URL saying that COBOL still have too many lines of programming and all that and he actually writes this as anecdotes of modern computing where he said in 2020 when Hari Sahasrabuddhe sent, Hari Sahasrabuddhe and Professor Rajaman wrote a book on COBOL and he sent him this URL, he actually went through that and he said in 2020, he was surprised to see that there are 1.2 billion lines of COBOL code is still written afresh and that's the kind of research that he would do, that's the kind of reading that he would do and that's the kind of knowledge that he would impart. I think hats off to him and his way which actually has shaped the Indian computing. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Professor Moona.
