The reason why I came to IIT Kanpur–and I can never forget that: This was 1964-65, he was… he had joined IIT Kanpur and he was visiting New York City, California, Berkeley and visiting capacity and I was a graduate student there. And I just went to see him because, coming from India I thought I'll just have some chit-chats, but then, after a few words he suddenly asked me, “Would you like to join IIT Kanpur?” I asked him “what is IIT Kanpur?” Because this was 1964 you see, I had gone to University of California in 1963. It was just a year and a half at that time and I yet hadn't even properly started my PhD thesis and he was asking me whether I could join IIT Kanpur.
Of course, then he explained what IIT Kanpur was, he explained why he was here because there is a consortium of universities which are helping and so on so forth. So, that single encounter and the amount of warmth that he exuded really convinced me that I should have no other choice. And he told me write a letter to this gentleman, the name was H.K. Kesavan. Some of you might have heard his name, he was the first head of electrical engineering and computer center at that time – there was no computer science department – and the present western lab of IIT Kanpur housed that computer he had which was probably at that time is 1620 and then the 1401 came and then later on it was the 1744.
So, after I joined he became my colleague and I remember his friendly behavior continued, we had joint supervision of students although I was in electrical engineering, he was still at electrical engineering– computer science department was not created–and the warmth that he spread out because of that, the friendliness that was the hallmark has characterized him all his life.
I am particularly impressed by one thing, many of you probably do not appreciate this because you do not know the history. See, in those days, the early days of IIT Kanpur, the science departments used to dominate in terms of the accepted view of research, they used to get the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award every year, this chemistry department, the physics department and so on. So, the first two engineers, if I am not wrong, who received that this award was Professor M. A. Pai and Professor Rajaraman and these were in the 70s.
So, that really allowed us to come up on the same level as the scientists who are considered much higher up compared to engineering faculty. I am particularly impressed by the fact that Professor Rajaraman could continue so actively–I was hoping that I would in my next visit to Bangalore should be able to see him.
Dharma is here, I must say “Dharma, I missed seeing you, I wanted to come to Bangalore and come to your house like I had done last time, but I will probably come and see you, but I will not be able to see him anymore.”
So, these are my memories that I have for Professor Rajaram and his memory will be ever with all of us and probably in the next generation also. I thank you all.
