Among all the people around here, probably I was the first one who has met Professor Raja Raman at IIT Kanpur. Back in 1962, when he came to give a seminar, I was given the responsibility to introduce him. And at that time, somehow, all the time, instead of Raja Raman, I used to say Jai Raman. And I tried my best to correct myself, but I could not do it, and so I finally introduced him as Jai Raman.
He came and gave a lecture on control systems. As you all know, that Raja Ramana was never a computer science man initially. His first work was on analog computers. Then he went into petabytes on computer control systems, that was his PhD thesis. And when he joined IIT Kanpur, of course, he had no concept of any computer at any time, digital computer.
But computer came in 1964 on buffalo cart, and landed there. Along with them, after some time, three American professors came, Harold Husky, Harry Husky, and Professor Rabinovich, and Hector. These three people started the computer installation, and then started teaching this one numerical analysis course, and the second course was on programming.
And there was nobody else to take over from them, so we, the electrical engineering department, was requested to start joining the computer science. Raja Raman volunteered to do that, and started learning the FORTRAN at that time. That is the beginning, and you know what happened afterwards.
And then somewhere around 1970s, he wanted to start another program, to start a computer science program separately from electrical engineering, and we all urged him not to do that, and keep it as part of electrical engineering like everywhere else. But he went on insisting on a separate department. Finally, there was a separate department, and then he became member, chairman of a committee set up by Electronics Commission. Then he gave a report that thousands and thousands of people have to be trained for the onslaught of computerization in this country.
And I said, “look, are you out of your head or what? Where will this kind of requirement come up?” He said, “Sharma, wait and see. This is going to happen.” And indeed that's what happened. And I'm glad he stuck to his visions, and brought in the whole computer science all over the country, from school to college to institutions to research institutions.
And the force behind him, as has been said by many people, is Dharma, who has given him so much of support in writing all his books. And at one point, I jokingly asked him, “how do you write books?” He said, “Sharma, you have to write a book yourself. Get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and write some 40 pages, and don't show it to anybody, because they'll give their own comments. That's how I write books.”
That is Raja Raman. But Raja Raman could not have been a computer scientist, but for the fact that the 1620 came. And in fact, nobody would have been a computer scientist, except the fact that 1620 came at the right time.
I'm glad he has transformed the country, and remained a very simple, humble man, in spite of his achievements that he has achieved, and continued to play such an important role whether there or not there, in making our country known all over the world. Thank you so much.
