RajaRaman was such a giant of a personality, at the same time he managed to be so accessible and friendly. I had the good fortune of being his PhD student, as well as, for a couple of years I was his colleague.
So, before that, I would like to share one thing that once he said, that as a child, he would go up incidentally, although he was born in Madras Presidency, soon he moved with his father to Delhi, and his schooling was done in Delhi, entire schooling, and then he did his graduation from St. Stephen's.
The thing is, in the early childhood, he would go to Gandhiji's prayer meetings, and he would be there, and that immensely influenced him. So, it's not just nationalism, but certain virtues that he imbibed, that came from his early childhood association or exposure to Gandhiji. I don't think anybody has ever seen him angry. And the other quality is that of very deep nationalism that he imbibed.
At the same time, he was a person who could completely, you know, he never let his ego come in the way of anything, and therefore, I think it is because of that, he had a vision, he had a clarity of vision, which is immense. Now, it's not just education, he is actually, in a way, he has contributed immensely to the industry, CS industry in the country.
The way it happened is actually this, that in 63, when he joined - soon after that in 64- IBM 1620, the first machine came, and then that machine was, you know, initially operated and people are trained by people from abroad, from the US. And there's three people actually who came, as I understand, and they started a course, an intensive course, a 10-day course on basics of programming, as well as numerical analysis. And they left soon in 65 or so –65-66–, and this Professor Raja Raman and his team, they ran on those courses.
These courses used to be at least about three times a year, there would be 50 people, and they came from all over the country. And therefore, he managed, in a way, to spread computing all over the country. And it is true.
If you look at anything, any computing activity in the country, in the industry, you will see that there is some connection of IIT Kanpur. And that is because these intensive courses very quickly, very intensely managed to spread the computing activities in the country. So it went on till 1975.
So you can imagine three, at least three times, 50 people coming, they are getting trained in computing, and from all over the country. Then there is what is really astounding, that he could see that computer science is a discipline. And you know, IIT Kanpur is of course, is very, very rigorous.
So, the Senate initially had long debates on it, whether computer science is a discipline in itself, or it should remain where it is–as an activity or part of electrical engineering. And in electrical engineering also, there was an, as the head said, there was an M.Tech option. There is an option in M.Tech to do computers-related courses. Once Professor Mahabala joined, and Professor Rajaraman and Professor Mahabala together took courses, as well as guided thesis work in computing related areas. And that went on for some time. And then as happened, it first became an IDP, computer science became an IDP in 71. And then B.Tech program started in 84. And interestingly, that is one B.Tech program, which started and immediately attracted the best of the JEE people. And I had once asked him that how come this happened? This normally doesn't happen.
So he said that he talked to many parents, and in fact, Rajiv Motwani's father had a long discussion with Professor Rajaraman, and Rajiv Motwani joined computer science because of that discussion. And in fact the last rank was less than 40. This doesn't happen with new programs.
The other thing that I think he didn't mention, but I could see that his conviction in computer science is so deep as an area and he was convinced -and he was rightly convinced- that this is going to take off. So he could actually convey that message to the parents and to the students. And so therefore, it got the best of the students.
So this is also amazing because you see that when they wanted to -you know, this must be early, I mean, 65- 66 or something like that- when they wanted to have some kind of a convention or a conference on computing using optimization for business, he was told to meet the chairman, who was a very famous industrialist of that those days. So he told him that what is this newfangled thing, it is never going to take off. You see the India's future is in the jute, you know, jute industry.
And for that, whether it is going to do good or not, it is, you know, it is enough to go to Ganga, to the Ganga and, you know, at some point you find out how deep it is and that will tell you what is going to be the yield of the jute crop that year. So this was the level of understanding other people had, including a very famous industrialist. And it is at that time, Professor Rajaraman was convinced that computing is going to take off.
So he not only set up the computing education, he spread the computing all over India. And to make it accessible, he started writing his books. And the first book was published in 1969, Principles of Computer Programming. And the last book that he wrote, which is, of course, on anecdotes from the history of computing, covering various aspects of computing, that was in only last year. So he remained active all through.
He left IIT Kanpur in 1982 and started another journey. But before he left, he established a department, or not -by then it was not a department-, but people related to computing, you know, started, they started, had their offices in computer center and there it was a cohesive group which he headed.
That one aspect of his, him that I had seen as a student first, is that he managed to make you feel that you own the place. You know, this sense of ownership that he could convey, that he could imbibe in the people, that was something very, very useful.
You know, as PhD students, he gave us immense amount of -I don't know what, how do we put it?- I would not like to say respect, but, you know, I mean, you treat PhD students as colleagues. And in the sense, for example, when the books for the library would have to be ordered, he said that even the PhD students need to see the list because after all, they're going to be the future faculty members of this country. And he has or he, sorry, he had great respect, great empathy for students who, you know, try to understand things.
I remember a case when, you know, TDC 316 had come and it had a large disc and it was rotating and one student, he just opened the disc while it was running. So, disc had crashed. So, everybody thought he is going to be punished.
But Professor Rajavan said, “no, there is no question of punishment because after all, he was curious. He wanted to see what is happening. So, that's okay. We can get another disc. But for this reason, we cannot punish him.”
So, this was the kind of feeling he had for students and as running the department, he would never, you know, he was such a such a personality known all over the world, certainly every nook and corner of the country, and yet, he would treat his colleagues with extreme respect. And then sense of ownership, I have talked of, and as I said, what he could see in computing way back in 65 and that proved right.
So, another aspect of Professor Rajavan was that if he researched and taught courses ranging a large number of disciplines, a large number of areas, because he felt that teaching at this point is extremely important and he was personally, of course, extremely endowed.
He was, you know, he, for example, I can take one example that he was a great, he did, you know, actually a great authority in analog computing. And yet, he wrote a book, which almost and at that time, whatever books you had in analog computing, they were extremely, you know, inaccessible, if I may say. But Professor Rajaraman's book was accessible. All his books was, as somebody pointed out, it is like somebody very gentle holding your hand and showing the depth and the breadth of a subject.
So, this, the clarity that he had, the vision that he had, that should be, you know, remembered always, I am sure. And as I said, the first batch became so successful that then all IITs started these B.Tech programs and therefore, spread of computing education happened very rapidly in India.
The one more just point I would like to say, it is because of him, computing became a core subject way back, you know, I don't know when, maybe early 70s. TA306 was the first offering, was the name of the introduction to computer programming. And through that, there was a large number of students, all IIT students, since it was a core course, all IIT Kanpur students had to do that programming course.
And that was of immense benefit to them, to the industry, and they spread all over. If you see IIT Kanpur people doing so well all over the world, and irrespective of the discipline, I mean, they could be from EE, they could be from not necessarily CS, they could be from some other discipline, but computing was in their blood. Same with IIT Kanpur faculty.
So, there's so much to say with this, I would like to conclude now. And I don't know, he's such a great personality. And if we can learn humility and clarity from him, that will be of benefit to all of us.
Thank you.
