‘Intellectual giant’, joked alongside Stephen Hawking: Remembering physicist-philosopher Dr Ranjit Nair

On Friday, hundreds, including his friends and family, gathered at the memorial. The CPFS has hosted 15 Nobel laureates since its inception, and it was made possible because Dr Nair shared personal ties with them, his family said.

In his message, Tharoor said, “Nair was instrumental in hosting lectures by world-renowned scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, making groundbreaking ideas accessible to Indian audiences.”

Dr. Krishnaswamy Vijay Raghavan, former principal scientific advisor to the Government of India, recalled Nair as “a remarkable physicist, philosopher, and a champion of scientific discourse.” “I am struck by the immense intellectual void his passing has created in the scientific community…,” he said

Adding that Dr Nair created institutional platforms that nurtured interdisciplinary dialogue, he added, “As we bid farewell to this gentle intellectual giant, let’s commit to honouring his memory by continuing the essential work of communicating science with precision and passion just as Ranjit taught us… Your voice may be silent now, but the conversations you started will continue, and it’s upon us to continue to run the institutions you have so well created.”

Among his notable works, Dr Nair authored ‘Mind, Matter and Mystery’, where some of the world’s leading thinkers grapple with key questions related to science. He was also instrumental in editing a collection of works by E.C.G. Sudarshan, a prominent Indian-American theoretical physicist.

Dr Nair spent the last 20 years of his life battling dystonia, a neurological condition that causes involuntary muscle contractions, Tharoor said. Dr Nair’s son, Viraj, remembered that his father never complained despite being affected by an incurable disease that “robbed him of jaw control and stifled speech — one of his greatest gifts.”

Prasannan, who works with the Delhi Bureau of Malayala Manorama, recalled an interview with Dr Nair as “one of the most beautiful” he had ever taken. He said that Dr Nair would communicate the most complex scientific content in the simplest, layman’s language, which is rare.

Many recalled a young Nair who would engage in pranks at the Cambridge University, where he was trained in a dual course of physics and philosophy. Here, Dr Nair met his wife, well-known linguist and poet Rukmini Bhaya Nair.

Draped in a maroon-tinted saree, Rukmini teared up as she said the saree was the last gift from her husband. The family members also shared photographs with Stephen Hawking — one of them shows Dr Nair and Hawking sharing a laugh at Qutub Minar.

Dr Nair is survived by his wife, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, son Viraj Nair, daughter Vijayanka Nair, brother Arun Kumar, and sister Shailaja Sreekumar.