`Dignified, enormously cute, he almost dozed off at the Nobe

If it hadn’t been for the quick intervention of his wife Emma, he wouldhave been the only Nobel winner to turn down this personal invitation from the Prime Minister of Sweden.

In Stockholm, straitjacketed in white tie and tails, accepting the Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden, he was rather dignified and enormously cute, trying his best to be casual in an ultra-formal setting. Apart from the fact that he seemed to be alternately nodding off at the ceremony (blame it on jet fatigue and the four-lectures-a-day schedule he had till then) and jumping out of his skin every time the opera singer unleashed her high-decibel vocal expertise without warning from behind him. He had stayed pretty calm for the formal Nobel family portrait before that, when one or the other of his various children kept disappearing, disabling the photo-shoot and accumulating a steadily growing hoard of politely patient Nobel laureates and their families at every conceivable door to the studio.

He was unruffled right before the ceremony when he found himself in shiny white plastic shirt buttons that camewith the formal attire and were clearly meant to be changed. Or when he discovered that he hadn’t brought the silver cuff-links that Emma had lovingly presented him for the occasion. Before that, he had retained his poise when he landed in Stockholm quite ready to take home the prize, but not quite ready to give the speech — probably the only Nobel laureate in history to arrive without the all-important Nobel lecture. He wrote it through the night.

He had been planning to write it since October, right after the announcements of the awards.

"How come you don’t have it ready?" I asked with sledgehammer discretion, "You had 30 years to prepare it!"

"Nonsense!" snapped the laureate. Well, yes, the rumours had been around for a while, he conceded. Why, when Toompa (my younger sister) was tiny, he recalled, she got impish satisfaction from poking him with, "So, when are you going to get the Nobel Prize?"

That was about a quarter century ago. He had tried to retain his composure when he arrived at Calcuttaairport without his briefcase, which had been stolen at the airport in London.

With it he had lost, apart from personal stuff that he valued immensely, his papers and the gold-plated replica of the Nobel Award. He didn’t realise that when he boarded the plane to Calcutta he was leaving behind at Heathrow something far more important — his identity as a human being. By the time `the human face of economics’ arrived at Calcutta, he had become a god.

The process had started a while ago. He was either the `poverty expert’ or the `Mother Teresa of economics’. The Calcutta connection strengthened the latter image. All of a sudden, this connoisseur of fine wines who had a soft spot for Blue Stilton cheese found himself blessing pens shoved into his hand and bowed heads shoved under them. His smile grew steadily goofier.

His efforts at retaining his natural humility made him look like Uriah Heep. This down-to-earth academic was slowly, publicly, being mutated into an extra-terrestrial.

It is perhapsimportant to bring back the human face of this economist. Building an altar to the newborn god sidelines the academic and helps us to disregard his thoughts as a social scientist. Given the fact that he doesn’t believe in God, catapulting him to divinity is unlikely to do wonders for his self-confidence. Or for the values he believes in.

So does it mean he doesn’t care a hoot about religion? Not really. Having seen the communal riots during Partition, he couldn’t afford not to. Like any sensible person, and like most of his fellow Indians, he is appalled when religion is used to strike out against the basic rights of human beings, the rights to life, to liberty, to equality, to peace.

About 40 years ago, he helped his grandfather K M Sen write a short but definitive treatise on Hinduism. He probably reads Sanskrit with greater facility than most of the righteous Hindus of today. But he isn’t particularly attracted to codified religion. His first wife, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, was like him born into a familydenominated as Hindu. His second wife, Eva Colorni, was Jewish by birth. His third wife, Emma Rothschild, was born into a Jewish/Christian family. Not quite the life pattern of one who is too pre-occupied with religion.

In fact, contrary to most divine beings, Baba has consistently been doing exactly what he likes in his personal life. Thankfully, his wants are not too extravagant. He likes riding the bicycle and does so happily all over Shantiniketan. He likes driving his Honda Accord in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And he has his ancient BMW automatic for Cambridge, England.

He likes eating bread with mustard oil and indulges in it whenever he can. He likes exercising and does so irrespective of staring eyes. At the Taj this last week, for example, he insisted on getting his exercise and was thus respectfully frog-marched by an array of security guards, police officials and protocol officers to the hotel’s gymnasium every day. Years ago, he made quite an impact in Shantiniketan when he went boldly into thefields every morning in his unflattering jogging shorts.

In Oxford, I am occasionally faced with very proper people who politely ask if my father, who taught there several years ago, is coping well with his formal duties and lifestyle as Master of Trinity. Of course he is, I reply, wondering which particular faux pas they may have in mind. There are stories of his insisting on eating at the high table the very refined potted Stilton in combination with a lowly banana. Or the time when he had arrived at a formal gathering in Oxford without his Fellow’s gown, which was a big no-no.

"I am sorry. I don’t have a gown to lend you," pointed out the Vice Chancellor softly. "Oh that’s quite all right!" laughed Baba jovially, "don’t worry about it!"

In fact his love of banana has landed him in serious trouble as well. He had been detained by the police in Oslo airport on the advice of sniffer dogs convinced that he was a drug smuggler. Having stripped his belongings they finally found the source of canineexcitement: In a forgotten pocket of the bag cringed two shrivelled bananas.

And unlike gods who know everybody all the time, Baba has a bit of a problem remembering names. Also unlike divine creatures, he has a lovely sense of humour. My mother recalls how the two of them were accosted by some acquaintance of Baba’s whose name, of course, he couldn’t remember.

"Remember me?" asked the guy. "Of course, how are you?" asked Baba. "No, you don’t remember me!" said the guy. "Of course I do," mumbled Baba. "Then tell me, what’s my name?" insisted the guy. At this point Baba hastily bundled my mother into a bus, climbed in after her and advised "If you really need to know, go home and ask your mother."

Occasionally, when he tries to remember names accurately, he ends up in trouble as well. I ended up watching a porn video thanks to that. Baba had got me the video, assuring me that I would like it given my interest in women-oriented films. And through all the huffing and puffing, I kept waiting for thefeminist angle till the film ended.

When I angrily faced him that evening, he insisted that Working Girl was a good film, and couldn’t understand why I was so annoyed. The video he had brought for me was Working Girls. It had a very different meaning altogether.

He is a regular guy, Amartya Sen. Not a god, not an apostle, not a Mother Teresa. His activism is through his academics, not in the streets. That’s how he could serve humanity or better our lives. If we let him. It’s important that we don’t move the spotlight away from his works in order to create a halo. He ain’t no saint. He’s a passionate scholar, a good father, an excellent friend.

Incidentally, did I mention that he is also human?

Antara Dev Sen, daughter of Amartya Sen, is a former Assistant Editor of The Indian Express.