It is not my son,it is a man from Baroda who has won the Nobel. This is what C V Ramakrishnan said when Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) chancellor Mrunalinidevi Puar called to congratulate him on the Chemistry nobel for Venkatraman Ramakrishnan who graduated in Physics from Baroda in 1971. At the MSU,Venkis father is fondly remembered as the founder of its Biochemistry department. Mother Rajlakshmi too taught in the same department. C V Ramakrishnan,speaking to The Indian Express from Seattle,said: His grandmother definitely knew that he would do great,because she reasoned his parents were well educated. As word spread of the great achievement of the man from Baroda,Room No. 45 in the MSU Physics department received a steady stream of visitors. For it was here,on a wooden bench with old inkpots,that Venki attended class. Prof A C Sharma,head of the Physics department,took visitors on a tour of the department. He even pulled out a paper to show the last lecture that Venki delivered at the MSU. He was invited by the Biochemistry department for a molecular biology lecture. But he delivered the lecture in Room No. 45 of the Physics department, he said. Ramakrishnan said Venki called us in the morning to inform us about the prize and joked how,while in Baroda,his son attended the Covent of Jesus and Mary,a school for girls. The family lived in Vadodara from 1955 to 1986. Venki was born in 1952 in Chidambaram,Tamil Nadu. Prof B V Kamath,head of the Chemistry department at MSU,recalled: Five years ago,I saw a man with a rucksack roaming around. Curious,I asked him who he was and he said,I am Ramakrishnans son,Venki. I have come here to deliver a lecture. Prof L J Parekh,Venkis teacher and a family friend now visiting the US,described him as a very disciplined boy who got through medical and engineering entrance tests but opted for Physics. Venkis parents,Parekh said,were very strict. Venkis classmate and friend Sudhir Trivedi,now in New York,said: We are not surprised. He is very brilliant,his fundamentals are very clear. But I also remember his pranks. Prof J S Bandukwala,who used to teach Physics at MSU,said Venki sponsored the education of poor Muslim girls. He did not just send money but also kept tab on their academic progress. Prof Vijayan,structural biologist and president of the Indian National Science Academy (which bestowed a foreign fellowship on Venki last year) described him as a nice,unassuming person. He visited the Indian Institute of Science,Bangalore,last year. The year before that,he was at IISc for a month as G N Ramachandran professor. At the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad,the structural biology department,headed by Prof Shankaranarayanan,celebrated Venkis Nobel by distributing sweets. Two years ago,he spent three days working at the department lab which works in the area of translation of genetic code. Ramakrishnans work has universal appeal because it addresses fundamental processes. While he looks at how atoms are structured in ribosomes,we look at processes by which ribosomes can be fed the correct code, said Prof Shankaranarayanan. The students are speechless. When I introduced him to the lab two years ago,I said,the Nobel Prize is not too far away. We knew his research was in the race. Professor Umesh Varshney,who works on molecular genetics of ribosomes at IIScs Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology,said: It comes as no surprise to me. I was expecting it two years ago.
