Contrary to our fears, we found Raman extremely gentle and affable, as I photographed him in his house and in the garden he loved. When there was still some time left, I asked Raman if I could photograph him with his wife. "Forget about her. She is not here," he said. I gathered more courage and asked if I could shoot him displaying his Nobel citation. Pursing his lips, Raman gazed at me. My heart began to pound. To my surprise, he agreed and left to collect the citation.
"I’m lucky," I hissed in Sathyu’s ear, handing him my brand-new Speed-Graphic camera as I set about adjusting the room for the all-important picture. Raman had meanwhile returned, holding the scroll, and stood beside a scribbled blackboard. "It’s getting late. Shoot," Raman said. But disaster struck. Sathyu, to our dismay, dropped the camera. Raman was livid. He gripped Sathyu by the collar and thundered: "Do you know what you have done? You have damaged a beautiful instrument of science." We were shaken and mumbled our apologies. As Raman cooled down, he carefully examined the camera. He wrote on a paper: "Prisms out of alignment. Replace one broken piece and realign. Set right the metallic dents." He pressed his prescription in my palm and gave us the marching orders saying, "You may leave now." My first photo session with the Nobel laureate had ended in a fiasco.
The camera was repaired but the studio owner refused to accept his professional charges and bargained for the paper instead.
After that episode, I met Raman off and on and established an affectionate rapport with him. Raman was a very simple man. He would often have children over at his house and would explain to them the most abstruse scientific phenomena in a language that even ordinary people could understand. His aunt is believed to have asked him whether he merited the Nobel when Raman explained to her the Raman effect, for which he won the prize!
Most remember Raman for his intellect, which like a diamond was hard, brilliant and multi-sided. But Raman would say, "I wish someone had said that I also had the heart of a lion."
(This is an abridged article, full text of which appears as a web-exclusive)
