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Literary Review
Fiction
Complex equations
JANHAVI ACHAREKAR
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The Indian Clerk is beautifully written and painstakingly researched.
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The Ramanujan Hypothesis: Discovering His Life and Times at Trinity, David Leavitt, Bloomsbury, p.496, Rs. 595. Leavitt draws both Hardy and Ramanujan sympathetically, presenting them as two individuals mired in their unique situat ions but bound by their extraordinary genius.
To review David Leavitt’s The Indian Clerk is a somewhat daunting task. For one, its 485 pages pack in information, insights, historical fact and fiction to fill 970. Secondly, the protagonists of this novel, mathematicians G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, are no strangers to the reader. Thirdly, having gladly lost at the age of 16 any mathematical knowledge of consequence, I can never hope to talk about the Riemann hypothesis, partition numbers and other complex mathematical calculations that form the very core of the novel.
Fortunately, The Indian Clerk is not as much about mathematics as it is about the workings of genius and Manil Suri succinctly summarises the novel in the blurb on the cover that says, “The Indian Clerk is a novel that brilliantly orchestrates questions of colonialism, sexual identity and the nature of genius”. For, the story of Ramanujan, the ordinary clerk from Madras in colonial India, whose extraordinary mathematical genius would take him to Cambridge and catapult him to immortality in a white man’s world, is no less intriguing than the academic politics of the time, the rampant homosexuality in Britain’s leading institutions and the relationships between Leavitt’s skein of characters, real and imagined, amid the turbulent backdrop of the First World War.
Lucid narrative
For a subject so complex, the narrative is simple and lucid. The author pares it down to the story of Hardy and it is largely through his eyes that we see Ramanujan. The book is therefore as much about the English mentor as it is of the Indian clerk. The novel dives into its central theme from the start but it is in the course of the narrative that the subject comes to life. Hardy’s homosexuality, the introduction to the Riemann hypothesis and the secret society of the Cambridge Apostles, all serve as a build-up that leads ultimately to the letter from Ramanujan, claiming that he is close to solving this mathematical conundrum that has intrigued every mathematician since Reimann himself. This is followed by the doubts, hurdles and anticipation of bringing Ramanujan to England. The year is 1913. Hardy is faced with the improbable task of shipping a “nigger” to Trinity. He is confronted with an orthodox Brahmin’s reservations of “pollution” caused by crossing the ocean. The Nevilles, young Trinity don Eric and his wife Alice, play a pivotal role in persuading Ramanujan to come to England, but not before the role of the goddess Namagiri has been established. Ramanujan claims that his genius is a gift of the goddess who helps him with his mathematical calculations in his sleep and it is ultimately with her blessing in a clairvoyant dream, that he is able to accept the offer.
At Cambridge, Ramanujan finds himself in an alien environment, although with people eager to put him at ease. Alice Neville’s warm hospitality turning into a more serious affection is fictitious but Hardy’s friendship and karmic bond that goes beyond mathematics, is real. We are also privy to the inner workings of Cambridge at a historical time and Leavitt exposes its innards, from D.H. Lawrence’s homophobia to Bertrand Russell’s imprisonment for his anti-war stand, and Rupert Brooke’s true cause of death (an inglorious mosquito bite).
Sympathetic portrayal
Leavitt draws both the characters of Hardy and Ramanujan sympathetically, presenting them as two individuals mired in their unique situations but bound at the same time by their extraordinary genius. If Ramanujan must deal with the manipulations of his mother that ultimately take their toll on his marriage, then Hardy must suffer the loneliness of his sexuality and his atheism. If Hardy’s concern with the war is linked to his illicit affair with a soldier, then Ramanujan’s is joined with his concern for the fate of the Indian students on their way to England with the requested stock of tamarind for his famous rasam. In moments of introspection, Hardy’s conscience will be pricked with guilt and he will liken the exploitation of Ramanujan (“The Hindoo Calculator”) with that of his soldier-lover Thayer, at war. As the war intensifies, Ramanujan’s health deteriorates with a mysterious ailment but to him, even pain is a mathematical calculation. Ramanujan’s personal life is as troubled as his career is glorious and his worsening health and filial relations eventually peak with a failed suicide attempt. Like the ghost of his former lover Russell Kerr Gaye that visits him in the night, Hardy is once again haunted by the spectre of suicide that seems never to leave his bedside. Significantly, Ramanujan’s life ends with the war. The first Indian to be elected a fellow at Trinity, his trip back home (to a considerable fortune) proves fatal. At the time of his death, he is only 33. In the book, the character of Anne Chase tells Littlewood, “I have a theory that for each of us there’s a place in the world where we belong — only very few of us ever find it.” Ramanujan is fortunate enough to have found his.
Meticulous
The Indian Clerk is marked by a number of sub-plots. While Littlewood’s affair with the adulterous Mrs. Chase melds easily into the narrative, the imagined romance between Alice Neville and Ramanujan appears awkward and forced. Hardy’s fondness for homonyms is often distracting and the book is not entirely devoid of “Hindu” exotica. However, in spite of its flaws, The Indian Clerk is beautifully written and is scientifically and painstakingly researched in a manner befitting its subject. Be sure to read the sources and acknowledgements in the end — Leavitt is as detailed in fact as he is in fiction.
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