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Photo: Murali Kumar K

Explorer of the brain V.S. Ramachandran

Dr. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, took time off from his hectic schedule to speak to Metro Plus.

In a freewheeling conversation, the neuroscientist and author of the best-selling ‘Phantoms in the Brain’ and ‘The Emerging Mind’ reveals glimpses of the man behind the mind. Dressed in casuals, the man, named by Newsweek as a member of the century club; one of the hundred most prominent people to watch in the 21st century, quoted extensively from Sherlock Holmes, the only fiction he reads, poetry, The Rubaiyat, and Shakespeare, and peppered his conversation with his wit and wisdom. Excerpts from an interview in which 30 minutes just flew. Elementary, when one is talking to, who many consider, a Nobel prize winner-in-the- waiting.

I listen only to M.D.Ramanathan, Semmangudi,and Madurai Mani Iyer. Depending on my mood, I listen to one of them. Semmangudi’s ragam, thanam and pallavi are really special; it is intellectual and mathematical… It stimulates me. MDR tops in bhava and sahityam. Look at the way he caresses the lyrics. Mani Iyer is melody personified. It was my mother, Meenakshi, who used to take me to music concerts when we were in Chennai. Even now, I make it a point to be in Chennai for the music season.

Even ragas have certain moods in my mind. Durbari Kanada lifts my spirits. On the hand, I find a complex raga like Thodi spurring me on. So I have a Thodi Day, an Abheri Day and so on. Amongst the latter-day singers, I enjoy listening to Sanjay Subramaniam and T.M. Krishna. I do listen to Bollywood songs when I am driving. But somehow, I don’t enjoy the sound of instruments.

As the son of a diplomat, I grew up outside India. But my mother inculcated in me a pride in India by exposing me to the best of Indian culture and tradition. Stories, especially based on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are the best for that. Unfortunately we seem to losing that pride in our culture and that is why so many youngsters blindly emulate the West. I see people taking pride in Nike shoes and Gucci watches. That is not what India is about. Ours is a civilisation that goes back to more than 7000 years. It is a living one, not one that is consigned to museums and books.

Art, music and culture is so much a part of our lives… If you erase that past, that culture, you become a chimp. Many of the regions in the world, now considered developed, were inhabited by savages when Indians were talking about aesthetics in art and literature. Our civilisation is unique. And once that pride has been instilled in you, you will never blindly emulate the West.

That is because of the research facilities that is available in the West. Although our doctors are the best, owing to the amount of clinical practice they get to do, research is not up to the mark. Despite India making rapid strides in the economic sector, the funds channelled into research are not enough.

Association with Nobel laureate Francis Crick

He used to tell us: you got only one lifespan, put all your energy into solving the fundamental problems. He was a larger-than life person, someone who cracked the genetic code. He felt that the next big unexplored area was the brain and got us all excited about it. Once he wrote a book but his editor felt that it was too complex. So he wanted me to go through it. I suggested that he give it a lay reader to go thorough the book. Very seriously, he told me: “But Rama, I don’t know any lay people. Do you?’

Well, the temple in Kapaleeswaram in Chennai. But more than that it is the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tanjavur.

I enjoy reading works on archaeology, palaeontology, genetics, Indology, cryptography… I think it is important to read other sciences and works too. Otherwise you will end up in a cul de sac. But I get bored by fiction.

Discipline and hard work are important. Find the talent in a child and help him/her foster that and build on that strength. It is fine if the child does not get good grades in every subject. Teach your child to reach for the stars.

My father Vilayanur Subramaniam hails from a village in Palakkad. I would like to go there some day.

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