Telegrams Received for the MATSCIENCE Inauguration

The inauguration of MATSCIENCE, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Madras, India, on 3 January 1962, was greeted with great enthusiasm by scientists from around the world. My father, Professor Alladi Ramakrishnan, in his inaugural speech as the Director of the new Institute, referred to the creation of MATSCIENCE as a miracle, because a series of unexpected pleasant circumstances came in rapid succession to bear fruit. About a week before the inauguration of MATSCIENCE, congratulatory telegrams and letters started pouring in from scientists around the world. I was just past my sixth birthday at that time, but I remember the sense of excitement at our family home Ekamra Nivas as my father was preparing for that sensational event. I remember a dinner at the roof garden of the Dasaprakash Hotel in Madras a few days before the inauguration at which my father’s students who attended his Theoretical Physics Seminar were present. At this dinner, my father asked each student to predict the number of congratulatory telegrams and messages that would be received by 3 January 1962. Such was the mood at that magic moment! My father had preserved these telegrams and had them photocopied and bound in two volumes. In the following pages I have presented photo copies of a selection of these telegrams and letters. I have made some observations about the person sending the message/telegram and my father’s association with that scientist.