Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, one of the winners of this year's Nobel chemistry prize
Just so you know, President Obama is not the only person with a Nobel win this year. A bunch of others won too, including three scientists who produced atom-by-atom maps of the mysterious, life-giving ribosomes. Israeli Ada Yonath and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz were proffered 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million) as part of the Nobel Chemistry prize for their breakthrough that allows researchers to develop new antibiotics.
“Excellent!” say India’s newspapers and carry on with more pressing issues, like asking their readers who the hottest Bollywood bombshell is. Life potters on as normal.
Then, wait! When newswires mention the names of the three scientists who won, media outlets in India pick up on “Venkatraman Ramakrishnan” – a distinctly South Indian name! Suddenly, reporters from the length and breadth of India, who, till October 6th, could not have fathomed what RNA even stands for, were pontificating on how an Indian has changed the face of Chemistry!
Personality analysis, including an analysis of Ramakrishnan’s handwriting were carried out, “Venki is meticulous and focused, but a loner,” proclaims DNA India. Old teachers are sniffed out and newspapers in Bengal and Tamil Nadu squabbl about which state has produced the most Nobel winners.
Never mind the fact that our friendly neighborhood professor left our neighborhood 38 years ago, is currently a US citizen, and lives in Cambridge, England. “So what”, news editors squawk in editorials and on TV.“He has not forgotten his roots – Ramakrishnan visited Chennai in 2002 and delivered “an excellent slide presentation!”
The fact remains that jingoism sells – especially when it comes in the form of foreign acceptance of anything even remotely connected to India. Our news media, apparently mirroring what the famed “common man” thinks, derides anything that presents India to foreigners as being anything but a land of perfect happiness, warm and friendly people and of course elephants and palaces. Remember Slumdog Millionaire? “Poverty porn at its worst” and “defaming Hindus,” the media huffed.
In an ironic twist worthy of the “It happens only in India” motif, we shower the movie with laurels exactly a month later, when it wins multiple Oscars – because we then see it as foreign acceptance of India having “arrived” on the international stage. What happens next? Our single-largest national political party, Congress (I), buys the rights to use the movie’s title track for their election campaign.
So what’s wrong with whipping up a little patriotic fervor? Actually, quite a bit. Feel-good stories about the Nobel Laureate’s college days in India 40 years ago only serve to distract from the fact that the best bet for an Indian to get close to a Nobel is to head to foreign shores early in his/her career.
We could do well to listen to the laureate himself: “Science is done for the pursuit of knowledge. It is not done to represent your national team. It has no national boundaries whatsoever….Science is a great international mixer, so the idea that it is a sort of cricket match where our team won — that simply is a wrong way of looking at scientific discovery.”
Till we are all as enlightened, let’s hope Jennifer Aniston’s Indian connection keeps us entertained.
