The >article on mathematical prodigy S. Ramanujan (July 28) was truly informative. As one who studied in Kumbakonam, I know of a few misconceptions that are afloat in the town. One of them is that Ramanujan did fail in maths in his matriculation. The reason: he wrote the answers but did not bother to give the steps he followed to arrive at the result. The article has cleared the misconception.
V.R. Athreyan,Kumbakonam
It was interesting to see a historian investigating the past of a genius who skipped his history examination in school. Eventually, we found that Ramanujan scored neither a zero nor a perfect centum in his mathematics exam. As the writer says, myths created around famous personalities play a huge role in portraying them as larger than life. An example would be the debate on the authenticity of Shakespeare’s works. Ramanujan would certainly have been amused had he known that his mark sheet would generate such interest almost a century after him.
Ritvik Chaturvedi,New Delhi
