K. Ananda Rau
K. Ananda Rau was an eminent Indian mathematician and a contemporary of Ramanujan. Though Rau was six years junior to Ramanujan, his mathematical trajectory, unlike Ramanujan's, was very much a conventional one and he had decided to pursue a career in mathematics well before Ramanujan's prowess became known.
Biography
Ananda Rau was born in Madras on 21 September 1893. He attended the Hindu School in Triplicane, Madras and then Presidency College of the University of Madras. After a brilliant academic record, he sailed to England in 1914 only a few months after Ramanujan. After finishing his Mathematical Tripos from King's College, Cambridge, in 1916, he, like Ramanujan, came under the influence of G. H. Hardy, who guided and initiated him into active research. At Cambridge, Rau and Ramanujan became good friends. Moreover, Ramanujan's "most devoted friend" R. Ramachandra Rao, who was a District Collector, was Ananda Rau's relative. Ramachandra Rao, was responsible for mentoring Ramanujan on seeing his prowess in research, and provided financial aid, took care of his daily needs and got him a clerk's job at the Madras Port Trust. Though Ananda Rau met Ramanujan for the first time in England, he would have come to know of Ramanjuan through his relationship with Rao.Ananda Rau returned to India in 1919 and was appointed as a professor of mathematics at Presidency College at the age of 26. Later, he served also as the Principal of the college and retired in 1948. His life was not without tragedy, as his wife died at a young age in 1928 and a daughter in 1940. He himself had various disabilities, including blindness in one eye, in his later years. He died on 22 January 1966, at the age of 72.