CHENNAI: He spent his life dressed in a veshti-jibba and a Gandhi kulla, dedicated to researching and popularising mathematics. Today, the mathematics library opened by his family in his name has no patronage; a large part of his 14,000 volume collection has already been packed to be donated to schools and universities.
P K Srinivasan (1924-2005), popular as a mathematics teacher, worked to make maths more accessible to young students and spread awareness about India’s most extraordinary mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujam. He advocated practical mathematics with low-cost teaching-aides and experiments in the 1940s.
The mathkits and books on teaching methods now lie in the unused library room at his Nanganallur residence, along with photographs and memorabilia, certificates and framed articles from The Illustrated Weekly of India.
“My father never believed in blackboard mathematics. He used sticks, tamarind seeds and bottle caps to teach children math concepts. He wanted them to see mathematics everywhere,” says Kannan Srinivasan, one of the 10 children of the late Srinivasan.
Srinivasan decided to become a teacher when he was 24 and after obtaining his degree from Madras, he spent three years in remote villages of Tamil Nadu teaching high school mathematics. “He always chose backward schools in North Madras to teach in, he went every week to a school in Saidapet where Narikurava children studied,” says Kannan.
Srinivasan was at the Muthialpet High School for several years and conducted over 25 Math Expos and activities during his time. The concepts used in new-age math kits are similar to the ones Srinivasan devised in his time, says his son.
The collection of writings was built over years of painstaking effort, especially in Srinivasan’s documentation of Ramanujam, who had died four years before Srinivasan’s birth. “Father would travel to Kumbakonam every weekend to get details about Ramanujam’s life. He tried very hard to collect letters and finally managed to procure three original letters that Ramanujam had written to his family,” Kannan says. The letters are now in the Ramanujam Museum at Royapuram.
Srinivasan wanted not just scholars but also children to know ‘the man who knew infinity’. Most of his writings and concepts too are targeted at children, from whom he wanted to remove ‘mathphobia’.
To keep his legacy alive the family opened his collection to the public, with some volumes over 200 years old, and material for maths teachers and researchers, “I have had less than 10 visitors in all these years,” says Kannan.
“We tried beyond our means, but we cannot keep it running any more,” says Nirmala, Srinivasan’s daughter. “There are not many promoters for mathematics. And these are all very rare and expensive books that are difficult to maintain,” she says. They continue conducting memorials in his name, and have made a documentary on ‘But That His Life’.
The purpose of opening the library was for the cause of mathematics, has now been lost since the books are unused and they have decided to give away the books, saving only the rare collections. Srinivasan, his children say, would not want his life’s work going waste and gathering dust in an unused room.