Honouring the Great Scientist
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
(1888 - 1970)
Sir CV Raman was one of the brilliant scientists of India who won
the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his discovery of the 'Raman Effect.' (The discovery
that monochromatic light ray in the incident beam can be split up into a number
of components with wave length smaller or greater than that of the incident
ray).
In 1934, he founded the Indian Academy of Sciences and in 1948, the Raman Research Institute.
In addition to being a great scientist, CV Raman was a superb speaker. The following speech delivered at the convocation ceremony of the Agra University is a good example of his eloquence.
CONVOCATION ADDRESS 18 November 1950
It
is no small honour to be asked to address the Convocation of a University in
India, and certainly it is a unique experience for me, at any rate, to be
called upon to address a University Convocation at one place a second time.
I
know poverty and misery and I quite appreciate by personal experience what it
is to be poor, what it is to have no clothes, what it is to have no books,
what it is to struggle through life, what it is to walk through the streets
without an umbrella, without conveyance along miles in dusty wards, I have
been through it all and I can understand the difficulties that most of you
graduates have to face up today. I'm speaking from a long experience of 60
years. Please do not imagine that all the 60 years are milk and roses. To be
able to accomplish something I want to tell you that you have to go through
such experience.
I
admit, success in life is not always to the intelligent or the strong and it
is to some extent a bit of a gamble, but nonetheless those who have got their
minds right and those who know their job will sooner or later, sooner perhaps
than later make their way in life. But they should not be disappointed if
they do not they have to face up life and take it as they find it. This is
the kind of philosophy that I have learnt by experience, and I make a free
gift of it to you all.
What
I say is this that the great things in life are not really great things in
life. The Nobel Prize, the F.R.S. and the like, many of them leave a bitter
taste in the mouth. What I love is to enjoy the common things of life. I
am happy that I am still able to sleep at night provided I have three miles
walk in the evening. I am still able to enjoy a good lunch or a good dinner.
I am still able to look at the blue sky and like it. I still like to walk in
the open fields and like the smell of the Ragi or the Jowar. I feel a younger
man when I see the Babul flower and say God has given us these wonderful
things. That is the real philosophy of life to appreciate what we see round
us.
We
think that happiness consists in going to pictures and seeing thrilling films
and techni-colour dramas. Not at all, the great things in life are the
God-given things which cost nothing. What you need is the desire to
appreciate them. If you have your minds and hearts open, you have around
you things which give you joy. There is the butterfly jumping about in
flourishing colours on all sides. Look at this wonderful thing that God has
given for our enjoyment.
We
have to love nature ad appreciate nature and appreciate her wonderful gifts,
her marvelous ingenuity, her resourcefulness, her infinite variety. It is the
same thing that has inspired me all my life.I study science not because
anything is going to happen to me but because I feel it is a kind of worship
of this great Goddess, Nature of which we are a part. That has been my
inspiration as a man of science. I feel now that is one thing that can
always make a man happy, the small things in life not only in nature - our
old friends, old music and the things that we have around us. Many a time I
would like to go back to them.
It
may be a sign of cynicism, but one would like to go back to the common things
of life. A glass of cold water, for example, gives us vigour and freshness.
(Dr. Raman so saying drank a glass of cold water amidst laughter). I can
assure you there is no pleasure in this world for a healthy man, then after a
vigorous exercise or doing something hard just to go home and have a glass of
cold water. If you have lost the capacity to appreciate that, you may as well
drink a cup of hemlock, as Socrates had to do.
I
have another word to say. We all speak of patriotism. What is patriotism? I
want you to think it over and in the last analysis bring down patriotism to a
physical term. I have thought over the problem. Patriotism as
well as a number of things boil down to the love of the earth. We are of
the earth. When we die we return to the earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes,
the human body whether cremated or buried returns to earth. Seeta was of
earth and returned to earth. This good earth sustains us. On earth grows
green grass, which the cow cats and which a vegetarian like myself as well as
a non-vegetarian gets milk from. Ultimately it is the earth and the things
that grow upon it that sustain us and feed us and make human life possible. I
think ultimately the love for the land means the love of the earth which has
borne us and which sustains us. I want you to appreciate the meaning of
love of earth.
The
love of mother earth should be shown by tending her. If she is ruthlessly
raped and. destroyed, we shall also die with her. The tremendous problem of
lack of food in the country boils down to this that we have left the love of
earth to ignorant people who know nothing of the advance of science. We
educated people who understand science, do not love mother earth. Knowledge
of science will make us create anything, but unless we have that vision, that
desire to love mother earth, we shall not make any advance.
I
think it is a duty laid on every educated man to create something, to see
something grow. I say this not as a part of the 'grow more food campaign', I
have not been paid to do propaganda for it. I am telling you about it in the
same spirit that a famous Roman did. When once Rome was in danger the people
wanted to have him as a dictator to save Rome. When they went to him they
found him ploughing the land with his own hands and tending his farm. After
he became a dictator he went back to the land and said, these plants I have
grown, I give them water, I give them labour and they repay. We should work
in this spirit.
The
more you help a man, the less grateful he is to you. It is, however, our duty
to help fellow beings and we should not expect them to show any gratitude in
return. If they do show, we are very happy and more fortunate. The plant
on earth will never fail to repay any attention that we bestow on it. We must
go back to earth and regard it as our supreme duty to do something to produce
the things on which we live.
It
is a great privilege to see such a great body of young people, women and men
alike who are entering the pathways of life after, a course of study in
colleges and university and to be allowed to speak to them and making a heart
to heart speech gives me great pleasure.
I
never believe in manuscript eloquence or in after dinner speeches carefully
prepared 24 hours beforehand. I always believe in standing up in front of my
audience, appreciate the situation and speak to them heart to heart. I have
no desire at all to inflict unwanted advice on you. I want you to
think over what I have told you and see if some little thing that I have said
may prove the seed of some great achievement on your part, sustain you,
encourage you, elevate your hearts above and so push you on in life that you
may rise triumphant over all the difficulties and all the troubles that are
the common lot of the common man in India today.
Courtesy: indiavisitinformation.com |
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