She made Maths easy
Mangala Jayant Narlikar, nee Rajwade was a distinguished Indian mathematician, teacher and scientific educator. She conducted research in pure mathematics. Real and complex analysis, analytic geometry, number theory, algebra, and topology were her main areas of interest.
Born in Mumbai (then Bombay), in a middle-class Hindu family, Mangala completed her Bachelor’s and Masters of Arts degree in Mathematics in 1962 and 1964 securing the first rank and the Chancellor’s gold medal, from Bombay University. After a stint from 1964 to 1966 with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai as research associate and research student, Mangala married Jayant Narlikar, a well-known cosmologist and physicist in 1966. She was better recognised as his wife simply because she frequently had to put her family’s needs ahead of her own research.
When the pair moved to Cambridge, England, where Jayant became well-known worldwide, it caused the first pause in her academic career. As professor at the University of Cambridge’s undergraduate school from 1967 until 1969, she oversaw a few undergraduates, but her two daughter’s births made it difficult for her to pursue research full-time. Her story was perhaps representative of the lives of many women of her generation who though well educated, always put household responsibilities before their personal careers.
The couple returned to Mumbai in 1972 with Jayant taking up a position at TIFR, Mumbai. She returned to work at TIFR from 1974 until 1980. A doctorate in analytic number theory came from the University of Bombay in 1981. From 1982 to 1985, she was Pool Officer at TIFR.
In 1989, the couple moved to Pune where Jayant became the founder-director of Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), among the finest research institutions in the country. They were a permanent fixture on the IUCAA campus till old age and ill-health confined them to their home.
She oversaw the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research’s mathematics subject committee as its chairperson; helped revise the math curriculum for schoolchildren and was in charge of adding more interactive features to math textbooks for grades I to X.
She was the fellow trustee and governing body member of the Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan, from 2006 to 2010. She also made stellar contributions to school mathematics education in Maharashtra, via her work for Bal Bharati, the textbook bureau, as Chairperson.
She felt mathematics was extremely easy. All one had to remember was 0-9 numbers and four signs of division/multiplication/addition and subtraction. She attempted to introduce a simpler Marathi method of number identification, similar to the English method, by suggesting vees-don for 22 instead of bawees, but she encountered resistance.
She wrote books to make mathematics interesting and accessible to students who feared the subject. Her well-known books and scientific papers in English, Hindi and Marathi, include Theory of Sieved Integers; Hybrid Mean value Theorem of L-Functions; An Easy Access to Basic Mathematics; A Cosmic Adventure; Ganitachyaa Sopya Vata, a book in Marathi for schoolchildren; An Easy Access to Basic Mathematics and Fun and Fundamentals of Mathematics. She won the Vishwanath Parvati Gokhale Award in 2002 for her book Gargi Ajun Jeevant Aahe in Marathi.
Mangala missed being a full-time scientist and was a happy-go-lucky part-timer but felt she could have done much more, had she studied Physics along with Mathematics. She advised students to choose M.Sc. with Maths as it also included studying physics at a respectable level.
She was a hands-on wife and mother, did community work for the underprivileged, was a regular yoga practitioner, and planted many of the lovely and diverse trees on the IUCAA campus.
Mangala, aged 80, died of cancer, in Pune. She is survived by her husband, three daughters and five grandchildren.
A. Radhakrishnan is a Pune based freelance journalist, poet and short story writer, who when not enjoying his favourite cup of kaapi, loves to keep people happy.