During this period, an interaction between Ramanujan and a close
friend by the name of Sandow that has been documented by
several authors highlights the state of Ramanujan’s mind and his
financial condition in India:
Sandow: Ramanju, they all call you a genius.
Ramanujan: What! Me, a genius! Look at my elbow, it will tell you
the story.
Sandow: What’s all this, Ramanju? Why is it so rough and black?
Ramanujan: My elbow is now rough and blackened in making a
genius out of me! Night and day, I do my calculations on a slate
and it slows me down when I use a rag to wipe the slate. Instead,
I wipe the slate almost every few minutes with my elbow.
Sandow: You are a mountain of industry. Why use a slate when
you have to do so many calculations? Why not use paper?
Ramanujan: When food itself is a problem, how can I find money
for paper? I may require four reams of paper every month.
Ramanujan was from a very poor family and his dropping out of
college put him in a very perilous situation. He had no money and
neither a college degree to back him up. His time was spent in
filling countless notebooks with his mathematical ‘discoveries’
and constantly looking for patrons for his work. For his day to day
living, he depended on charities from friends. Fortunately. He was
awarded a small subsidy by the Indian mathematician
Ramachandra Rao and that allowed him to devote more time to
mathematics. However, financial pressures soon forced him to get
a job as a clerk at the Madras Port Trust; a job that he manged
to acquire through friends. During that period, he married a nine
year old bride by the name of Janakiammal on 14th July 1909.
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