During the full solar eclipse of 1995, Dr Narayan Chandra Rana, the famous astrophysicist, was a headliner for all media houses as he was the most sought after teacher on solar system to students and amateur astronomers throughout India and abroad. Now, 27 years after his sad demise at the young age of 42 in the year 1996, his low presence in internet and no news in media about any programme in academic, professional and amateur astronomy circles in his memory suggests that we have almost forgotten him.
The birth and upbringing of a child prodigy
Narayan Chandra Rana was born on 12 October 1954, to a very poor family in a remote village named Sauri in Midnapur district of West Bengal, India. He excelled not only in various branches of astrophysics, but also took a leading role in science popularisation, text book writing etc. In addition to science, he took interest in history, literature, philosophy also.
His mother’s name was Nakfuri and father, Rajendra Rana, was a brass smith. After preliminary education at home, he was admitted to Sauri Bholanath Vidyamandir. While studying in class VII, his father died all on a sudden. The possibility of disruption of Narayan’s education was looming large. But the school secretary and teachers came forward to his rescue in view of his proverbial learning capacity. His school fees were waived off and he was accommodated in the school boarding, free of cost. To support the rest of the family — comprising another son and a daughter — his mother used to take up the job of maid servant occasionally, but never asked Narayan to discontinue education to help her.
After coming over to the hostel, Rana became close with his teacher Manindra Narayan Lahiri. Incidentally, Lahiri was an amateur sky watcher. Rana was his regular companion during night sky observations. Despite living in a mud-walled, thatched roof hostel room in such a remote village, Lahiri was updated to modern scientific developments. He indigenously built planispheres, binoculars, telescopes. Lahiri was equally efficient in writing books and articles on popular science in periodicals. A novel technique he devised for integrated finderscope was published in Sky and Telescope magazine of USA. He was the guiding spirit to Rana throughout his life. Years later, as Guru Pranam, Rana presented a 10-inch telescope from Germany to Lahiri. When Lahiri was in death bed from cancer, Rana nursed him. In loving memory of his late teacher, he formed Manindra Narayan Lahiri Memorial Astronomical trust at Sauri of which he was the president.
As a student, Rana was exceptionally meritorious. In 1969, he stood second in the West Bengal School Final examination and was awarded National Scholarship. At the initiative of his teachers — Lahiri sir, Nanda sir and the school secretary Nemaibabu, he was admitted at Presidency College, Calcutta, and accommodated at Ramkrishna Mission Vidyarthi Ashram at Belgharia in the city under the care of monks. His scholarship money covered all his expenses. He passed MSc in Physics from Calcutta University, standing second. At the Presidency College, Narayan was a dear student to renowned physicist Prof Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (internationally famous for the equation in cosmology which bears his name).
Research Career
In the year 1977, Rana appeared in the Entrance Examination of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) for research fellowship. Out of 256 candidates, 17 were selected. Rana stood first and joined there. Rana was suffering from heart disease, ‘Idiopathic Hypertrophic Sub-aeortic Stenosis with Complete Left Bundle Branch Block’. On 22nd October 1978, pacemaker was planted in his heart and the entire expense was borne by the TIFR.
At TIFR, Rana started his research work under the supervision of famous cosmologist Prof Jayant Vishnu Narlikar. Rana’s research topic was, ‘Cosmic Microwave Radiation’. He completed his PhD in 1981. The title of his thesis was, ‘An Investigation of the Properties of Inter-galactic Dust’. His thesis was selected for Geeta Udgaonkar Award from TIFR as the best thesis for the year 1983 and in the same year, Dr Rana received INSA Young Scientist Award. His high end research on distribution of chemical elements in universe started from here. In the Physical Review Letters journal, his research paper — ‘Relative abundance of lighter elements of molecule billing in early parts of Big Bang’ — was published as a special paper.
According to the Big Bang theory, our universe began with an explosion of space itself. Starting from extremely high density and temperature, space expanded, the universe cooled, and the simplest elements formed. Gravity gradually drew matter together to form the first stars and the first galaxies.
In that context, how Hydrogen and Helium were formed within seconds of creation of universe from the tremendous energy and how other elements got absorbed in stars was Dr Rana’s dear subject. He dedicated his thesis to Lord Ramakrishna. He was a very spiritual person in private, and would recite Sanskrit mantras loudly everyday while taking bath. Moreover, applied astrology, such as effect of planets and stars on human beings, particularly on the menstrual cycle of women, drew his attention.
After the completion of doctoral work, Dr Rana was appointed as a Permanent Research Fellow. In the same year, 1983, Dr Rana joined Durham University of England for Post-doctoral research under the supervision of the famous astrophysicist Prof Arnold Wolfendale. The topic of his research was, ‘Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy’. During his stay at Durham, Dr Rana published ten research papers on that subject and received two international awards, viz. the Commonwealth Bursary Award and SAARC Fellowship. His conclusion from that research is narrated below in his own words:
“Though most astrophysicists thought that much of the universe was made of exotic particles in the form invisible so-called ‘dark matter’, all of that in the immediate neighbourhood of the sun could be in the form of non-luminous stars.”
Completing his Post-doctoral research work, Dr Rana returned to India on 2nd October 1985 and joined TIFR. A Britisher named Wilson, a doctoral student of Dr Rana at Durham, completed his thesis in India.
In 1986, Narlikar left TIFR and established his own research institute —Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune. On invitation from Narlikar, Dr Rana joined IUCAA from TIFR as an Assistant Professor. In the year 1996, he was Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Publication of research papers and books
Narayan Chandra Rana was a theoretical astrophysicist. In his research career of seventeen years, he published as many as 58 research papers (single/joint).
Those papers can be broadly classified into six major areas, viz. Astrochemistry, Stellar Astrophysics, General Theory of Relativity and Cosmology, Celestial Mechanics, High Energy Astrophysics, and Semi-popular works. Total citation for these publications received was 497, out of which five publications received citation in the range 51 to 72.
He wrote some books as detailed below.
1. Classical Mechanics by NC Rana and PS Joga. Prescribed as text book in MSc (Physics) in India and abroad such as at Oxford University, among others.
2. Our Solar System by AW Joshi and NC Rana, widely used as a text book at college and university level and is really ‘classical’. Prof Rana dedicated this book to his respected teacher Prof AK Raychaudhuri.
3. Night Fall on a Sunny Morning by N Vayada and NC Rana, a must read for amateur astronomers.
4. Myths and Legends Related to Eclipses by NC Rana, explores scientific reasoning of the eclipses to alleviate superstition from public mind.
5. Observers’ Planner 97 by NC Rana
Besides the above, he wrote a book in Bengali, titled Ebar Surya Grohon. It is reported that the publication of the following more books was pending: Introductory Course on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Total Solar Eclipse, Nokstrer jonmo mrityu in Bengali.
Outreach programme for students and general public
With the natural ability of reaching out to the common man, Dr Rana was a very famous figure among amateur astronomers all over India. Anybody whoever had an opportunity to talk to him or hear him became infused by his relentless inspirations. He wrote hundreds of articles in print media, to alleviate superstitions on eclipses and to know the solar system.
He was the main architect of popularization of amateur astronomy in India and was the Indian representative at International Astronomical Union (Teaching of Astronomy). He was chairman and instrumental in the formation of ‘Confederation of Indian Amateur Astronomers’ (CIAA), a platform for interaction of amateur astronomers of India.
One of Dr Rana’s very challenging projects was of measuring the radius of the Sun through appearance and disappearance of Bailey’s bead (minute spec of sunlight passing through hilly areas of moon), during the total solar eclipse on 24th October 1995. He involved a large team of young students selected from all over India, on the Delhi-Jaipur highway in Rajasthan over a distance of 8 km employing 66000 electronic devices and 400 photo detectors. The value of the radius of the sun with this new method as he found is 696500 km.
Man proposes God disposes
Dr Rana himself was confident about himself. He reported to have said to his teachers from his school days, “If I am able to live a few more years, I would shake the thoughts of Nobel laureates.”
But he did not get that time. Between 21 June and 21 July 1996, Dr Rana delivered lectures in Italy, Poland, England and other places abroad. Soon after coming back to India, he fell seriously ill. He was admitted to a nursing home in Pune. At 8 am, on 22nd August 1996, Prof Narayan Rana started his eternal journey.
Posthumous Recognition
In 1997, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication honoured him by conferring on him the National Science Popularisation Award (posthumously), which included a citation and a sum of Rs 1 lakh. Dr Rana’s mother, Nakfuri Devi, accompanied by a well-wisher, went to Delhi to receive the prize on behalf of late Prof Rana.
Position of Honour
Dr Rana was made a fellow of Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS) in England and member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). He held different posts of various organizations. He was Chairman, Scientific Advisory Committee, CIAA; Member, Education Sub-Committee, IAU; Coordinator, Popularisation of Astronomical Society of India during 1993-1995; Head, Science Popularisation and Amateur Astronomy, IUCAA.
Obituary
In the monthly newsletter Khagol of IUCAA, Dr Rana’s PhD supervisor Prof JV Narlikar wrote: “Perhaps ‘striving’ is not the right word to describe the dynamic personality of Rana. His small stature and outwardly sedate demeanour hid a highly motivated and restless human being. I discovered this, right from the times when Rana joined me as a PhD student more than sixteen years ago, when we were both at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bombay.”
Legacy
The sky observation centre at Midnapore College is named after Dr Rana, while the perforated dome at IUCAA, Pune, for watching night stars, was his brainchild.
*The writer is a Sr Scientist (Retired), CSIR-Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research, Dhanbad.
