One of the most distinguished and respected Indian phenomenologists, Prof. G. Rajasekaran (fondly called Rajaji) is no more. He passed away today (May 29, 2023) evening at 4 pm peacefully, leaving a huge shock and void to the world's high-energy community, to whom he was a true father figure.
I first met Rajaji barely a few months after I joined TIFR in 1983 at the TIFR's Cosmic Ray Lab, Kolar Gold Fields, right out of my college. He came there as the Ph.D. examiner of Prof. Naba Mondal. During this first interaction itself, I was struck by his simplicity even though he was already very accomplished by then. But it wasn’t until INO, that we met again and worked very closely. Thus, he was the most influential personality during the second half of my professional career. He strongly believed that I deserve a better professional career profile and fiercely advocated the same with many concerned authorities – though unsuccessfully. I will be ever grateful to him for that.
Rajaji is one of the main proponents and the strongest supporter of the INO project, till he breathed last. Even when nothing seemed to be going right for the project, his hope and positivity for the future of the project were always the biggest motivating factors for the entire collaboration for continuing working with the same enthusiasm. As recently as on May 27, 2023, at 11:04 am he replied to my email saying, “I echo Satya's words. Let us push INO in the Himalayas.”
A two-day Symposium 'Rajajifest' was organised at the Chennai Mathematical Institute in his honour when he turned 80. Replying to the honour, he said “I am possibly an odd man in this gathering - neither a physicist nor a mathematician”. That was precisely the point. Rajaji used to bring all entities - odd and even, together to achieve something significant. He never allowed one to become conscious of his distinguished personality, when he talked to them. That's how every one small and big felt very comfortable interacting with him and benefitted from his wisdom and vision.
Rajaji was a great motivator of science. Science of all types. Science done by all types of people - academics, engineers and students. Science contributed by all institutes - research centres, universities, institutes of technologies, colleges etc. He always showed great interest towards the work done by the students, engineers and young experimentalists.
In spite of being a theorist/phenomenologist, he had great admiration for engineering and respect for engineers. He often used to ask me to show him how the RPC detectors are built in the industry. So, after the ‘Rajajifest’, I took him with me to the Saint Gobain factory in Sriperumbudur where the detectors were being fabricated. I requested him to pose with the RPC detector gap fabrication robot built for the INO project and he kindly obliged (see the pic). This is a piece of precious memory for me.
Live in peace Rajaji. If we ever succeed in building a world-class underground lab in the 75-year-old independent India, we will surely name it RUL – the "Rajaji Underground Lab" and will rule the world with the top-ranking physics it will produce 🙏🙏🙏.
Rajaji's last email to Satya, “I echo Satya's words. Let us push INO in the Himalayas.” is encouraging and inspiring. It portrays Rajaji's INO dream, and his faith on the tireless team behind. `Faith can move Mountains'. My best wishes for the team to complete this `Himalayan Task'.
G. Baskaran, Matscience