Insignificantly amusing
I remember opening a brown A4 envelope. It was 1998 and inside there was a subscriber's copy of India Today. Amartya Sen was featuring on the cover page. I kept looking at it for some time. I used to be a quizzer back then, often representing my school and house at various competitions. That piece of news seemed to be quite important, or so I must have thought.
Then in the following year I learned that the same man also won Bharat Ratna. And then it stuck me and till today whenever I come across that little pattern I get greatly amused. Let me illustrate that pattern for you by giving you first 5 examples which I can recall:
1: Satyajit Ray - Honorary Oscar 1991, Bharat Ratna 1992
2: Amartya Sen - Nobel Prize 1998, Bharat Ratna 1999
3: Venkatraman Ramankrishnan - Nobel Prize 2009, Padma Vibhushan 2010
4: Gayatri Spivak - Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy 2012, Padma Bhushan 2013
It's not like they made some over night accidental discoveries or works which went on to win a lucky prize. So it looks like Indian government guys never put any efforts to understand their works, or may have deliberately ignored their work, but are quick to react to the global headlines. Much like that kid who missed the joke but awkwardly laughed coz everybody else did. Quite like my country.
Then in the following year I learned that the same man also won Bharat Ratna. And then it stuck me and till today whenever I come across that little pattern I get greatly amused. Let me illustrate that pattern for you by giving you first 5 examples which I can recall:
1: Satyajit Ray - Honorary Oscar 1991, Bharat Ratna 1992
2: Amartya Sen - Nobel Prize 1998, Bharat Ratna 1999
3: Venkatraman Ramankrishnan - Nobel Prize 2009, Padma Vibhushan 2010
4: Gayatri Spivak - Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy 2012, Padma Bhushan 2013
5: Manjul Bhargava - Fields Medal 2014, Padma Bhushan 2015
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