India, May 21 -- It is a day heavy with grief - for Indian science, for those who were fortunate to know Professor Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, and for the generations whose lives were shaped, sometimes unknowingly, by his ideas, his clarity, and his refusal to ever stand at a distance from society.

For the world, he was a legendary astrophysicist, a founder of modern cosmology in India, and a fearless challenger of orthodoxies. But to those of us who had the good fortune to know him personally, his loss is intimate and painful. He was not just a scientist of rare brilliance - he was a presence, a mind, a teacher, a friend. And now, an absence that will take a long time to understand.

My own journey into science began with one of his books. ...