India, Feb. 20 -- The first non-textbook my father gifted me was a profusely illustrated bumper issue of the Mathrubhumi Weekly, brought out immediately after Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964. I was only eleven when our neighbour, Panicker-a washerman by profession-came running to our house to inform my grandfather that Nehru was no more. His urgency conveyed a national loss that even a child could sense.

The book contained full-page photographs depicting the life and times of Nehru. I preserved it like a treasure for years, until I left Kerala in 1973. One image remains etched in my mind: Nehru standing beside Albert Einstein. I did not know then-nor do I know now, in any scientific sense-what, his great discovery, truly ...