LONDON, January 15: Noted economist Amartya Sen, who was once almost turned down for admission, has returned to head one of Britain's prestigious academic institutions, the Trinity College at Cambridge University.It was a sea-change in reception for 64-year-old Sen, when he re-knocked the doors of the world famous college, 45 years after his first abortive bid. As part of the initiation rites, he was asked by the head porter who he was and the economist replied, "I have been appointed master". As a 19-year-old Calcutta lad, Sen had been turned down for admission as an undergraduate in 1953. Six weeks later, however, he received a cable asking him to replace someone who had dropped out. Sen, soon after taking over, announced that he was accepting a 50 per cent salary cut in order to return here. He has spent ten years each at Trinity and Oxford University and the last six years teaching at the Harvard university. Amartya Sen's name was picked up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's appointments secretary
after consultations with 150 fellows. Blair then put forward the name to the Queen. "I am very attracted to coming back to Trinity," Sen said. "Some early attachments and associations you develop, when you are very young turn out to be more deeply rooted than associations you develop later in life."
Sen has, thus, become the first Asian to head the prestigious Trinity College, the most distinguished academic appointment in Britain. The college, founded by Henry the Fifth in 1546, has seen many a prime minister including Earl Grey, Lord Melbourne, Sir Henry Campbell, Jawaharlal Nehru and his grandson Rajiv Gandhi graduate from here.
Trinity is the college of Byron and Tennyson. The mathematics prodigy Srinivas Ramanujam collaborated with G H Hardy here and things have never been the same here since an apple fell on a student named Issac Newton.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
