My chancy life as a Statistician
Section 2. Early life in India
In 1954 I obtained a B.A. degree in Mathematics with specialization in Astronomy. I studied at a local college in my hometown Eluru, affiliated to Andhra University in India. Soon after writing my final exams, I was wondering what to do next and went to see my favorite algebra teacher, C.D. Murthy, for advice. He told me that I should study Statistics. I knew nothing about Statistics at that time but my mind was made up and I applied to some universities, including Bombay University, for admission. Only a few universities in India offered Statistics those days, only seven years after India achieved independence from Britain. But I was refused admission despite my first class in B.A. because my grades were not high enough. Only one student from Andhra University was admitted to Bombay University in 1954 for the Master degree in Statistics and his overall grade in his B. Sc. was 495 out of 500!
I was very frustrated and was wondering what to do next. My uncle, who studied in Bombay, advised me to go to Bombay and join the M.A. degree program in Pure and Applied Mathematics and try my luck afterwards. I was able to get admission and started my studies in Bombay three weeks later. But my mind was set on Statistics and I did not enjoy the program I enrolled in except for the one course in Statistics I was allowed to take from the Statistics Department. Every week I used to see the Head of the Statistics Department, Professor M.C. Chakrabarti, to express my keen interest in pursuing a degree in Statistics. A month or so passed by and one fine morning, when I was at the Department to attend my statistics class, Professor Chakrabarti asked me if I would like to join his Department because one of the students left the program to study engineering in England. He also warned me that it would be extremely difficult for me to secure even a second class because I had no background in statistics and would be joining almost two months late. I took the chance and joined the program knowing that next year my chances will be slim again. First year was daunting and I managed to scrape through the first year unofficial examinations securing 23rd rank out of 24! I studied very hard next year and my enthusiasm for Statistics helped me a lot in my efforts. To my great surprise, I secured a First Class in the Final Examinations in 1956. (Only four students out of 24 secured first class that year if I remember correctly and that was a record compared to previous years!). I had great teachers including Chakrabarti and Anant Kshirasagar. I learnt a lot from them even though some of the stuff was boring (like working out the recurrence relations for the moments from Kendall’s book!). Chakrabarti taught sampling theory and I got attracted to it. Also, it was fortunate for me that three classic books in survey sampling by Cochran, Sukhatme and Hansen, Hurwitz and Madow appeared around 1954. I might add that India produced some great statisticians by that time, including C.R. Rao, R.C. Bose, P.C. Mahalanobis and P.V. Sukhatme. Indian statisticians owe much to Mahalanobis for his vision and pioneering contributions in promoting Statistics in India and putting India on the world map.
After finishing my M.A. degree, I wanted to take a job so that I could support my family (my father died when I was only six), but my mother insisted that I should pursue a Ph.D. degree. Chakrabarti offered me a Government of India Senior Research Scholarship to work with him on the construction of experimental designs but I was not strong in that subject and also had no interest. I applied to the Indian Statistical Institute for a research scholarship without success but I was admitted to the second year of a three- year Diploma course. I joined that program but most of the stuff was a repeat of what I learnt in my M.A. program. At that time Dr. K.R. Nair, well-known for his work on the construction of experimental designs, was looking for a research scholar to work with him at the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun, India. I joined him in October 1956 as a research scholar. Seeing my interest in survey sampling, he encouraged me to work on problems related to forest surveys. He also felt that I should go abroad to do my Ph.D. I managed to publish few papers on sampling related to forest surveys. At that time Professor H.O. Hartley was doing great work at Iowa State University (ISU) on survey sampling. Nair studied with Hartley in London, so he advised me to apply to ISU to work with Hartley. Again I was not admitted right away but a chance vacancy occurred and I ended up in Ames, Iowa around the middle of the fall quarter of 1958.
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