Cosmic visionary who bridged chasm of science and society

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.

- Somak Raychaudhury

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. I must have been in Class 8 or 9 when I was awarded a copy as a school prize. That slim book was the first glimpse into the universe I had, and it made everything else — every other ambition — seem pale. Years later, as a college student, I was fortunate to meet him — once during a college trip, and then again when he visited our campus. His presence left a mark.

And over the years, I came to see that I was only one among hundreds across India who could say the same thing. That was his quiet revolution — turning young people toward science, not through slogans or grand gestures, but through example, generosity, and clarity.

Professor Narlikar was, above all else, a maverick, unafraid to question what the rest of the world seemed to accept without doubt. While most cosmologists embraced the Big Bang theory as the bedrock of modern astronomy, he held his ground with unwavering resolve. He began with the steady-state theory — then a mainstream idea — and stayed with it even as the scientific tide turned. When new evidence came in favor of the Big Bang, he responded not with denial, but with alternatives. He proposed the quasi-steady state model, a universe that contracts and expands, endlessly cycling rather than beginning in a single moment. He challenged the interpretation of the cosmic microwave background, suggesting it could arise not from the Big Bang but from interstellar dust. He refused to stop thinking, questioning, or reimagining.