In fact as a student at Oxford I once knocked on the door of Prof Penrose to ask whether I could attend his course on Spinors. He asked where I was from. When I mentioned I had come from Presidency College in Calcutta, he asked whether I was related to THE Raychaudhuri. https://twitter.com/ydnadydnad/status/1313441442618982400

I mumbled and said that Amalkumar Raychaudhuri had indeed taught us Mathematical Physics in the first year. And Electromagnetism. And General Relativity, which wasn’t in the syllabus.

There was another person in his office at that time. He introduced himself as Stephen Hawking. He still had his own voice.

As I went over to Cambridge for my PhD, one of the first public lecture series I attended was called “A Short History of Time” by Stephen Hawking, using his novel speech system. It later became a popular book with a slight change in title. Penrose came often and gave lectures.

In 1997, Penrose came to @IUCAApune (where I was then faculty) for the #GR15 megaconference. “Shadows of the Mind” was then out. We organised a public lecture by him at the #BalGandharva theatre in #Pune. 5000 people turned up for the talk and some of them broke down the doors

Just found a VHS of the #BalGandharva #Pune public talk by Roger Penrose from December 1997. Need to digitise it.