A sheepish confession: I was dreadfully unaware of the super celebrity status of the very attractive, highly accomplished co-speaker at the just concluded Jaipur Literature Festival International’s first edition in Seattle. I was struck by her personality and body language as she emerged from the elevator to wait for our ride to the inaugural reception at the magnificent Seattle Asian Art Museum. She was immaculately dressed in a deep purple designer salwar kurta, and was busy applying a matching shade of lipstick. We were both scheduled to speak the next day, and the atmosphere at the glam gala for delegates was dazzling as delegates and patrons enjoyed an evening of presentations that set the tone for the next two days.
Priyamvada Natarajan was by far the most glittering star of the gathering, as she mingled with academics and admirers, holding forth on her area of specialisation—the cosmos. Priya, as friends call her, is a leading theoretical astrophysicist and a highly respected professor in the department of astronomy and physics at Yale University. She was featured on TIME magazine’s 2024 list of 100 most influential people, and has been the recipient of prestigious awards.
“I have always been attracted by the cosmos—the night sky. The deep, dark mysteries it held have always seduced me,” she said in an interview. Coimbatore-born Priya stays rooted and connected to her family back home, as she travels the world delivering lectures on dark matter, dark energy, black hole physics, cosmology and gravitational lensing. “Priya’s Theory”—as it is popularly called in her rarefied world—is about a “puzzle that falls into place”, and involves black hole physics, her area of intense research that is likely to earn her a Nobel.
Since I know abysmally little on this dense subject, I was delighted when Priya, the author of Mapping the Heavens, was so easy to hang with as we clicked selfies together and got a friendly local to indulge us while we posed and preened.
I asked Priya about her early life in India, and she readily shared her current state of emotional anxiety about her beloved mother, whom she speaks to twice a day, no matter what. “I cannot sleep till I have said good night to her… ever since my father passed a while ago, my mother’s health and wellbeing preoccupy me constantly.” I was so touched by Priya’s candid feelings about her parents, and how lonely she often feels as a single woman in the predominantly male world of academia, in which someone like her can be a misfit.
Priya readily admits she may have to wait 30 years before the coveted Nobel is hers, since there is a long list of male contenders vying for it. I marvelled at her single-mindedness, and she smiled it off, as we switched to other matters, and indulged in a heartfelt woman-to-woman conversation, including her interest in fashion, food and films.
Priya lives in a unique space, in which regular dating becomes a challenge, with most potential suitors getting intimidated by her spectacular success. She confessed she had tried and not succeeded at marriage, and finds long-term relationships very demanding given her professional commitments.
I was so taken by Priya’s extraordinary personality. I almost became a stalker! We laughed and joked like old friends, and when we said our goodbyes (she had an early flight back to Boston), Priya reminded me I owed her a masterclass in modelling while posing for paps on the red carpet.
@DeShobhaa @shobhaade