The lastest issue of Kalki has a one page eulogy of Steve Jobs that is very well written. The article refers to Jobs as a "swayambu" -- i.e, someone who is self-made. His biological parents abandoned him; he dropped out of college; did not have a formal management degree; did not do any customer survey and yet(so goes the article) his products were super-hits.
Other than the parents part, this context and the word "swayambu" made me see a parallel to Srinivasa Ramanujam, the great mathematician from Kumbakonam / Chennai. Just as Jobs' products will be part of the stories this gen may tell their grandkids, Ramanujam's unconventional "note books" which perhaps being out the beauty of symmetry and properties of numbers as much as Jobs' products are things of beauty, has kept mathematicians busy for well over a century and with no end in sight...
Only sad part is Ramanujam died at 32 and Jobs at 59.. if only they had lived longer...
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