Darshan Ranganathan and the Pursuit of Science
How long should someone wait for society to change?
Perhaps it is easier and certainly faster to push yourself than to wait for the world to change and become more accepting.
History is filled with women who first learn to trust their abilities, persist despite resistance, and continue their work even when recognition is absent. Forcing society to acknowledge what it had overlooked. Darshan Ranganathan's life is a striking example of this reality. She did not wait for academia to become more accommodating. She did not wait for institutions to recognise her potential. She simply continued doing science day after day, year after year, driven by curiosity and conviction. Over the years, she became one of India's most prolific chemists, not because the system made room for her, but because she refused to let the system determine her worth.
Born on 4 June 1941 in Delhi to Shanti Swarup and Vidyavati Markan, Darshan was, by all accounts, a lively and spirited child. In Lilavati's Daughters, her husband, chemist Subramania Ranganathan, recalls what he had heard about her childhood, her love for singing, drawing, and dancing so much so that she once reportedly danced on her teacher's table, a story she herself vehemently denied!
Behind this playful personality was an exceptional student. Darshan received her early education in Delhi and went on to study chemistry at the University of Delhi. She completed her PhD in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of the renowned chemist T. R. Seshadri. Her academic excellence later won her the prestigious 1851 Research Fellowship, which took her to Imperial College London for postdoctoral research under Nobel laureate Derek H. R. Barton. She returned in 1969, married Subramania Ranganathan in 1970 and started her independent research at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, the very same year.
At IIT Kanpur, an unwritten rule discouraged spouses from holding faculty positions in the same department. As a result, while her husband joined the institute as a faculty member, Darshan was denied a regular academic appointment. Instead of waiting for the system to change, she built her research career through fellowships and grants. Working largely outside the conventional academic structure, she continued to publish extensively and pursue ambitious research questions in organic and bio-organic chemistry.
Long before nanotechnology and molecular self-assembly became widely discussed, Darshan was exploring how molecules could spontaneously assemble into larger, ordered structures. Among her pioneering contributions was her work on self-assembling peptides—small protein-like molecules that could organise themselves into tubes, channels, and other intricate architectures. She was also fascinated by the chemistry of life's processes. Her research demonstrated how chemical reactions could mimic biological pathways. She successfully recreated important features of the urea cycle, first elucidated by Nobel laureate Hans Krebs. She also simulated the ATP-imidazole cycle, creating what was essentially an imidazole-producing molecular machine. She authored or co-authored hundreds of research papers and published extensively in leading international journals. Beyond research articles, she also co-authored influential books on organic chemistry with Subramania Ranganathan. These works became valuable resources for students and researchers.
In 1997, Darshan Ranganathan was diagnosed with breast cancer. She continued her scientific work despite her illness and remained active in research until her final days.
She passed away on 4 June 2001—her 60th birthday. In a poignant coincidence, it was also exactly 31 years to the day, and even to the minute, since her marriage to Subramania Ranganathan.
Darshan Ranganathan's legacy extends far beyond the hundreds of papers she published or the scientific fields she helped pioneer. She not only advanced our understanding of chemistry but also left behind a powerful example for future generations: that sometimes the most effective way to challenge a system is not to wait for it to change, but to succeed despite it. The system will eventually catch up.
Written by Parvathy Ramachandran and edited by Janaky S.
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Darshan_Ranganathan - https://www.ias.ac.in/public/
Resources/Initiatives/Women_ in_Science/Contributors/ Darshan.pdf - https://www.insaindia.res.in/
BM/BM34_0807.pdf - https://artsandculture.google.
com/asset/darshan-ranganathan/ QgEIvLLqlzapnA?hl=en - https://www.asiaresearchnews.
com/content/darshan- ranganathan
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