Lack of Paper

“Once, the story goes, a friend found him around the docks during working hours, prowling for packing paper on which to work calculations. Another time, Sir Francis called Narayana Iyer into his office. How, he demanded to know, sternly regarding his aide, had these pages of mathematical results gotten mixed into this important file? Was he, perhaps, using office time to dabble in mathematics? Narayana Iyer pleaded innocent, claimed the math wasn’t in his handwriting at all, that perhaps it was Ramanujan’s work. Sir Francis laughed. Of course it was Ramanujan’s work. He’d known as much all along.”