When studying in the 6th standard, Shreeram Abhyankar started finding faults in his father's writings. His father, Shankar Abhyankar, who was also a mathematician didn't seem to quite like this and told him to stop studying Maths.

"But again it was the father in him, which encouraged me to pursue my career in Maths," he adds. Later he had the good fortune of learning Mathematics from the great-Mathematician-turned-Historian D D Kosambi when he was doing his BSc in Bombay University.

While there he heard about the opening of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). "The word fundamental research caught my attention. TIFR was started in a small bungalow. Some students used to study physics and I joined them. However, I realized that I needed something more, " reminisces Abhyankar.

He decided on going abroad for studies. To accumulate the required sum of money, he taught in tutorial classes. After getting to know that Germany had very good institutions teaching Mathematics, he began learning German. "I used to study Mathematics and German, eight hours each. Now I could even write poems in German," laughs Abhyankar. But it was a period of turmoil in post-war Germany. So he decided to go to the US instead.

On his first day at Harvard, he coincidently met legendary professor mathematics, Oscar Zariski. After that there was no looking back.

While pursuing his doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he also became a good friend of Nobel Laureate, John Nash. In fact on the eve of the day when Nash disappeared into solitude they had had dinner together. ``But 30 years later he came for a lecture of mine and sat besides me as though the 30 years gap had never been there,” recalls Abhyankar.

Abhyankar completed his post graduation in 1952 and PhD in 1956 under Zariski. He had come to India and taught at Pune University for eight years and again went back to Purdue. He now stays at Purdue University where he is 'Marshall Distinguished Professor of Mathematics' since 1967. Today at 77, he is neither tired nor retired and has many PhD students doing research under him. He still has many plans for future research in Computer Science and Robotics.

While working as a professor, he married his calculus class student Evon who later took name Usha and now speaks fluent Marathi. They have two children, Hari and Kashi.