A biography of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The book gives a detailed account of his upbringing in India, his mathematical achievements, and his mathematical collaboration with English mathematician G. H. Hardy. The book also reviews the life of Hardy and the academic culture of Cambridge University during the early twentieth century.

One. In The Temple's Coolness/1887 to 1903 -- 1. Dakshin Gange -- 2. Sarangapani Sannidhi Street -- 3. A Brahmin Boyhood -- 4. Off-scale -- 5. The Goddess of Namakkal -- Two. Ranging With Delight/1903 to 1908 -- 1. The Book of Carr -- 2. The Cambridge of South India -- 3. Flight -- 4. Another Try -- 5. The Notebooks -- 6. A Thought of God -- 7. Enough is Enough -- Three. The Search For Patrons/1908 to 1913 -- 1. Janaki -- 2. Door-to-Door -- 3. "Leisure" in Madras -- 4. Jacob Bernoulli and His Numbers -- 5. The Port Trust -- 6. The British Raj -- 7. The Letter -- Four. Hardy/G. H. Hardy to 1913 -- 1. Forever Young -- 2. Horseshoe Lane -- 3. Flint and Stone -- 4. A Fellow of Trinity -- 5. "The Magic Air" -- 6. The Hardy School -- Five. "I Beg To Introduce Myself..."/1913 to 1914 -- 1. The Letter -- 2. "I Have Found in You a Friend ..." -- 3. "Does Ramanujan Know Polish?" -- 4. A Dream at Namakkal -- 5. At the Dock -- Six. Ramanujan's Spring/1914 to 1916 -- 1. Out of India -- 2. Together -- 3. The flames of Louvain -- 4. The zeroes of the zeta function -- 5. S. Ramanujan, B.A. -- Seven. The English Chill/1916 to 1918 -- 1. High table -- 2. An Indian in England -- 3. "A singularly happy collaboration" -- 4. Deepening the hole -- 5. "All us big steamers" -- 6. The Danish phenomenon -- 7. Trouble back home -- 8. The Nelson monument -- 9. Ramanujan, mathematics, and God -- 10. Singularities at X = 1 -- 11. Slipped from memory -- Eight. "In Somewhat Indifferent Health"/from 1918 -- 1. "All the world seemed young again" -- 2. Return to the cauvery -- 3. The final problem -- 4. A son of India -- 5. Ramanujan reborn -- 6. Better blast furnaces? -- 7. Svayambhu.