RIP Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is no more. A journey of 76 years came to an end.Like most of the millennials getting their news from Social media, I got the news from a post by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

Coincidentally it was Microsoft, one of the first companies that helped him get a voice and with Intel made an entire system enabling him to write books, give speeches and browse the internet. The research that went into it created one of the most robust software to help the differently abled and was made open source by Intel in 2015.

Stephen Hawking was known for many things. He was primarily a scientist and his books and papers paved a new way for us to look at the universe. He was the author of bestselling book "A brief history of time". His struggle with ALS gave hope to millions and kind of proved that nothing stands in your way if you have a will to do something.

To most of us he was perhaps one of the few people on earth who understood what Einstine was trying to do with General Theory of relativity and had translated it for the masses.

I started my career in bookselling. So my first introduction to Stephen Hawking was as an author. Now most booksellers out there will not accept, but secretly each one of them feels this shared moral responsibility of what they are dishing out to the society and the world.

And each one of them will secretly keep a track of few representative books that will tell them if consumer tastes are shifting, or how a new market is mapped. For instance, if a market is selling more of "Mills and boons" and less of "The Bell Jar" would be handled differently

During my first job at the crossword, I didn't know that this is something that all booksellers do. This tiny list is also what they will recommend you as a must read.

On my part, my secret list in 2005 one of the books used to be " A brief history of time" by Stephen Hawking. Partly because I had tried again and again to read it and understand it completely, and its growing sales into bestsellers list always kind of amazed me.

I knew that all the people reading it couldn't have understood it. So during my conversation, if anyone recommended this book, I would immediately ask a few explanatory questions and then rank the person from "Show off" to "follower" to "Intelligent and must follow".

I know that right now you must be judging me, but we all have these shortcuts to assess a person, and this was my nerdy barometer.

For me "A brief history of time" was my own IQ meter. People were either on this side or on that side. And if I found people who had understood it, or accepted that they hadn't understood it, were immediately accorded high respect for obvious reasons.

Over time, the bestselling books changed and sales of this one went down and so my barometer also became defunct.

But the way India is, I still find this book in smaller Airports, and face of Stephen hawking grinning on its cover and sometimes I do pick it up just to feel its pages and look at those diagrams which meant so much.

And the realization that there will be no more books to follow and we have lost one of the most intelligent people to have lived in our times, is hard.

Having been in books industry for my share of time, I can also foresee every bookseller, publisher, and store manager ordering this book. Publishers ordering huge reprints with redesigned cover and forewords. Store managers pushing the book on their best display shelves. Merchandisers on various Web sites pushing this book on the homepage to squeeze the last sales from this title. Many new kids wondering what the fuss is all about and getting introduced to this Giant.

The world will see to it that they benefit even from his death. For that is the destiny of great men.

As the news spreads, One last wave of optimism and hope and an interest in science to cover us all.

A book that will feature in bestsellers list again and a smiling face that will remind us how petty our obstacles in life are.

On my part, Maybe I will again revive my IQ barometer for some time and start asking people if they have read and understood the "A brief history of time".

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The views expressed here are my own and don't represent the views of any of my employers, present or past.