While his peers and students around the world can go on for hours on the theoretical refinements of his theories of entitlement and family or his doctoral thesis on choice of techniques, Sen is one of the few economists in recent times whose work has relevance for lay peopleas well. It has helped that, unlike most other economic treatise today, it is easy to understand, and relate to.

Not surprising, since Sen's work essentially begins at the failure of conventional economics and of market forces to tackle the worst scourges we know - poverty and mass deprivation. It is Sen's work that established that it was social factors that determine whether a famine will occur in spite of high food availability. It is Sen's work which explains why Indian women in certain regions are more malnourished than even those in the infamous sub-Saharan Africa.

It is, of course, from this theoretical framework that Sen's doctrine of empowerment comes from.

Sen has shown how, instead of going in for direct food distribution in areas of famine, it is more effective to work on a strategy which creates more jobs which empowers the potential famine victims to command food. Their wages allow enable them to buy food in the market and then to resume growing their own food. This, of course, is thetheoretical underpinning of India's very own food-for-work programme.

Sen's joint work with Jean Dreze extends this doctrine of empowerment to the role of education in poverty alleviation and human development indices. Sen and Dreze show that despite the relatively lower GDP in states like Kerala, the higher education levels have ensured that poverty levels here are far lower than those in relatively richer states. It is also higher education levels, particularly amongst women in these areas, that have resulted in lower birth rates and lesser inequality. This, most remember, is Sen's constant theme on his visits to India.

Of course, given his upbringing, it is hardly surprising that Sen, the economist, should be so consumed with hunger and poverty -- his critics derisively refer to him as the Professor of Hunger. Born in 1933 at Santiniketan, Sen once recalled that his most vivid memories were of the Bengal famine of 1943 that he saw when he came to Calcutta along with his grandparents. "The streets werefull of emaciated looking faces and people were dying in very large numbers. It was happening even around Santiniketan." And, just a couple of years after this, Sen witnessed another holocaust, the communal riots.

While the tragic events of the 1940s had a profound effect on moulding his mind, Santiniketan also left a deep impression. Tagore's ashram, set in an idyllic environ away from the city, also nurtured his love and reverence for the tradition of Sanskrit and studying the scriptures. As one of the old ashramites Purnananda Chattopadhyay recalled, even today when the professor is in India he spends some time at Santiniketan not just because his mother lives there, but because he feels so much at home there.

"No, here he is not the famous professor the world knows. Here he moves about as any other old boy, the Santiniketani cloth-bag slung down his shoulder, wearing leather sandals and merrily joining the adda at Kalo's tea shop under the tree."

Given Sen's ambition to learn Sanskrit to becomesomeone like his maternal grandfather Kshitish Mohan Sen, a reputed Sanskrit scholar of his time, Sen admits that he has drawn deeply on the works of great writers such as Shakespeare, Shaw, the Sanskrit and Greek classics, the Indian epics and the literature of native Bengal.

When delivering the first Baffi memorial lecture of the Bank of Italy in Rome, where the President of Italy was amongst the audience, Sen drew at length on Kautilya's (itals begin) Arthashastra (itals end) in comparison with Adam Smith's ideas!

Sen, who has authored 18 books, apart from nearly 200 research papers and articles, left his prestigious job as Lamont Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard last year to take over as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge, a singularly prestigious position that no Indian has ever occupied so far. Prior to this, Sen has been the Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford and Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. Back home, Sen set up the economicsdepartment at Jadavpur university, from where he moved on to the Delhi School of Economics.

A restless mind, like all those of his sharp intellect, Sen has flirted with many disciplines before finally settling down to economics. As a child, he wanted to become a Sanskrit scholar, by the time he reached school he wanted to become a mathematician, and a couple of years later was set on becoming a physicist.

By the time he reached Calcutta's Presidency College, he settled for economics. Formally, that is. For, right till now, he combines the essence of all disciplines. And, of course, the legendary Bengali tradition of literature and the fine arts.