As Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with US’ Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath of Israel, for pioneering work on the ribosomes which may help develop new medicines in decreasing the sufferings of the humanity on Wednesday, the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) in this Gujarat city – where Ramakrishnan did graduation in physics – reacted with pride and joy.

Sweets were distributed in the campus and crackers were set off.

“We knew one day he will win a Nobel prize,” said a retired professor of nuclear physics as he recalled the Tamil boy who grew up in Vadodara, graduated in physics from here and then went to the US for further studies.

Retired Professor R C Shah, under whom Ramakrishnan studied, said he was very happy that his student has brought laurel to the faculty, university and country by winning the Nobel Prize.

“It is for the first time that a university student has won the grand Nobel prize”, Dean of the science faculty, Professor Nikhil Desai said.

While the honour for Venky – as his classmates used to call him – was a matter of pride for students, there were few in the present lot on the campus who could have heard of him.

He last visited the university to deliver a lecture Jan 31, 2005, leaving students and teachers impressed.

“A very simple person of high intellectual calibre,” remembered N. Singh as he talked about the interaction he had at the meet.

Born to academician parents in Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu in 1951, Venkatraman studied in the Rosary High School before graduating in physics in 1971.

His father was a well-known teacher in the science faculty and his mother taught home science in the same university. They both retired in 1985 and left to join their son and daughter, who was doing medical research, in the US.