Ratan Lal Brahmachary

Ratan Lal Brahmachary was a distinguished biochemist and a pioneer of tiger pheromone studies in India. He was born in Dhaka, Bengal Presidency, British India (now in Bangladesh) in 1932. He was an astrophysicist by training and a student of the eminent Indian theoretical physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. He shifted streams to study pheromones at the Indian Statistical Institute under its founder Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. He studied many species of wildlife, notably big cats, and undertook research trips to his favourite continent Africa fourteen times. He also studied ethology in the Amazon basin in South America and Borneo, Indonesia with an ardent admirer of entomologist Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya. He was among the first scientists to observe the scent-marking behaviour of tigers, where the animals spray urine on tree branches to mark their territories and communicate via biochemical messengers. He synthesised the chemical nature of tiger urine (marking fluid) and found out that the molecule 2 acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP) was present in tiger urine (marking fluid) and was the very same molecule that imparts the beautiful aroma to fragrant varieties of rice like basmati. He also studied human pheromones and scented and non-scented mung beans. He was assisted in his studies on tiger pheromones by former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, who supported his scientific investigations. He wrote several books in Bangla to promote the cause of wildlife protection and scientific observation of animal behaviour, such as ‘Africar Jongoley Barobar’ (‘Twelve Visits to the African Jungle’) and ‘Bagh, Shingha, Haathi’ (‘Tiger, Lion and Elephant’), receiving the coveted state prize of Bengal, the Rabindra Puraskar, for his contributions to science popularisation. His academic book ‘My Tryst With Big Cats’ is quite popular among tiger studies scholars. He also published many research papers on biochemistry, physics and general relativity. He was a founder patron of Zoo Check, now the Born Free Foundation, and always emphasised that wildlife belongs in the wild and strongly stood for compassionate treatment of animals in research. He died in pneumonia on 13 February 2018 in a city nursing home in Kolkata, India. He had pledged his body to medical research and his body was handed over to R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital authorities.