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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Ramachandra Guha’s godfather, food scientist K. T. Achaya—known to him as Thammu—turned a career in science and oilseeds into influential writing on Indian food history. Guha’s tribute explains how Achaya’s essays became Indian Food: A Historical Companion, and why his interests in science, cooking, music and literature made his work distinctive.
Who was K. T. Achaya?
Kollegal Thammu Achaya, whom Guha calls Thammu, was born on October 6, 1923, and died in 2002. Guha’s October 2023 tribute, written around the centenary of Achaya’s birth, is both a personal remembrance and an account of a scientist’s path into food history.
According to Guha, Achaya’s father worked as a sericulturist. Achaya studied chemistry at Presidency College in Madras, continued at the Indian Institute of Science and earned a doctorate in Liverpool. His professional expertise was in oilseeds and food science; his historical writing grew alongside that scientific career.
How did Indian Food: A Historical Companion come about?
Guha recounts that Achaya wrote eighteen articles on Indian food history for Science Age. Around 1988, Achaya showed him the essays. Guha suggested that Rukun Advani, then an editor at Oxford University Press, consider whether they could form a book. In Guha’s account, OUP contracted Achaya to expand the articles into one.
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The resulting book was Indian Food: A Historical Companion. Guha reports that Advani called it an “incomparable classic on Indian food for general readers.” That phrase is the editor’s assessment as relayed by Guha, rather than an independently established ranking.
What questions did Achaya explore?
Guha presents Achaya’s appeal as a combination of scientific precision and wide-ranging curiosity. The tribute points to questions about how chillies came to the subcontinent, the origins of idli and Mughal emperors’ interest in Ganga water. These examples show the range of subjects food history can connect: ingredients and migration, culinary origins, and the habits of rulers.
Achaya’s interests extended beyond research and writing. Guha describes him as engaged with cooking, music and literature as well as science and food history. He says Achaya was fluent in Kannada, Tamil, English, Kodava and Hindi, and knew some Sanskrit, Urdu and Telugu.
Which other books did Guha highlight?
Alongside Indian Food: A Historical Companion, Guha names two other major OUP books by Achaya:
- A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food
- The Food Industries of British India
The titles indicate different ways into Achaya’s subject: a historical companion, a dictionary and a study of food industries under British rule. Guha’s tribute identifies the books but does not compare their contents or editions.
How did Achaya influence Guha?
The tribute is also a story of intellectual friendship. Guha credits Achaya with helping his early food-history essays find a path to a publisher, and recalls the older man’s encouragement when Guha wrote combative pieces for the press: “Be fearless.” The advice offers a glimpse of Achaya’s influence beyond his own books.
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Other writers’ praise, quoted in Guha’s account, conveys the stature they attached to Achaya’s work. Marryam Reshii compared his place in culinary history to Salim Ali’s in ornithology. Vikram Doctor emphasized the breadth of Achaya’s documentation of food references in texts, saying that consulting his work had become an almost default starting point. These are attributed judgments, not statistical measures of scholarly consensus.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What Guha’s tribute establishes—and what it does not
Guha’s account is especially valuable as a first-person portrait of his godfather and as the source of the story behind Indian Food: A Historical Companion. The Scroll article and Guha’s archive copy of the Telegraph tribute are versions of the same remembrance, not independent corroboration of every biographical detail. The account supports a clear picture of Achaya’s scientific career, broad interests and influence as Guha experienced them; it should not be mistaken for a comprehensive biography or a formal assessment of his place in the field.
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