Lucknow: Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who made the world fascinated by his theories and lived his life battling Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), had a Lucknow connection. His father Frank Hawking, who was the head of the National Institute for Medical Research in England, lived in the state capital in the late 1950s when the young Hawking visited India for the short trip to Lucknow in 1959- three years before he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease that bound him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Frank Hawking worked with the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), which was then situated at Chattar Manzil. Stephen’s sister also studied at a school in Lucknow. Stephen also wrote about his Lucknow connection in his memoir ‘My Brief History’, published by Bantam Press. He also mentioned his visit to Srinagar, J&K, and his stay in a houseboat. This was in 1959 when he was preparing to apply to Oxford University.
