Demetriades particularly praised Sen's openness to change in the College.

"You would never hear him reject a proposal because 'things weren't like that in my time,'" he wrote.

Balancing students with administrative duties, Sen has made the Master position his own.

"He holds an office previously held by people like Isaac Newton," Demetraides wrote, "but to us here in Trinity now he is setting a mark very much distinctly his own."

Beyond Economics

When asked about what he does outside of economics, Sen has an energetic response: "You know, in the Who's Who they always ask, 'What is your hobby?'" Sen quips. "And I don't know what hobby I have. I'm not even sure I have a hobby.

"I sometimes felt that Who's Who is so insistent in asking what your hobby is, I should take up collecting postage stamps or some respectively identifiable hobby, but I haven't," Sen says. "I haven't been able to indulge in such extremism."

Sen does admit to enjoy chatting, looking at works of art and going on long walks--"I like doing what most people like doing," he says. Friends generally agree with Sen's assessment, though Martha Chen adds that Sen is "a connoisseur of fine wine" and likes to jog.

His colleagues do emphasize, however, the deep way in which he cares for others. "He is warm to people who are not high and mighty," James Foster says. "That is something I love about him."

Nussbaum says if Sen has a "hobby," it is his family. Besides his octogenarian mother--whom Nussbaum calls "a major influence on his thinking"--Sen has four children.

Sen is married to his third wife, Emma Rothschild, a professor of history and economics at King's College at Cambridge.

Ties to India

Despite having an international reputation and living most of the year in either Britain or the United States, Sen has maintained only Indian citizenship and continues to be involved with political and economic reform in his homeland.

"I feel quite strongly Indian as a citizen," Sen says. "India is a poor country, a less privileged country than Britain or America, and so it gives me even more of a reason for identifying myself with India."

Though Sen has not advised any government, he has written numerous articles and returns to India to vote. "I like to participate in the public debate," Sen says. "For that, being an Indian citizen is very important."

Sen wrote in his Nobel autobiography that setting up the trusts in India and Bangladesh "gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical" in his country, and he says it reminds him of his days spent as a student, running evening schools and teaching literacy.

Foster says Sen is too modest in describing the stature he has in India.