At 23, Ramanujan wrote to the Port Trust office in Madras to secure a clerk job, reflecting his family's expectations at the time. He grew up in a spiritually rich environment, with his first guru ...

They may or may not be pious in the conventional sense. Ramanujan's piety was explicit. He was devoted to his family deity, Namagiri, consort of Narasimha, the man-lion avatar of Mahavishnu.