Bibek Debroy was my age and came to our university in Bhubaneswar in 2016 to deliver a key note lecture on my invitation. There was a certain flamboyance about him that you generally do not associate with economists, who are most often staid and tad tiresome to listen to.

Like Alan Greenspan, the longest-serving governor of US Federal Reserve bank, he was an abashed admirer of Adam Smith and the invisible hand of the market to spin magic and create wealth. The chairman of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic advisory council, he possibly thought that free market had a cosmic force.

It spurred him to translate the Ramayana and Mahabharat into English in several volumes, in contrast to the slim editions by C Rajgopalachari. They would remain his greatest legacy, unlike economics where he was a standout face, without being profound.

Modi’s fascination for Debroy possibly stemmed from his erudition on mythology wrapped around market economics.

Economics as a subject has divided the Indian economists into two sharp camps after Independence. The Bombay School of DT Lakdawala harped on monetary policy while the Delhi School led by doyens like KN Raj championed a fiscal approach. It was much like Milton Friedman being pitted against John Maynard Keynes.

Nehru who was a Fabian Socialist had his first serious ideological challenge from Rajgopalachari, who planted the early sapling of a free market private economy. While Rajgopalachari’s Swatantra party died a political death, it had robust resurgence, particularly after economic liberalisation in the 1990s when economists like Jagdish Bhagawati challenged the socialist populism of Amartya Sen.

The last two decades has seen sparring between left-wing ideologues like Jean Dreze and Arvind Panagariya, a protégé of Bhagawati, pushing to free the Indian economy from the “shackles of public sector inefficiency”. Debroy belonged to the Panagariya camp and was a prominent voice in promoting the animal spirits of the private sector. One of his most enduring contributions was reforms in the Indian Railways which he recommended in 2015.

We differed sharply on his lampooning the concept of distributive justice in an edit in The Times of India. I thought it skirted the spirit of the Indian Constitution. But I admired his report on reforming the railways. He had recommended that railways should have an independent regulator, which should not fix tariffs but monitor its workings to ensure that the tariffs were market determined and competitive.

Debroy was critical of the unbalanced mix of passenger and freight traffic. He was supported on this by a parliamentary standing committee. He was also critical of the high budgetary support for railways, which did not generate enough internal resources. While railways has been witnessing substantial modernisation and capital investment, the economic efficiency of railway operations leave a lot to be desired.

Sadly his recommendations were hardly acted upon.

He had an interest in several things, apart from mythology. During our dinner in Bhubaneswar, he relished handsome helpings of Bali prawn and regaled me with tales about Odisha’s maritime traditions and adventures in Bali. Not to be outdone, I mentioned about the invaluable musical recordings of Jagannath hymns that were recorded and released when Nandini Sathpathy was Odisha’s chief minister in the 1970s. I presented him with a CD of these songs.

When he returned to Delhi, he phoned to say that he had been bowled over by the collection of bhajans sung by the best singers from Odisha, ranging from Sikandar Alam, Akshaya Mohanty, Pranab Patnaik, Bhikari Bal, Raghunath Panigrahi to Balakrishna Das based on songs written by Salabeg, a Muslim poet.

During his last days at AIIMS, Debroy was unable to read. This was a real pity for a voracious reader and prolific writer like him. Looking back, I remember the elfin charm about him, which you generally do not associate with economists. He was a rightist who feasted on mythology. He was a gadfly who could be charming.

Satya Narayan Misra is Professor Emeritus at Kiit University, Bhubaneswar.