The Tamil language is Raman's mother tongue.Krista Tippett, Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit, Penguin Books, 2010, p. 122. One source notes that Raman has a "long-running interest in questions of science and religion", and another that he "meditates each morning on symbols of numbers, music, and science, describing this as an aesthetic experience."Jenell Paris, The Good News about Conflict: Transforming Religious Struggle over Sexuality, Cascade Books, 2016, p. 14, quoting Varadaraja V. Raman, "The Heart's Reason," in Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit, edited by Krista Tippett, Penguin Books, 2010, p. 121-42. In Ira Flatow's book, Present at the Future, Raman describes considering himself to be "as much a physicist as one devoted to the other dimension of human life, mainly the spiritual".Quoted by Ira Flatow in Present at the Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology, Candid and Controversial Conversations on Science and Nature, Harper, 2007, p. 213. Raman has two children, a son named Dave a daughter named Indira."If I Could Be The Perfect Father: Initiate child to world's wonders", Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, 20 June 1993, p. 11A. The latter is a neurobiologist,Sophia Lee, "The animal in humanity at Chicago Humanities Fest", Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, 15 August 2013, Section 4, p. 2 and director of the Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neurosciences (NUIN) PhD Program.
