London, Jan. 23 :    London, Jan. 23:  In a couple of weeks, Trinity College, Cambridge, will have a ceremony to unveil the portrait of its 36th Master, now possibly the most famous academic in the world but whom, ironically, the admissions tutors initially rejected when a shy 18-year-old Bengali boy applied for a place way back in 1953. These days things are different, of course, for 68-year-old Amartya Sen. Life would be frenzied enough if he were simply Master of Trinity, a post for which he was chosen in January, 1998, after an elaborate process involving all 150 fellows of the college, the Downing Street Cabinet secretary, the Prime Minister and even the Queen. But the Nobel Prize for Economics in October, 1998, made his schedule manic. Tradition decrees that each Master should have his portrait painted so it can hang in the imposing Great Hall of Trinity, alongside those of previous Masters and the dominating painting of King Henry VIII, who founded the College in 1546. So modest was Sen that he told The Telegraph on being asked about his portrait: 'I wouldn't like to have it up while I am still Master. I think I will have it stored so it can be unveiled when I am gone.' But tradition is tradition and the Master has given in gracefully. But first there was another involved process, involving the College Council, whereby the right artist was chosen for what would be a prestigious commission. An Englishwoman, Annabel Cullen, was picked. In the way that wives do, Sen's wife, Emma Rothschild, herself a fellow next door at King's, had some influence over the final choice. Husband and wife had a look at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which exhibits one of Cullen's works, that of Baroness (Tessa) Blackstone, now a minister for the arts in Tony Blair's government. It helped that Cullen had painted a few Cambridge dons, including the Masters of Christ's and Selwyn colleges. 'I hadn't done an Indian before,' Cullen emphasised. 'I found him wonderful.' The 4ft by 3ft oil shows a relaxed Sen, dressed in an open-necked purple shirt, corduroy trousers, with graceful hands holding a book. Looking at his 'gentle beautiful hands', said Cullen, it was clear 'he has never done any washing up'. She hadn't quite realised he was a Bengali Babu. The red of the fabric on his favourite chair in the huge drawing room of the Master's Lodge had the effect of a halo. 'Oh, dear,' commented Cullen. 'He might not like that but he is a sort of saint of economics.' It was not easy painting Sen, disclosed Cullen, a 48-year-old painter whose studio is in her south London home. He sat for her in two sessions last summer, when Cullen spent a couple of weeks at Trinity. 'He would sit on the chair but he couldn't be still. He was so busy, working with a co-author on a book, taking telephone calls, dictating letters, meeting visitors' she explained. What Sen thinks of the portrait is not entirely clear, though he told The Telegraph: 'I didn't want to look too serious.'