Tribute to Khushwant Singh
While returning back to Jaipur from Bhuvneshwar after spending a well deserved holiday at Bhuvneshwar via Kolkatta today,I purchased a book at the Kolkatta airport titled,”Khushwant Singh: The legend Lives on “edited by Rahul Singh(his son);a compilation of tribute paid to Khushwant Singh by well known writers and others on his death on March 20,2014 at the age of 99.Those who wrote obituaries included from…
History of Indian Food
We are Vaishnavite by tradition and so our food is non onion non garlic vegetarian food. My mother used to prepare food in the kitchen where we kids were not allowed to enter before we took bath.The food prepared would be offered to God ( a few photos and statutes of Maa Durga, Satyanarayan, Shiv ji, Ram, shaligram and others constitute of what we call deity)in the puja room and then we were served that food.In Vaishnavism God is revered…
A leisure day
In the routine life we sometimes stumble upon a day which expectedly turned into a day of retrospection. In a sunny morning when everyone has left the apartment in a huff taking the burden of job with him/her.I have volunteered to stick around till everyone comes back in the evening.Now I have a whole day with me.No one to inspect my actions, no phones(I switched off my mobile) and no one…
The Habit of Reading
Whenever I go out of the circle of my friends and colleagues from teaching profession to other part of society,I encounter a question in different forms; Why one should read? Even in my profession,I donot find many enthusiasts who relish reading on its own.For them also, reading is a necessary evil to be controlled as much as one can and only to indulge in it when essential for teaching or research purpose.But in the normal world (academic world is considered far from real world),people do not like…
Teaching as a profession
I have spent more than three decades in the profession of teaching in a state University.When I joined this profession ,I had no idea what is this job about.No One in my family was in teaching.While studying in my MA somehow my professor Iqbal Narain got impressed by me and insisted that I should join teaching.He got me scholarship after I completed my post graduation so that I can remain in academics.When you join a job you are new to it but gradually you get used to it and later…
Indian Elections: The Verdict by Prannoy Roy
Indian elections are festival times.We just had our state assembly elections and now we are thrown into Parliamentary elections.Discussion,predictions and post-mortem of elections have been developed into an art as well as science in India.With the ushering of colour TV and a large number of channels Psephology has come to stay.We are glued to TV during electioneering, enjoying blabbering and blustering displayed…
How to win an election ?
Elections are round the corner.Parties and individuals are gearing up for the Lok Sabha elections.The result of which will mar or enhance political careers of many aspirants.In a democracy it is the will of the people which is supreme and that will is expressed by the people through elections.To fight an election is not easy.Politics is a full time job.Elections are the litmus paper tests for survival in politics.As It is so important,politicians use all tricks and methods first to get ticket from a political…
On Bullshit
Post modern philosophers like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Lyotard and others consistently and vigorously fought against the monopoly of reason, scientism, objectivity , universality and modern thought.They denounced meaning, objects and rationality of life and subjects related to life.This movement of postmodern thinking dominated academic world for about thirty years showing cracks in it in the first decade of twenty first century.The talk of decline of postmodernism began because of at least two developments. First, with the onslaught of digitalisation…
Revisiting Gandhian Values
A few days back I was invited to deliver Valedictory Address In a faculty development program at Banasthali Vidyapeeth University at Niwai, seventy kilometer north of Jaipur.Vidyapeeth was established as a small NGO way back in 1927 in a backward area for rural development by a committed Gandhian and freedom fighter Heera Lal Shastri who later became Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Now it is a deemed University international known for women education.It is exclusively…
Decline of Liberalism ?
It is time to take stock of problems of liberalism.More and more scholars are writing about the sorry state of affairs of liberalism.Of the many, two are more serious scholars who have come come out with two excellent works on the the decline of liberalism.One is Edward Luce who wrote “The Retreat of Western Liberalism”(2017) and other is Mark Lilla who wrote “The Once and Future Liberal : After Identity Politics “(2017). There is a common thread joining both the books and that is their worry…