Mosaics of the Wonderland

He was merely twenty-three – hardly qualified to be called a “man”. But, they felt that he was the one! He was vibrantly frivolous in his intellectual proclivities till his late teens and flirted between Sanskrit, Mathematics and Physics, before settling for the eccentric charms of Economics. Yet, they felt that even at twenty-three, he can adorn the chair of the Economics department of the newly formed Jadavpur University (JU). Storm of protest, naturally, followed. Yet, he survived and flourished. For a span of two years, his footsteps vibrated on the floors of the Department of Economics, with a peer group consisting of Mrinal Datta Chaudhuri, Paramesh Roy, Anita Banerji, and Ajit Dasgupta providing him the intellectual stimulation. He was intrigued by the immensely talented Ranajit Guha, who later initiated the "subaltern studies" – a highly influential school of colonial and post-colonial history. Well, this was the beginning of a story of a legend called Sen, who once thought “otherwise”; and his “otherwise” thinking brought around a change in the way in which we perceive economics today in the era of Elinor Ostrom. This is also the story of a new University and one of its emerging Departments, – a story which probably is written in the pages of history beginning from the 1950s.

Almost four decades after Sen romped on the floors of the Department, 30-odd starry eyed freshmen(1) joined the Department, — with aspirations of becoming economists. There was nothing exceptional in it (as freshmen joined every year since the inception of the Department) excepting the fact that I was one of those starry eyed freshmen. Freshmen and sophomores mixed well with each other. Sophomores used to ask freshmen to indulge in silly antics which were popularly coined in a collective noun – “ragging” (2)! And, that was the time, when I was a freshman, and then graduated to be a sophomore at the Economics Department at JU – yet, wanted to classify myself as an “egghead” of the era, with a lot of cerebral affectation that dominated the mindset of the students’ community of the 90s in JU. “I belong to the Austrian School”, - used to be a form of scholarly cataloguing. Yet, there was fun! Considering the fact that English, Bengali and Comparative Literature departments (infested with human species of fairer sex) were in the same building as that of Economics, the Econ guys had the immense opportunity to experiment their destinies with the felinity of the feminine charm.

It was difficult to resist the irresistible temptation of the lobby(3) of the Arts Faculty building just as one entered through the Bengal Lamp gate. The source of sheer irresistibility of lobby lay not only in its emergence as rendezvous of “addabaaj bangali” of JU, but also in its surfacing as the hub of all those smitten with the cupid’s arrow. Hence, what prevailed in the lobby was “intellectualism” starting from Sartre to Jibonananda, music ranging from Nikhil Banerji to Pink Floyd, “adda” consisting of “dogging”(4) and “bitching”, leg-pulling, smoking, “lebu-chaa with hajmi guli”, and a host of hugs, kisses and smooches (and even beyond) at one remote corner that the cupid’s followers apparently misconstrued as being out of public eye. This made the lobby a colourful place and many a guy and many a girl revealed their preference to spend their days, months, years and probably even life there. The lobby evoked a “religious” faith, and just as devout Hindus visit temple once or twice a day, devout Arts Faculty JU-ites visited lobby, as and when they get a chance. Lately, I came to know that Mahmud of Ghazni has taken a rebirth, with a vengeance to destroy all religious places, and in the process, this place of worship known as the lobby has been destroyed with minimum traces of its relics.

There were three faculty members in JU who attracted my rapt attention. They were Sourin Bhattacharya, Ajitava Raychaudhuri and Bhaswar Moitra. Of them, Sourin-babu somehow emitted a charismatic intellect with his “Bangali Bhadrolok” appearance, lectures in the finest of “Benglish”(5) consisting of immaculate English and flowing Bengali, and deep insights on construing the riddles of the Marxian framework that otherwise seemed insurmountable to be traversed in the simple linear configuration of human thought process. The critical element about Sourin babu’s lectures was simplicity. With that arcane simplicity, he easily transcended disciplines in his lectures. Even at an undergraduate level, he could make students understand the trans-disciplinary scaffold of political economy by combining knowledge from philosophy and political science. Sourin-babu was a first-generation student of Sen. Sourin-babu’s research, reflected in many books and papers that he wrote, revealed the influence that Sen’s thoughts had on him. I was enamoured by his Unnayan: Onyo Bichaar (Development: another Perspective). Contrary to the dominant neoclassicism ruling the economists’ thought processes, Sourin-babu’s approach was mega-qualitative. In certain senses, I get the same feeling on reading Elinor Ostrom’s Understanding Institutional Diversity at times – though Ostrom was much more empirical and the two domains are completely different.

On the other hand, Ajitava-babu and Bhaswar-babu were highly “neoclassical” and were highly “popular” among the “good” ones and “unpopular” among those who did not attend their lectures, and could rarely make out much by attending them once in a while. Both of them were trained in US Universities, and had quite a solid foundation of quantitative methods. They had their own styles of lecturing, which used to have a long-lasting impact on the young minds. Later on, as I entered the academic profession during the first few years after my doctorate, I often attempted to emulate their teaching style, along with the styles of many others whom I met in course of my doctoral studies, as also in course of visiting foreign universities as visiting faculty.
I presume that for years, in all the descriptions of JU, a few issues have featured time and again – Amenity Centre Canteen, Milan-da’s dhop, “jheel” and Ashirbaad’s G4. In any case, they did entail something special for all of us in those days. As I visited JU Eco department after almost a decade in 2007, I found that a few faculty faces have changed. My batch-mate, Rajen Kundu, had become a faculty in the Eco department by then, just like a few other faces whom I used to regularly find in various seminars and conferences in Delhi, like Saikat Sinha Roy (previously with RIS, Delhi, and then ADB). I presume that Rajen has already exited from JU system, and is now donning a position at JNU.

What has changed in JU over time? I failed to make out. The lobby was gone, but that has not deterred the cupid to smite the young vulnerable heart; neither has the spirit of adda gone, nor has the “lebu-chaa with hajmi-guli”! Milan-da’s dhop and Ashirbaad’s G4 have still remained sources of “gastronomic” delight. It appeared that JU has not yet called off its tradition of thinking, debating, and wasting a lot of time. My research collaborator, Political Scientist Emil Uddhammar once stated over a pitcher of beer in a pub in Vaxjo, Sweden, “... In India, you rarely have time to relax. We work hard during the day, so that we can relax after 4 pm”. During that discussion, we reached the conclusion that one must know how to “waste” time, and I agree that it is the “wastage” of time (often classified as “leisure” by economists) that enhances “well-being”. That is why, Scandinavian nations feature at the top of “Human Happiness Index” (HHI) listing. My contention is: so are the JU-ites (faculty as well as students)! Historically, they have wasted time and enjoyed leisure, and the tradition continues.

Memories become obscure over time. This story has to end here with all those vague memories of the Wonderland (called JU) where luminaries like Sen once romped through. Despite his brilliance in academics and the immense responsibility of setting up a new department, he could not evade falling for a girl in her pristine 20, a first-year student of Comparative Literature in the university in 1956. Such is the magic of the Wonderland! The arcane mosaic of the Wonderland continues to prevail unfazed!
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Notes:
(1) Feminists, let us assume, for the time being, that this is a gender-neutral expression.

(2)Readers need not be horrified! Those who perceive this as similar to what Shyam faced in Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone will be way away from the focal point. “Ragging”, in the Department of Economics, is defined as a harmless, clueless, focus-less, inordinate “time-pass” that has been driven across generations of sophomores and freshmen, with the sole motivation to find an alibi for “bunking” more lectures, which otherwise were somewhat “non-existent” particularly in months when examinations were far from being in the horizon. If the rare species called “lectures” made their presence felt at times, they were either “boring” or “tangential”, as per the popular proverb in the Department.

(3) A venerated pile of bricks, adorned with cement and stone-chips that were made to look like two steps of a staircase.

(4)Readers don’t take this literally! I could not find a better term of the phenomenon when males “bitch”!

(5)Benglish = Bengali + English