Go to Paris’:It is the title of a novel written long time ago by Jayakantan, a noted prolific writer in Tamil language while I was a college student.
Everyone can’t have a chance to go to Paris- the city of romance and varied wine and perfumes, a place known for war memories, beautiful architecture and a great civilizational culture and democracy.
As a school boy and later college student, I was an avid reader of Tamil novels and literature. I was drawn more towards Dr.M.Varadarajan (shortly called Dr.Muva) and of course Jayakanthan. I do not remember to have read ‘Go to Paris’ novel.
After returning from Paris, spending a few weeks there, which included a short visit to a few cities in Germany, where I was lucky to meet a few Economics professors and talk to late,Subash Chandra Bose’s daughter and her husband. I am very curious now to read that Jayakanthan’s novel.
Jayakanthan must have written this novel and many other path breaking novels and short stories, while he was at his literary glory and heightened creativity. Of late for that matter, for so many years, Jayakantan has not written much. He stopped writing long ago. Perhaps he has written whatever he wanted to write and or he is fully exhausted. I wouldn’t say, he has reached the limits of his creative excellence. Like old theories in economics, and the U.S.Dollar, the creative impulses of the great writers like Jayakanthan cannot die that easily .
The trip to Paris University 13 was planned long ago . Due to student’s strike, it could not be accomplished in the first half of 2009. The Memorandum Of Understanding signed between Pondicherry University and the Paris University 13 was waiting in the wings to carry one of the faculty members from the discipline of Social Sciences , particulary from the Dept of Politics and International Studies.
I was just lucky that I happened to be the one who was previliged enough to inaugurate the Faculty Exchange Programme and I can only thank the wise and benevolent destiny which provided me this opportunity of lecturing in a foreign soil- a proposition I would have hardly ventured even in my wildest dreams .
Like so many things in my life, this overseas trip came very late and better late, than never. For a person like me ,who had never set any goal or any grand ambition , this was quite natural and normal to live in a isolated and secluded world . Given my intellectual training , reading and extensive teaching in a more intensified way with passionate involvement,I should have been little bit more disciplined and more organized in dreaming to attend international conferences and networking truly academic relationship. All through my life, I remained content in reading what I liked, and teaching looking beyond the syllabus, the calendar time and the clock in the classroom , that made me happy.
The tremendous positive fallout of madly falling in love with the subject was that, I could survive physically remain happy and in the process, forget all the failings on the non- academic side. Understandably, this had its own negative fallout on the family and domestic side . I read somewhere “People don’t fall , because they intend to fall. They fall because they fail to do what they intend to do”
This quote aptly captures my academic predicament . In the academic field where I have a reasonable comparative advantage I have not exploited it for generating more academic externalities . There is always a residual lingering feeling that , I should have done more and I could have done better . But, I hardly bothered to come out of the academic recession . which was my own creation
Being pleasantly surrounded by family, kids and laughter and to do some light reading is a more enjoyable thing at this age:the intense yearning to be part of the family and do amends for the past lapses is also very much there. But the ground level reality is that, the seductive influence of the subject outweighs and outsmarts everything else. Going back to the title , undertaking a trip to Europe was one of the memorable moments in life , which taught me many things about life. It showed me how the entire infinity loves me abundantly and how much debt I owe to the broader humanity and all the elements of nature Befor I close, I should remind myself that ,I should read the novel, ‘Go To Paris’
Everyone can’t have a chance to go to Paris- the city of romance and varied wine and perfumes, a place known for war memories, beautiful architecture and a great civilizational culture and democracy.
As a school boy and later college student, I was an avid reader of Tamil novels and literature. I was drawn more towards Dr.M.Varadarajan (shortly called Dr.Muva) and of course Jayakanthan. I do not remember to have read ‘Go to Paris’ novel.
After returning from Paris, spending a few weeks there, which included a short visit to a few cities in Germany, where I was lucky to meet a few Economics professors and talk to late,Subash Chandra Bose’s daughter and her husband. I am very curious now to read that Jayakanthan’s novel.
Jayakanthan must have written this novel and many other path breaking novels and short stories, while he was at his literary glory and heightened creativity. Of late for that matter, for so many years, Jayakantan has not written much. He stopped writing long ago. Perhaps he has written whatever he wanted to write and or he is fully exhausted. I wouldn’t say, he has reached the limits of his creative excellence. Like old theories in economics, and the U.S.Dollar, the creative impulses of the great writers like Jayakanthan cannot die that easily .
The trip to Paris University 13 was planned long ago . Due to student’s strike, it could not be accomplished in the first half of 2009. The Memorandum Of Understanding signed between Pondicherry University and the Paris University 13 was waiting in the wings to carry one of the faculty members from the discipline of Social Sciences , particulary from the Dept of Politics and International Studies.
I was just lucky that I happened to be the one who was previliged enough to inaugurate the Faculty Exchange Programme and I can only thank the wise and benevolent destiny which provided me this opportunity of lecturing in a foreign soil- a proposition I would have hardly ventured even in my wildest dreams .
Like so many things in my life, this overseas trip came very late and better late, than never. For a person like me ,who had never set any goal or any grand ambition , this was quite natural and normal to live in a isolated and secluded world . Given my intellectual training , reading and extensive teaching in a more intensified way with passionate involvement,I should have been little bit more disciplined and more organized in dreaming to attend international conferences and networking truly academic relationship. All through my life, I remained content in reading what I liked, and teaching looking beyond the syllabus, the calendar time and the clock in the classroom , that made me happy.
The tremendous positive fallout of madly falling in love with the subject was that, I could survive physically remain happy and in the process, forget all the failings on the non- academic side. Understandably, this had its own negative fallout on the family and domestic side . I read somewhere “People don’t fall , because they intend to fall. They fall because they fail to do what they intend to do”
This quote aptly captures my academic predicament . In the academic field where I have a reasonable comparative advantage I have not exploited it for generating more academic externalities . There is always a residual lingering feeling that , I should have done more and I could have done better . But, I hardly bothered to come out of the academic recession . which was my own creation
Being pleasantly surrounded by family, kids and laughter and to do some light reading is a more enjoyable thing at this age:the intense yearning to be part of the family and do amends for the past lapses is also very much there. But the ground level reality is that, the seductive influence of the subject outweighs and outsmarts everything else. Going back to the title , undertaking a trip to Europe was one of the memorable moments in life , which taught me many things about life. It showed me how the entire infinity loves me abundantly and how much debt I owe to the broader humanity and all the elements of nature Befor I close, I should remind myself that ,I should read the novel, ‘Go To Paris’
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