There is so much to Do and so much to Read

My classmate in undergraduate course was a journalist in the prestigious daily of Chennai until recently. I have student friends, spread all over the world, many of them are in good positions. I am posting some excerpts from my student who is also flowering as a journalist in the south.

The author of this e-mail is a very affectionate boy, having all sentiments and quick energetic intelligence. If you go through his brief write up about Pondicherry,, now called puducherry, you would know how much he loves this place.

There is still some residual flavor and spiritually seductive influence of Puducherry. I am afraid, given the heavy pressures of urbanization, escalation in real estate values, heavy congestion in traffic and rise in pollution, this will become one among the crowded cities/ towns in the country.

In his e mail, sent recently, he was sharing his insight and a feeling of infatuation –a kind of falling in love with Pondicherry city, which I would like to share with my fellow friends.
“I love the place, not as a tourist but as an interested observer of its society and polity. There is a utopian element to Pondy’s politics. The ability of a government to run public services quite efficiently without great taxation, the pitched battles for constituencies which often cover just a couple of streets , the recent rise of the radical left, the parallel polity of French citizens.. The city never fails to amaze.

It is perhaps the isolated rule under the French that not only gives the place its distinct character, but also a unique political culture. I must admit that my professional interest in the union territory was kindled when I studied under Dr. B. Krishnamurthy.

The tales of Subbiah and Goubert and the social churning soon after the British left, make an interesting read. It is a joy to walk down the cobbled streets and see the buildings that witnessed history still standing tall.

I yearn for the sea, the smell of dry fish, the blaring radio on the local buses and the reassuring pink walls of the Science & Humanities block of our university. I miss Pondy, my friends like you and, the joie de vivre of the town.”

I want to end this post with a sentence with which he began the letter. “There is so much to do and so much more to read”

At sixty. I also feel that I must read a lot, enjoy and assimilate ,ruminate and reflect upon them and also share them with a larger audience-This academic greed, is a welcome proposition and I will add more strength to this attribute unmindful of all the hurdles on the way.