Had a lovely day in the University of Warsaw on 26th June, 2017 and interacted with various historians and especially Prof Dobrochna Kalwa who works on Women's History. She is also the coordinator of the International Programme. The Dept. of History is located in a beautiful building. There are 80 faculty in the History but unfortunately due to exams most were on leave and I could not meet many others. I had interesting insight into women's history in Poland.
Very happy to announce that today on 20th June, 2017, my Iranian student, Atoosa Bahadori from Women's Studies defended her thesis and was awarded her Ph. D. So this was my last student from the 2012 batch and hence the last of the Mohicans. She has done an interesting work on Cyber feminism in Afghanistan and how women who were suppressed here created an alternate movement in cyberspace. Now I do not see any other student submitting their thesis soon for my other students in History and Women's studies are at an infancy level of writing few chapters or doing data collection and it is going to take some time before any of them submit their Ph. D. It has been a very emotional journey with Atoosa and learning with her about Afghanistan and Iran as well. A strong Feminist from Iran who is a very active Web blogger she opened the society of both Iran and Afghanistan before my eyes and I learnt much during this period about women in these two societies. We only come to know what the media tells us but the ground reality is often very different. I do not read Persian and she opened a new world of women in these two countries who are writing about Women's issues in Persian on the net and are very actively involved. It is amazing to see the resilience of women in these two countries and their ability to question and make the best of a situation that is so restricting and attempt to bring about some kind of change.
On 6th June woke up to a number of phone calls from my sons, mother, brother, sisters and other relatives. This was followed with hundreds of messages on Facebook, messages, what's app, emails, linked in from friends and old and new students and acquaintances. A big thank you to each and every one who took time for this to make this day special for me. After this was my Ph. D student Sarmistha Kabi 's viva examination for her degree. I saw a large number of my students going in and out and I thought they have come to attend the viva. They all took me by surprise by bringing out a cake at the end of the viva after the results were declared. I cut a cake and this was followed by a party with sweets and other etables materialising from thin air. The students planned all this last night in the hostels. I am really touched. Pavithra Molugu, Karan Palsaniya, Neeharika Joshi, Kishore Kumar, Pabitra Sharma, Rizwan Ahmad you all have made this birthday so special for me. Rizwan was on fast and yet served every one for the birthday. I used to feel bad as a child in primary school that my birthday came in summer holidays when the schools were closed and unlike other girls I never had the opportunity to dress up in civil clothes, the only day when one did not have to wear a school dress and behave like a proud pea hen with few friends hanging around you while you go around the school through out the day distributing chocolates to your other teachers and friends. This was one day you were given the freedom not to attend the classes and your friends were at your beck and call. The same friends would then divert their attention to the new birthday girl the next day and you would join the crowd but you were too young then to care and think and analyse about all this on your D day. It was just that special day which mattered and made you feel like a princess. My students made up for all these years where I saw other girls celebrating their birthday in school. Though the University was closed all my students from History and Women's studies came and made this birthday very special and I cannot thank you all enough. Indeed I will cherish this birthday for ever. A big thank you to all of you for making me feel like a proud and happy school girl.
I really want to thank all my family, relatives, friends, current students and past students and colleagues and friends from across the world, UK, USA, Brazil, France, Australia, Spain, Canada and also across India from different states, who took time and gave me their birthday wishes. I am so touched and moved and you all made this day special for me. My mobile was on silent for a lecture for three hours in the morning and when I changed the settings I could see more than fifteen missed calls. I also want to thank the technology for right from the morning, in fact at midnight I found so many messages in Yahoo, Gmail, Linked in, messenger, what's app, my mobile and not to forget face book. In ancient days in Indian culture we used to go on Pilgrimage to remember everyone, our past, present and future generations and friends and thank God for all our blessings. Today technology performs that function and a birthday becomes the perfect moment to do this. As a child, in primary school I always felt bad that my birthday came during summer holidays and I could never be that birthday girl who distributed chocolates to school friends and was surrounded by many other students as the centre of attraction, the only one wearing a civil dress amidst the uniformed students, going around the school distributing sweets and getting best wished from all the teachers. Today technology made up for every thing by bridging distances, time zones and spaces. Once again a big Thank you to every one for making this day so grand and keeping me in your thoughts.
On the evening of 4th June, 2017. It was a pleasure to meet Joseph Anthony an old student of mine from 1985 to 1987 batch who came to the University for his sons entrance exam and visited me along with his wife, Rose. This boy, in his early twenties then, a young, handsome,good looking, naughty and often late to my class, is now a mature man, a father of two sons and a senior Editor with The Hindu. He presented me a book written by him, a biography of M. L. Jaisimha, titled, My way. It's always a pleasure to connect with old students and I have fond memories of him and this earlier batch of students whom I was teaching a compulsory course on Medieval societies.
