Friday, January 31, 2020

South Indian History Congress and meeting students

 The highlight of the South Indian History Congress in Annanalai University is interacting with many students who are using your books for their courses and having a discussion with them. Met many students from Shantineketan and their teacher Dr. Mavali  Rajan who has brought eight to nine  students for this Conference, many of them visiting Tamilnadu for the first time . The evening showcased the beautiful culture of Tamilnadu with a lovely rendering of  devotional songs  and the Tanjore style of Bharat Natyam which was very different from the one that I have often seen and has a lot of footwork and is beautiful, graceful and elegant.









Pichavaram Mangrove

 After the Sectional Presidential address and few papers  found time to go to Pichavaram Mangrove near Chidambaram along with two of my students  Jeevanandam and Rizwan. Spread over one thousand one hundred kilo meters this mangrove joing the Bay of Bengal and has a large variety of flaura and fauna. This is regarded as one of the largest forest mangroves along with Sunderban. One could see few species of birds too. Many films are shot in these mangroves. It is a beautiful experience, boating under the mangroves, ducking your head often  to avoid  hitting it with the  overgrowth and the thick sticks growing downwards, the cool breeze blowing into your face and the vast and enormous panoramic view of the sea.














Prof. M.C. Raja

 Ultimate happiness is when you see a student of yours who was a boy unsure, uncertain going through various drafts, discussions while writing his thesis under your guidance  during the late ninetees, managing the South Indian History Congress with a lot of confidence and warmth. Very proud of your achievements in life. Prof. M. C. Raja, Professor of History, Anna Malai University. It is a great sense of joy which fills my hear when I see my students becoming Professors.





Saturday, January 25, 2020

Fifth Alumni meet at ICRISAT

 Saturday saw the fifth Alumni meet at ICRISAT. It is really nice to see so many scientists, administrative staff and others collect in ICRISAT lawns. The morning started with breakfast and ended after lunch. The strength of any Institute is if it remains connected with its past, its foundation and establishes a link with the present so as to  to build a strong foundation for the future.  ICRISAT where my husband Dr. Suresh Pande worked as a Principal Scientist  Cereal Pathology is doing this. It was nice to connect to many old timers and hear about how they all started in the 1970's in ICRISAT. A great day and I wish many Institutes follow this example and build in their strength through their Alumni.










Friday, January 24, 2020

Article Publication

Very happy to share my latest publication. Thanks a lot Surya Pratap Singh and  Abhishek Malhotra. Thanks also to  Karan Palsaniya for introducing me to both. This would not have been possible with out the help received from you both  in making the excel sheets and diagram. I am so happy that I learnt some  economics  from you both.

https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/sho/37/1/sho.37.issue-1.xml


 



Monday, January 20, 2020

Jitendra babu and Telengana History Congress

 A passion and commitment for History. Some times in life we come across people whose subject  is not that particular area or discipline but they have  a lot of passion towards that subject. Shri K. Jitendra Babu is one such person. I met Jitendra  at the fifth Telangana history Congress at Munagala fort at  Kodad near  Surya pet. He is the one who along with Himabindu the local secretary had  organised this. He is an advocate by profession, a very good painter, a  Kuchipudi dancer and has a passion for History. He has a collection of Two lakh fifty thousand books and more than hundred rare manuscripts and an amazing collection of coins from ancient, medieval and modern period. He is the one who renovated the  fort by investing more than a crore rupees and is now establishing a Centre for Telengana History and Culture over here. It is also noteworthy that Mr. Santosh Reddy the descendants of the Nandigudem Samsthan   gave this property to him for lease for nine nine years.It was lying in a state of neglect with weeds grown all over and Jitendra has transformed this place. I was telling him he should have an exhibition of Before and After pictures. It will take some time to become fully functional. There are rooms for people to stay and in future this will become a great Research Centre. Jitendra took me around his collection. The books are in the process of being shifted from his home to this place and are lying in heaps. I saw the original of Tarikh I Ferishta  of Ferishta here. It also had another manuscript not used by any one till now. It is the Tarikh i-Tajmahal written by a contractor who during the making of the Tajmahal had kept a record of the day to day expenses and how much money is spent on which item. There was the writing of Shivaji when he wrote his name for the first time. There was also a last letter of Shivaji to Aurangzeb. I could see the writing of Ravindra Nath Tagore and Gandhi ji. There were a large number of manuscripts in Modi language. There are numerous manuscripts related to the Deccan too and he told me that our history of the Deccan will be different if some one uses these to write the history. He is publishing some of these manuscripts. This will be such a rich source and I really plan to visit this place after few years and see how it is growing. Jitendra may your tribe increase. It is great to come across a person with so much love and passion for our past and committed for preserving it.












The second day in the Telengana History Congress

 The second day in the Telengana History Congress was spent listening to various papers related to Telangana. In the morning we visited a beautiful Shiva temple of Palliammarry called as the Erukeswara Temple made during the Chalukyan,/Kaktiya period. It had beautiful sculptures engraved on the wall though they were partially damaged. At the Conference, I met few old students. It was a long day since we left the hotel at seven in the morning and after the Validectory returned back at seven. We left for Hyderabad and reached here at about eleven thirty at night. The road is very beautiful and smooth and the place is dotted with a number of dhabas. This stretch almost reminded me of the Delhi Sonipath road with its various eating joints. We had food in a Punjabi dhaba run by a  Telugu. I was wondering, why he has to call it a Punjabi dhaba. May be it also served Chappatis and dal. We are getting a Pan Indian culture now. It is a pity we were too tired to wait for the cultural programme and returned with our seeing it.