Workshop on Kabir

 The Department of History and the History Research Scholars forum got together on 12th September, 2015, to organise a wonderful programme related to Kabir. Shabanam Virmani the film maker and artist along with Vipul Rakhi a poet, translator, writer and singer along with Gopal Singh Chauhan a heritage and cultural activist conducted this. After the screening of the beautiful film Had Anhad (Bounded Boundless) there was a discussion on Kabir, his philosophy, the film, it's relevance. This was followed by the rendering of songs by the trio. It was an amazing workshop and one which was very much welcomed by the students.Thanks to our students Kalu Ram Palsania, Kishore Kumar, Nimitha, Pratima, Srijan Mandal for putting in all the efforts and bringing in  this together.

Our garden after the rain

 Wow, what a relief! The much needed rains have come to Hyderabad . We had the first rain shower on 8th September, 2015 and it almost poured. I am very happy for this has given a new lease of life to our garden.

Board Meeting in the Hindi Department

There was a Board meeting of the Hindi department on 4th September, 2015.  Photo of the faculty members of the  Hindi Department,  after the Departmental  Committee meeting,  of which I am a Board member. It felt  nice to see the whole department at one place and ready for a click.

Lady Doak College

Reached Madurai on 7th July, 2015. Had a series of lectures in Madurai Kamraj University, Lady Doak College, Madurai  in Tamilnadu.. It is one of the early colleges established in 1948 and they have done some good work in Women's Studies. I am glad that I am in their advisory Board. The icing on the cake was a visit to the Meenakshi temple and having such a smooth sailing for the darshan since one of the trustees of the temple was escorting me. Had an interaction and lecture with the various teachers teaching women's Studies courses and was really surprised to see so many faculty involved in teaching Women's Studies.

They had a Centre for Women's Studies Board meeting and they organised four lectures during my two day stay there. It was fun to interact with the students and the icing on the cake was that I was able to go to Mennakshi Temple and since the faculty who took me there was one of the Trustees and Board member in the temple we could get an easy darshan and have a very smooth ride into the temple. It was a wonderful trip .

Key Note address in Vizag

 I am in Vizag on 16th July, 2015, to give a key note address on the 106th birthday  commemoration of Durgabai Desh mukh. The Centre for Women's Studies is named after her. I was very happy to meet Prof. Shantamma a first generation Prof of Physics who passed out from Andhra University and the present VC was her student and he reminicence as to how she was the only women driving an Ambassador car to the University and mind you those days there were no power steering and it had all to be done manually. The University also acknowledged her contribution and honoured her. I found a lot of coverage of the event in all the local papers today.

About Birthdays

 I would like to thank my children, students, friends, relatives for making my birthday a very special one. Today due to face book and the different kinds of networks that we have I had so many people wishing me a Happy birthday that I am very touched. The celebrations started at midnight when my son and daughter in law and my younger son  called from the US and wished me a happy birthday at 12.00 mid night. I was woken from my sleep and told them could you not wait till morning. Why did you have to disturb my sleep. At this age who wants to get up at mid night . But the sad part was they told my other son to wait for their call and they will connect him and they will all wish me together at midnight. In their excitement of wishing me they completely forgot what instructions they had given him. So Maryland, Bridgeport got connected but my son in Delhi stayed awake till 1.00 at night. When I told him he could have called me he said he was not sure if I would get up at this hour to answer him. Then I got a call from a friend in Japan, then US and the whole day I had so many calls from friends and students who I thought would not remember me. 

Birth days were so much fun in school especially till your primary school and I always regretted it that my birthday would come in summer holidays, when the school would be closed.  On the day of the birthday the birthday girl would wear a civil dress. She would be called in front of the assembly and the whole school would sing a birthday song for her. She would then distribute sweets, toffees or chocolates to the class and go around to different teachers giving them sweets. She would have two or three friend who would hang around with her throughout the day making her feel very important. At that age one did not even think much of the fact that  these friends would then hang out with another birthday girl the next day.  I like to think that almost every child loves celebrating their birthday at school. They enjoy bringing treats to class, handing them out to their classmates and taking “extras” to the other teachers. Their teacher makes them a paper crown, everyone sings happy birthday and somehow they always manage to be the “class leader” for the day. Indeed, it is a very special day for them. So today as I got so many wishes , I went down my archives a picked out few photos of the early day.

Birthday in 2015

There were thousand and one messages on facebook, whats app messages followed by many phone calls.  

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, my family, friends, students, Colleagues. I am very touched.