Indore

Remembering S P Varma and N C Chatterjee by A H Somjee

Author: 
A H Somjee

A.H. Somjee received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the London School of Economics. He is a charter member of the Simon Fraser University, Canada, where he is also an Emeritus Professor of Political Science. He has taught at the University of Baroda, the London School of Economics, University of Durham, and the National University of Singapore. He was also appointed as an Associate Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, and was invited to Harvard University, several times, as a Visiting Scholar.

 

Editor's note:

This article was written at the request of Prof. P C Mathur, a student and colleague of Prof. S P Varma at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, who believes that Prof. Varma brought about a major change in the field of Political Science in India, and wants Prof. Varma to be remembered

S P Varma retired in 1973 as the Head, Department of Political Science, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He took his D.Phil. degree from Agra University. He was required to teach civics and politics during the British Rule, and he did a magnificent job of it. He deeply reflected on the nature of Indian democratic politics and produced a number of very useful books on the subject. He was widely regarded as a great teacher who produced a number of good students.

My Memories of Three Princely States

Author: 
A H Somjee

Category:

A.H. Somjee received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the London School of Economics. He is a charter member of the Simon Fraser University, Canada, where he is also an Emeritus Professor of Political Science. He has taught at the University of Baroda, the London School of Economics, University of Durham, and the National University of Singapore. He was also appointed as an Associate Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, and was invited to Harvard University, several times, as a Visiting Scholar.

India’s Princely States are all but forgotten. But some of us still remember them for the simple reason that they did try to make life different for their inhabitants. I had the privilege to live in three different Princely States, all in the northwest of India.

They were the Holkar State of Indore, Udaipur State of Rajasthan, and Baroda State of Gujarat. My entire life in India was spent in these three states. I took my graduate education in the U.K., and migrated to Canada at a mature age of forty years.

My parents’ wedding - 1953

Author: 
Shobhana Rishi

Category:

Tags:

I came to the United States with my mother and three year old sister in 1964. I was in the fifth grade. My father had come six months earlier to work at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Washington, D.C. as an internal medicine resident. I grew up in Washington and Maryland, and attended Wellesley College where I met my wonderful Indian friends at MIT.  I was a young woman straddling two cultures, and my friends were so kind and welcoming that I felt I had returned to India.


Shakuntala  Puranik (bride) and Surendra Rishi (groom)
My parents' wedding ceremony took place in the house, where they later lived with my grandparents. They had just bought it. Indore, Madhya Pradesh, May 15, 1953
.

 


From the left, Professor Borgaonkar\; my father, Surendra Rishi (groom)\; my grandfather Dr. Ramchandra Rishi\; a friend of the family (name unknown to me)\; my mother, Shakuntala  Puranik (bride)\; my father's sister, Usha Rishi\; my grandmother, Leelavati Rishi, and another friend of my grandfather. Indore, Madhya Pradesh. May 1953.

Epilogue

We come into the world through our parents, and their wedding day is the first day of our lives too!

______________________________________

My Medical Schooling in the 1960s

Author: 
Renu Jalota

Category:

Renu Jalota, born in 1942 in Lahore, grew up in Tatanagar and Benares with two brothers and three sisters. Father was a Professor of Psychology.
At age 16, I trained in 80-meter hurdles. Came second in national semi-finals by split second, and narrowly missed representing India in the Asian Olympics. I got my MBBS in 1964 from Government Medical College Amritsar, and then my M.D in Pathology in 1968 from the Post Graduate Institute, Chandigarh. In 1969, I joined the University of Utah as a resident in Pathology. After some job changes, in 1982, I moved to Denver as a family physician. I retired in 2007 to pursue my hobbies, but ran into medical problems.
I am an avid mountain climber and have climbed up to 22,500 ft. without oxygen. I have trekked in both Indian and Nepalese Himalaya. Have also done glacier travel in New Zealand and Tasmania. Never married, I have remained independent and active in social and political circles. I visit India often.

When Banaras Hindu University announced the results of I.Sc. (Intermediate science) in June 1959, I was placed in the first division (more than 60 % marks), in premedical subjects. So the next step was to get admission in to a medical college. Mom's best friend suggested to her to try the medical college in Amritsar, as it was established by the faculty of the Lahore Medical College (before India's Partition). Students were selected on merit basis, and minimum age was 17.

Subscribe to RSS - Indore