The Importance of Not Being Earnest

This biographical memoir provides an analytical narrative of the life and works of an educator and academician who draws profound influence from the socio-economic background he grew up in and the life he led as one of the leading academic administrators in India.

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This biographical account situates the unfolding of the life of an educator in varied socio-economic contexts. It is not just a narrative of how an individual evolves but also analyses how a particular mindset develops by being dialectically entwined with the milieu in which one passes different stages of their life. At one level, it is a historical narrative since it deals with a particular period of human history critical to the growth of a specific individual. At another, it provides ethnographic inputs to those who want to understand the peculiarities of the twentieth century. It offers first-hand accounts of the nature of transformative politics which evolved at the behest of Naxalites in India; it also has obvious twists and turns as the individual is exposed to a world beyond India. So, the narrative is individualistic, and it has elements of influences acquired through exposure to an alien socio-cultural milieu.


Apart from its analytical importance, this memoir provides a very realistic assessment of India’s education system through the lens of an educator and an academician.