When Rieux Met Nallasivam ❤️

Meet the Cultural Mavericks – Camus and Kamal! 😊

#onhisbirthdaytoday

7th November

Well, first thing this morning, I rang up two people who mean the world to me – my Mom who is celebrating her birthday today, and my bosom buddy Santharaj, who is also celebrating his birthday today.

Amma has been a great inspiration on me! She calls me her ‘masterpiece’, and I call her a ‘maverick’!

Yes! She taught me how to look beyond the mundane and the ordinary! Amma always wanted me to take the untrodden paths! She wanted me to take to Music, do my college studies in Journalism and then join Discovery or National Geographic Channels! 😊Cos she is an ardent nature-lover! 😊

But then, Appa seasoned reason into it, and hey presto! I’m here blogging! 😊

So then… I’ve always had this curious question –

Is it a truth universally acknowledged, that all such cultural mavericks are born on 7th November? 😉

God knows! 😉

So now let’s look up two of such great cultural mavericks who were born on this lovely day – 7th November!

But before that, let’s define the term, ‘Cultural Maverick’.

A cultural maverick isn’t just someone who thinks differently; they are the bold independent artists, thinkers, and intellectuals who deliberately disrupt and defy the established norms and orthodoxies of their time. Instead of “meekly” and “cheekily” succumbing to dominant aesthetic or societal standards, they carve entirely new paths of their own, and lay the roads, for future society to happily walk on them!

Yes! Academia might guard the gates, but the maverick builds the roads, you see!

They are people who dare to disrupt the status quo! And because they do not seek permission or validation from traditional gatekeepers, they often speak directly to the public, democratising knowledge for the lay.

Today happens to be the birthday of two such cultural mavericks - Albert Camus and Kamal Haasan - legends who dared to defy the establishment and push the very boundaries of human expression!

Take Kamal Haasan, for instance. I admire him not only as a powerhouse-performer of sorts, but also as an avid reader and a relentless writer. Those close to him testify that he reads and writes almost daily, which explains how he has personally authored or co-authored the screenplays for approximately 40 of his 230-plus films.

Much akin to Kamal, Camus refused to be tied down to a single domain of activity. He wasn’t a desk-bound, arm-chair philosopher! Rather, he was a deeply committed theatre man who stepped actively into writing, directing, producing, and even acting on stage.

Just as Kamal adapted complex thrillers like Unnaipol Oruvan, Camus spent years adapting famed literary works like Dostoevsky’s The Possessed and Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun for the theatre.

Both Camus and Kamal are known for taking massive creative risks, boldly introducing radical themes and technological innovations that were far ahead of their time.

Both are voracious readers and obsessive writers who have always championed societal issues through their art. Kamal pioneered method acting in Tamil cinema, pushing actors to psychologically and emotionally inhabit their characters to unearth raw truths.

Neither Kamal nor Camus has ever stayed in their comfort zones. Kamal has frequently risked his financial security by backing radical, taboo themes that carried no guarantee of commercial success, facing protests, bans, and political backlash across Tamil Nadu and beyond.

Quite interestingly, Camus made the exact same choice in the intellectual realm. By publishing The Rebel, he knowingly alienated the powerful Parisian intellectual elite and also damaged his long-time close friendship with Jean-Paul Sartre. 

Both Camus and Kamal are trendsetters who firmly believed that –

To tell radically new truths, you have to invent radically new tools!

I would like to end this post with a comparative take on Kamal’s Anbe Sivam (for which he penned the story and screenplay) and Camus’s The Plague, simply for their stunning resemblances! 😊

In Camus’s masterpiece titled, The Plague, Dr. Bernard Rieux refuses to philosophise about the disease or look for divine meaning in the suffering. For him, fighting the plague is not about heroism; it is a necessity, an obligation and common decency.

Strikingly similar is the character of Nallasivam, who locates divinity entirely within the act of loving, helping and healing others - literally, Anbe Sivam (Love is God).

In The Plague, Dr. Rieux is an atheist who works tirelessly to heal the sick, driven not by the promise of heaven or the fear of hell, but by sheer human solidarity. Hence he refuses to philosophise about the disease or look for divine meaning in the suffering around him. For him, fighting the plague isn’t about heroism; it is a necessity, an obligation, and a matter of common decency.

In his most direct confrontation with Father Paneloux, after watching a young boy die in agony, Rieux rejects a universe that demands the suffering of innocents –

“No, Father. I’ve a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.”

He adds, “There’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency... What interests me is being a man.”

In Anbe Sivam, during the harrowing train accident sequence, as people are bleeding and crying for help, the atheist Nallasivam delivers an epic line (that perfectly mirrors Dr. Rieux’s philosophy): “The one who sheds tears for another’s pain is God.”

Both Dr. Rieux and (Dr) Nallasivam are physically broken and exhausted by their journeys, yet they relentlessly strive to alleviate the pain of their fellow human beings simply because the person in front of them is suffering.

Wait! That’s not all.

Quite interestingly, the parallels extend brilliantly to their foil-characters as well!

Rambert in The Plague and Anbarasu in Anbe Sivam.

Both are self-centered, privileged men who are desperate to escape the collective suffering in order to pursue their personal happiness! Yet both are ultimately transformed by the grounded heroism of the protagonists.

Raymond Rambert, a journalist stuck in Oran, spends the first half of the novel trying to illegally escape quarantine to reach his lover in Paris. But after witnessing Rieux’s tireless work, he chooses to stay and fight, realising that “it may be shameful to be happy by oneself.”

Similarly, Anbarasu is an arrogant, capitalist ad-maker frantic to reach Chennai for his wedding, viewing the floods, strikes, and train accident as mere personal inconveniences. Yet, Nallasivam’s selfless actions systematically dismantle his ego. When Anbarasu witnesses Nallasivam donating his own blood - and finally recognises the profound sacrifices of Nallasivam’s past - he sheds his vanity and his inflated sense of individualism.

Both texts offer almost exactly the same conclusion, that – “grand narratival” rhetoric alone cannot heal a bleeding child. When systems fail, the ultimate antidote is radical, interpersonal compassion and empathy!

Through their protagonists Dr. Rieux and (Dr.) Nallasivam - both texts argue that true grace is found not in the unseen heavens up there, but in the exhausting and tireless work of lifting another human being up!

So, even as we celebrate Camus and Kamal on their birthdays today, let’s not forget the main takeaways –

To disrupt is to push the boundaries of human expression.

And… true revolution lies in choosing radical empathy over the “grand narratives” that dictate our lives for us.

As eminent critic Scupin Richards rightly points out –

Human empathy is the highest form of humanism... and the ultimate form of divinity!

How true! 

Today’s Lovely Birding Delights! 💚

 #intothewildwithrufus

The Grizzled Giant Squirrel is a near-threatened squirrel species. 

They are unique to the Cauvery wildlife basin.

The Indian Robin – Male

Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher 

Red-vented Bulbul - with a winged termite in its beak

White-bellied Drongo on the left and the Red-vented Bulbul on the right, holding its insect catch.

White-throated Kingfisher against the canopy cover

Carpenter Bee 

Pied Bush Chat - Male

Rose-ringed Parakeet - Male

Rose-ringed Parakeet - Male and Female

Avian Wonders for Today 💚

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

 

The People’s Intellectuals | Four Writers Who Rewrote the Rules ❤️

The Mavericks of 5th November! ❤️

#onhisbirthdaytoday #onherbirthdaytoday

05 November

I’ve always loved the words, ‘maverick’ and ‘iconoclast’. Don’t know why! So don’t ask me why! 😊

What if I tell you that, 5th November saw the birth of four great mavericks in all of literature!

Yes! Although several notable authors and literary figures were born on the 5th of November - around fifteen in total, this post intends to focus on just four of them - Will Durant, Sam Shepard, John Berger, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox - and for a very specific reason!

They are what academia would call, ‘mavericks’ or ‘iconoclasts’ or ‘public intellectuals’ or ‘organic intellectuals’ or ‘moral intellectuals’.

In our literature classes, we professors often emphasise on the importance of writing.

As they say, writing is discovery, and writers are indeed revolutionaries!

Personally, I believe that literature students who do not write daily are missing out on the core obligation demanded of the discipline! 

They are something akin to cartographers who memorise maps of towns, cities, and forests, but have never actually walked those lovely, beautiful terrain by themselves.

The four writers mentioned above embody exactly that revolutionary spirit. We can call them public intellectuals, organic intellectuals, or moral intellectuals, but definitely not academic intellectuals. 😊

An academic intellectual primarily operates within a university’s rigid institutional structure, producing highly specialised, “peer-reviewed” knowledge for a closed, elite community of scholars.

These four writers, on the other hand, abandoned or bypassed the academy early on. They were mavericks by all means - and in the cases of Berger and Shepard, they were true iconoclasts!

Let’s take up each of these mavericks one by one –

Firstly, let’s discuss Will Durant: The Public Intellectual!

Well, a public intellectual is someone who boldly steps outside their specialised field of study to engage with the broader public in literary, societal and cultural discourse.

In that sense, Will Durant could be called the the ideal public intellectual In fact, his entire career was an exercise in taking the heavy, “gated” knowledge of academia and repackaging it for the layperson.

In our literature classes, we always recommend his 1926 classic, The Story of Philosophy, as we consider philosophy as the “twin sister of literature”. 😊

Interestingly, the book didn’t originate in a university press; it evolved from his writing for “Little Blue Books” - affordable, pocket-sized pamphlets designed to bring high culture to the American working class. Durant deliberately stripped away all the high academic jargon so that he could be easily understood by all and sundry!

Remember Will Durant’s famous quote? –

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance!

Awesome, ain’t it? 😊

Secondly, let’s take up John Berger! In Antonio Gramsci’s Marxist framework, an “organic intellectual” does not drop knowledge down from above. Instead, they emerge from a specific social or working class to articulate its experiences and challenge the cultural hegemony of the ruling class. In this regard, Berger perfectly fits this description to a tee!

In fact, he actively rebelled against the elite, bourgeois university art historians, and relocated to a rural French farming village to write the Into Their Labours trilogy. In doing so, he became the organic intellectual of the European peasant, articulating their disappearing way of life against the forces of modern capitalism.

Thirdly, let’s look up Sam Shepard, yet another organic intellectual of sorts! He was famously called the “Voice of the American West” - an organic intellectual, for the rural, disenfranchised American West. He boldly articulated the violence and economic disillusionment of the American working class, creating a sharp contrast to the refined, elegant bourgeois theatre of his time, thereby bypassing formal theatrical institutions of his time!

Finally, let’s take up Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the Moral Intellectual!

In fact, Wilcox could be called a true maverick. She was openly mocked by the academic literary establishment for her lack of “good taste!” However, she completely ignored their dictates and built a massive audience for herself, bypassing traditional institutions to counsel the public directly on marriage, temperance, compassion, and personal responsibility.

She also popularised the “New Thought” movement - a forerunner to modern positive psychology which argued that mental states shape physical reality! She wanted to uphold traditional morality while connecting directly with the masses!

Sample the following immortal lines from her poem Solitude -

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone.

You might want to enjoy reading more of her power-quotes –

On absolute determination (from Will):

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent or hinder or control

The firm resolve of a determined soul.

On shifting our perspective (from The Weed):

A weed is but an unloved flower.

On the ultimate arc of justice (from Settle the Question Right):

No question is ever settled

Until it is settled right.

On speaking up against injustice (from Protest):

To sin by silence, when we should protest,

Makes cowards out of men.

These lines perfectly capture why the academic establishment might have found her too simplistic for academia! And that’s exactly the reason why the public absolutely loved her. She had the courage to boldly bypass the intellectual gatekeepers to give practical, moral anchors to her people, so that they could actually use them in their daily lives.

From the above four writers and their maverick lines oops lives, we find that, they continue to have the greatest impact on our societies – because they had the guts to write their hearts out - bypassing academic or cultural gatekeepers in the process!

And so… don’t just memorise the map. Step out of the academy, walk the terrain all by yourself, and write your own “revolution”. 😊

As eminent critic Scupin Richards rightly points out,

“Academia might guard the gates, but it’s always the mavericks who build the roads. So keep building… oops… writing!”

Maverically yours… 😉

Dr. Rufus

Myself Only Writing This… 😉

Is it ok to say “My Mrs.”? (Vasu, Kakinada)

#newspaperinlearning  

From the Know Your English Column, The Hindu, dt 3rd Nov 2026

Is it ok to say “My Mrs.”? (Vasu, Kakinada)

And Prof. Upendran’s lovely reply –

In India it is fairly common for a man to refer to his wife as his “Mrs.” 

“My Mrs. is not feeling well,” is a sentence that one hears very often.

Friends often ask, “How is your Mrs.?” or “How is your family?”.

The word “family” is often used to refer to the wife as well. Indians use these expressions in both formal and informal contexts.

A native speaker of English does use the word “Mrs.” to refer to his wife, but he does so usually in informal contexts. He uses the word jocularly; and never in formal contexts. When talking about his wife, a native speaker refers to her as “my wife” or calls her by her name,

he observes.

Well, this rings a bell, especially in the context of a famous poem that we were discussing in our II MA English Class last month. It’s by Nissim Ezekiel and it’s titled, ‘Goodbye Party for Miss. T. S. Pushpa’.

We had a discussion on the topic of linguistic subversion, and the legitimisation of Indian English. (Because up until then, Indian English poetry very often relied on British mimicry).

In fact, Ezekiel’s poem was in a way a validation of the everyday raw realities of office life – or rather a vindication of the rights of Indian English! 😊

On an aside, to be honest, the grammatical subversions in the poem made us have a hearty laugh, but at the same time it also made us ruminate on the importance of grammatical subversions, and celebrate the quirks of native Indian tongues!

For example, the overuse of the present continuous tense in the poem –

“Miss Pushpa is coming,” “She is smiling and smiling”. “Why world is fighting, fighting”, or Literal translations like, “Two three days,” “Just now only,” which could be called examples of structural nativisation or L1-Interference.

Now coming to the main point -

This reminds me of yet another humorous book that was published almost two decades ago, on the subject of Indian English.

It’s titled, Entry from Backside Only, by Binoo K John, and it has all the essentials and the ingredients to make us have a hearty laugh, and to make us think as well!

In fact, the book looks at Indian-English not as a set of mistakes, but as a practical language cooked up by everyday users like roadside astrologers, babus, and quacks. It shows how we took the Queen’s English and fully localised it to suit our own daily logic and regional translations.

Sample a few of these lovely expressions from the book –

Carry out your own bag, put up at a Mother Dairy booth so customers remember to bring their own bags.

Home Late, a tea-stall owner’s completely logical spelling for an omelette.

One minute relax, one-day happy, painted outside a Cuddalore tea shop.

Under standing people will suffer, shouted by a professor at students making a ruckus.

Entry from backside only, a standard Indian sign board that completely misses the joke.

Myself in-charge here, the universal Indian way to introduce oneself.

Hopes Revives, Life Comes Again, printed in a 1921 advertisement for Amritdhara tonic.

Expose all my shocking to man and female women, from Okhil Chandra Sen’s 1909 railway complaint.

My belly is too much swelling with jackfruit, also from Okhilbabu’s legendary letter.

Avoid to use polythene bag - A stern, grammatically twisted warning pasted below a computer print-out at a Mother Dairy vegetable outlet in Delhi.

Meter jump to be paid by the customer - A creative disclaimer by a Srinagar telephone booth operator to cover business risks from his unpredictable digital meter.

Intensified pleasings to partner and happiness in marriage - The bold promise made by street-side sexologists selling ayurvedic tablets for “secret diseases”.

The cipher is set as ‘000’ in the factory and you can remain it: The baffling opening instruction on a tiny pamphlet explaining how to use a number lock.

I wand working women in any privte or govt, but mostly like beauty and honesty natures - An advocate and “businessman of granite” outlining his matrimonial demands.

Steam action will be taken against such driver - An Uttaranchal transport department advisory warning drivers against consuming “any intoxication like alcohol etc” on hill roads.

If escalators are closed or luggage has fallen don get panicky - A helpful railway instruction painted near the New Delhi station escalators.

We will continue to sapply profit to darling customers... and the vendor type people - A spoof in-house ad run by the Economic Times.

Could you please mind me and mend the torn hope? - A desperate plea from a reader who was on a “wild goose-chase” looking for a specific book.

My head is eating circles and circles over all this golmal - A literal translation of a Hindi idiom used by Jug Suraiya in a satirical letter about the Oxford dictionary adding Indian slang.

So… yup!

Next time someone asks you to “please do the needful”, don’t please give them a mouthful, but rather be mindful to appreciate the sheer genius of the way in which they have lifted the ‘Queen’s language, added their own native flavours and spices, and served it to you in such a way that is so perfectly localised to suit our our everyday lived realities.

As Chinua Achebe says –

Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things with it! 🥳

“Unheard of things,” you see! 🥳😎

And yes, myself only writing this… 😉

Did You Know a “Companion” is Just a Bread-Sharer? ❤️

The Changing Lives of Words | Reflections

Gleaned from today’s Know Your English Column in The Hindu

3 November 2026 #newspaperinlearning

The “Know Your English” column is a popular weekly column in the pages of The Hindu that ardent and devoted readers of the newspaper would never fail to look out for!

The column, compiled by Prof. S. Upendran, a professor (now retired) at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad, answers readers’ genuine queries about word meanings, pronunciation, common idioms, phrasal verbs, and frequently confused expressions.

In today’s The Hindu, there were some of these gleanings from the archives.

A well-meaning reader had asked this question –

What is the difference between “friend” and “companion”? (S. Sateesh, Bangalore)

To which Prof. Upendran so aptly replies - 

The meaning of the word “friend” has undergone several changes. I understand that during Shakespeare’s time the word was used to refer to one’s mistress! Nowadays, of course, the word “friend” is used to refer to someone whom you have known for some time and with whom you have a reasonably good relationship. The individual could be someone in whom you confide; a person to whom you tell your problems. In the case of a friend there is an emotional bonding, but there does not have to be physical proximity. You and your friend need not be together all the time.

A “companion”, on the other hand, is an ambiguous term. This individual could be like a friend in that he/she may be very close to you. For example, Dr. Watson was Holmes’ constant companion; he went wherever the great detective went. 

They got along famously and they were good friends. The word “companion” can also be used to refer to someone who accompanies you on a journey. You may talk to him, share food with him, but once you get off the train/bus, you may never see him again. 

While the word “friend” stresses the emotional bonding between individuals, “companion” stresses the physical presence of the individual being referred to, 

says Prof. Upendran!

Well, this blogger would like to just add to the lovely reply provided by Prof. Upendran.

It’s from the book titled, An Outline History of the English Language by F. T. Wood.

On an aside, one thing that I so like about this book is that, it’s jargon-free, and hence makes a highly engaging read for all and sundry. Particular mention should be made about the fact that, Wood treats linguistic changes that impact the meaning of a particular word, as direct consequences of historical events (e.g., Norman Conquest or Renaissance humanism or Scandinavian settlements or imperial expansion).

In Chapter VII of the book titled, ‘Change of Meaning’, he explains the reasons how and why words undergo a change of meaning over time. (Now you know why Saussure prefers a synchronic over a diachronic study of language – wherein he sees language as a complete, self-contained system of interrelated signs at a specific point in time (ignoring historical changes) 😊

Says Wood –

One of the first things that the student of literature comes to realise, perhaps at first with a little surprise, is that many words have not always had the same meaning that they bear today. 

He may, for instance, set himself to study a few plays of Shakespeare, and soon he learns that a fool, to Shakespeare, meant something different from what it means to us, that a battle could be used to signify not only a fight but also a company of soldiers (equivalent to our modern word battalion), that fond implied ‘foolish’ more often than ‘loving’, and that when a character says’ I’ll be with you presently ‘he does not mean soon, or later on, but immediately.

Countless words in the English language have changed or modified their meaning in this way; and it is quite natural that they should have done.

For words are not static, despite a very widespread belief to the contrary even amongst intelligent and educated people. No less a person than Dr. Johnson, when he first began to collect the material for his dictionary, supposed that they were and that he could fix them for all time; but before he had completed his task he had altered his mind.

Actually, of course, words have no independent and intrinsic meaning; they have, in fact, no meaning at all apart from that given them by the human mind and by their context; for they are essentially vehicles for the expression of thoughts and ideas on the one hand and for their evocation on the other.

That is why it is a fallacy, to which the academic mentality too often falls a victim, to suppose that a word can properly be used only in its ‘root’ or etymological sense.

Quite clearly, a particular word may evoke different ideas, or have different associations, for different persons or different ages.

Thus the word pipe means one thing to the smoker, another to the plumber and something else to the organ-builder, while the mention of the word plane will call up three distinct and widely divergent ideas in the minds of the geometrician, the carpenter and the aeronaut respectively.

In the same way when an Englishman in the early days of the manorial system heard the word villein he merely thought of a very lowly labourer; but two hundred years later it brought to mind primarily not the social position or the occupation of such a person but his uncouth manners and behaviour, and later still it suggested an evil-doer, possibly because of a curious human tendency to identify social respectability and ‘gentlemanly’ behaviour with moral integrity, and to look upon their opposites with suspicion.

1. Generalisation. A very frequent means by which a change of meaning occurs in a word is by the process which we may call generalisation; that is to say, a term which at one time had a specialised and restricted meaning comes, in course of time, to have a wider application.

A typical example here is the word box, today one of the commonest and most generalised of nouns in the English language.

Originally, however, it was the name of a tree and the wood from it. In Twelfth Night, it will be recalled, Sir Toby Belch and his cronies hide behind a box tree when they lie in wait to enjoy Malvolio’s discovery of the forged letter. Being rare and expensive, box wood was used almost exclusively for making small caskets for the reception of jewellery, which receptacle, became known, in its turn, as a box.

For many years, then, a box was always made of a particular kind of wood, after which it was named, and was of quite small dimensions.

Gradually, however, less insistence was laid on the material and more on the object, so that one could speak of a box of cedar wood, of oak or of walnut; but right up to the year 1700 or thereabouts the idea of smallness still attached to it. A bigger kind of receptacle was called a chest.

So already the process of generalisation had started. But since the eighteenth century it has gone much farther, with the result that today a box may be of any material (not only wood) and of any size. And we can even speak of a horse-box on the railway or a box at the theatre, while a verb to box (to put or to pack into boxes) has been coined.

Similarly with the words journey and journal. Both are derived from the French noun jour (day). The root meaning of journey is a day’s walk or ride, and of journal a daily record of events, and in the case of this latter the literal sense is still retained in the specialised use to denote (a) a diary, and (b) a book in which a business firm records its daily transactions. But for long now, in their more ordinary acceptation, both have lost this restricted meaning, so that we may speak, without any seeming incongruity, of ‘a journey of several weeks’ or of ‘a monthly journal’.

A similar extension or generalisation is to be seen in the two words companion and comrade. Literally the former means ‘one who eats bread with another person’ (Lat. con=with, panis=bread; cf. Fr. pain); just as the latter means ‘one who shares a room’ (It. camera=a room); but since those with whom we eat bread or share a room are likely to become our close friends for the time being, the inevitable shifting of emphasis took place and the modern signification of these words was evolved. In both cases, of course, the root meaning has been entirely lost and it will probably come as a revelation to most people to learn of it,

says Wood.

To conclude then, in the words of the ‘Great Dissenter’ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr –

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

So yes! the next time you introduce someone as a companion, remember that, diachronically speaking, 😉 you are indeed continuing a centuries-old tradition of simply sharing your bread with them!

What is the True Call of an Academic? ❤️

Teaching or Research?

Awakening Human Consciousness in Higher Education

#newspaperinlearning

I was so happy to read two insightful articles by two passionate literarians, in today’s The Hindu, Chennai Edition.

And that’s where The Hindu stands tall, I guess – wherein legendary academics of great repute find a space to air their thoughts and ideas in featured OpEd/Opinion Columns.

Now let’s go to the first article from The Opinion Page of The Hindu by Ms. Mini Krishnan.

Ms. Mini opines that, literature education is essential for building empathy and bridging deep societal divides across caste, class and gender.

Rather than simply lamenting the decline of the humanities, Mini argues that ignoring literature results in systemic inequality by shielding students from the lived realities of people! She also gives out a shocking statement that, educational institutions often sanitise their curriculums just to avoid local discomfort!

As a solution she suggests that, integrating translated regional works and culture studies into curriculums exposes students to uncomfortable local realities, such as gender oppression and caste-based slavery. 

Studying such diverse literature and translations can help in building the invisible bridges necessary for future generations to break all kinds of social barriers.

In this regard, she highlights on the importance of writers and translators who act as crucial bridge-builders, helping students connect across linguistic barriers to challenge ingrained prejudices that are still practised across generations.

The second article is by my very good friend Dr. Joseph Dorairaj, Professor Emeritus, Gandhigram University.

This article examines the long-standing conflict in higher education between classroom teaching and academic research, analysing how global rankings, career incentives, and institutional frameworks have always favoured research over teaching.

Dr. Joe questions whether higher education institutions (HEIs) can realistically balance both teaching and research mandates and elaborates on the reasons why research commands greater prestige than classroom teaching!

Tracing the modern research university back to Wilhelm von Humboldt, Dr. Joe observes that, senior professors in both Western and Indian universities frequently delegate undergraduate teaching to teaching assistants and junior faculty, thereby missing out on precious opportunities to mentor younger students.

Added, even institutional evaluation metrics - such as NAAC and NIRF in India, alongside global QS and THE rankings - heavily favour research output, publications, and citations over pedagogical quality, driving the academic trade-off firmly toward research.

And Dr. Joe concludes this article by stating that, while the tension between teaching and research will permanently persist, the institutional and global stakes now definitively favour research.

And that’s mainly because of the urgency in the field of innovation!

The urgency in academia is that, we need quality academic work that can push the frontiers of knowledge by generating new insights and theories. Furthermore, valuable research should constantly redefine our understanding of the world by developing and disseminating new concepts and paradigms to address unprecedented global challenges, he signs off.

On an aside, I wish to add that, for more than three decades now, Dr. Joseph Dorairaj has been writing consistently in journals and newspapers alike on the need and the importance of enhancing the standard and quality of research. You may want to read one such past article by Dr. Joe on our past blogpost from 13 years ago, HERE on our blog, when we had invited him to MCC to talk about Research in Higher Education.

So what then is the true call of the academic today?

To Dr. Joe, the true call of an academic is not just to merely transfer knowledge, but to awaken human consciousness!

I’m quite reminded of one of my most favourite lines from all of literature –

From Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson –

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought…

So beautifully penned, ain’t it? 😊

And therein lies the importance of these two articles from today’s The Hindu for academia!

PS: I would like to take a minute to acknowledge and to appreciate Prof. Sundhar from Theni Kammavar Sangam College of Arts and Science, for so consistently sharing from the Educational Supplement in the pages of The Hindu, for more than 80 days now. Today is the 88th sharing! By sharing what we read, we are growing indeed! And that is the noble call of an academic. Hats off to you Prof. Sundhar. We academics are so proud of you. Keep shining. Stop not! 

And even as I am writing this post, I receive the happiest news that our illustrious alumnus Mr. Hudson's research article on Blue Humanities has been published in the International Journal of Maritime History, a Q2 journal, indexed in Scopus and published by SAGE. We are so proud of you dear Mathew Hudson. Keep shining. Stop not! 

Eco-Fencing the Wild | MCC’s Massive Deer Restoration Project 💚

MCC plans to restore wildlife corridors to protect spotted deer

Today’s The Times of India, Chennai Edition

2nd November 2026

Madras Christian College is taking efforts to restore wildlife corridors on its 320-acre campus to prevent spotted deer from venturing into academic areas, including canteens, in search of food. The pilot project will use geoinformatics, native plants and plant-based biofencing. Plants such as fimbristylis, Asian bushbeech, prostrate justicia and Chinese violet will be grown in the core scrub area to provide forage for the deer.

The campus, which has one of the largest scrub-jungle patches in the country, is home to more than 100 spotted deer, as well as several other species, including snakes, birds, porcupines, civets and bats. Professors said students often feed the deer, which could affect their health.

“Restoring these corridors is aimed at reducing the deer’s dependence on food provided by humans and its encounters with people,” said Paul Wilson, principal of the college and also the president of the Wildlife Conservation Club.

As part of the Wildlife Conservation Club’s initiative, the study will use Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including GPS field surveys, satellite imagery and camera traps, to map vegetation patches, identify gaps in the habitat and trace the deer’s movement paths. Spatial analysis will then be used to identify the safest routes linking habitat patches.

“Based on these maps, native plants will be planted as a ‘living fence’, or biofence,” said S Saranya, vice-president of the Wildlife Conservation Club.

“We have identified 17 plant species preferred by deer inside the campus. The plantation will reconnect fragmented habitat and provide forage, giving the deer food in natural zones,” said M Kumar, a faculty member in the botany department. Following the pilot study, the college is likely to approach its alumni and companies for funds to restore the wildlife corridors.

Arise, Awake, and Ask Why: Cultivating the Spirit of Inquiry ❤️

Scientific Temper or Sleepwalker? The Choice is…

#newspaperinlearning

This morning, while reading through the day’s newspapers, over my double-strong espresso, 😊I came across a highly insightful news report in The Hindu and The Times of India on the recent Convocation Address at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya, delivered by Justice Ujjal Bhuyan.

His convocation address intrigued me for two key reasons.

Firstly, his exhortation to society to face questions rather than fear them. As he rightly noted,

“A society that fears questions becomes vulnerable to authoritarianism. A society that treats tradition as beyond scrutiny may fail to reform unjust practices.”

Secondly, his strong advocacy for a ‘scientific temper’. Highlighting Article 51A of the Constitution, which casts a duty on every citizen to develop a scientific temperament, Justice Bhuyan says –

I believe scientific temperament lays the foundation for the rule of law. This has to take place in the University. This is because arbitrary power thrives on ignorance, fear, and unexamined belief. A society that accepts claims without evidence is susceptible to superstitious beliefs and becomes vulnerable to misinformation.

In fact, these observations by Justice Bhuya beautifully echo the aspirations of millions of teachers and parents. 

So what exactly is a scientific temper and spirit of inquiry in everyday life?

Simple! It is the habit of asking “why?” and demanding proof before accepting a claim. When we continuously train our minds to look for evidence, we are applying the principles of this scientific temper.

I see this regularly while evaluating my students’ answer sheets. Recently, I noticed a few students giving vague generalisations as answers, without offering any textual evidence to back their claims. I had to leave a remark –

Vague generalisations do not merit the academic spirit or the spirit of intellectual inquiry! Where is the evidence for your claims and statements?

In fact, the academic spirit is simply a branch office of the scientific spirit - it demands evidence for all your claims within a logical, coherent structure.

For example, a student of mine had written, “John Donne is known for his metaphysical conceits. He was also known for his abrupt opening lines, and his wit…”.

Without examples (evidence supporting the claim) from Donne’s poems, these are just sweeping statements and vague generalisations.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, and similarly, the proof of reading a text shows in how you use evidence to back your claims.

The academic spirit, much akin to the scientific one, simply does not trust unverified assumptions.

Coming back to Justice Bhuyan’s address, we can see why this mindset is very much the need of the hour today.

Imagine receiving a classic “WhatsApp University” forward claiming, ‘Tomorrow is a holiday for schools and colleges.’

Well, without a scientific mindset, you might react purely out of emotion or blind belief. A society with a scientific temper, however, pauses to ask for evidence and verify the source.

And that exactly is the scientific temper at work! 

This is exactly what the great Socrates advocated almost 24 centuries ago. He compares himself to a gadfly stinging a sluggish horse, because he believed it was his civic duty to disturb the complacent citizens of Athens, waking them from their slumber of ignorance and urging them to cultivate a questioning mind.

He once famously remarked that a human life without the scientific temper (rational enquiry) is reduced to the level of a sleepwalker.

This philosophy aligns perfectly with Swami Vivekananda’s famous exhortation –

“Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”

To arise then, is to shake off our lethargy;

To awake is to break free from the slumber of ignorance and limiting beliefs!

And to stop not is a call for commitment, resisting the pull of smaller desires and distractions along the way!

Scientific temper or sleepwalker? The difference is like chalk and cheese.

I’m sure that this spirit of inquiry is the greatest takeaway that Justice Bhuyan has passed on to the graduating students.

You can watch the full Convocation Address by Justic Bhuyan [HERE].

PS: You may also want to read our past blog post on ‘The Unexamined Life’ from seven years ago, [HERE] on our blog.