Land of Lime

A long overdue (and an insubstantial) report on the Indic studies conference, (more formally known as the Second International Conference on Religions and Cultures in the Indic Civilization) which concluded on Tuesday.

It was less chaotic but also less spirited than the previous conference, held in December, 2003. Then IAHR had also co-organized the event, bringing hordes of American and European academics, who were in fewer numbers this time around. Perhaps the disorganized nature of the first conference scared away some of the western participants. This time around, a group of professional event management specialists managed the conference. My only complaint against them was the rather forceful manner in which they tried to persuade those of us who wanted to enjoy the winter sun over endless cups of tea and conversation with elders and friends, to actually go to rather listless panels and cultural performances. Not satisfied with the deployment of MIKASURA, they would also come to each table and compel each person to go inside to listen to waiting plenary speakers and other such performers.

I was an active participant in the sidelines of the conference and went to actually very few panels. So forgive me for not reporting on the presentations and the interesting arguments heard. Of course, I went to my panel and will leave it to others to document (or not) the deliberations. I will say though that I was honored to be in the same panel as Ashis Nandy, U R Anantamurthy, Uday Singh Mehta, Vinay Lal and Shankar Ramaswami.

The highlight of the conference for me was the inaugural session, in which U R Anantamurthy gave the key note address. He spoke on what it meant to be a Brahmin; spiritual experience in such a context necessitated debrahminizing himself, to lose the sense of importance of being a privileged person. Anantamurthy used his favorite example of George Orwell and his experiments to ‘declass’ himself.

In a brief welcome address, Ashis Nandy emphasized the need to engage with the sacred in times when religion has been relegated to the realm of women and the backward.

In the conference itself, some of the panels and plenaries appear to have generated some heated conversation. Mr. Rajeev Malhotra of the Infinity foundation was at the center of many. The first, an address by him at a plenary session accusing Indian academics (charges are not important and not even entertaining) drew a strong and measured response from Ashis Nandy. In a second instance, in a panel on conversion, Mr. Malhotra apparently wanted to deploy market logic to conversion controversy as well, holding missionaries accountable for the promises they make and if unfulfilled, they should be sued. Or something to that effect. I didn’t go to the panel but this is what I heard and didn’t bother to find out more. I record this to state that Mr. Malhotra does not control the conference and his was a minority voice.

Otherwise, superb food and good informal conversation marked the conference. Does one dare ask for more?

Flight to Bangalore:

Flying to Bangalore is a different experience than to any other Indian city. Flights to Bangalore either from Mumbai or Delhi look and feel different, if only because of who the passengers are (business/software types) and their appearance. More formal jackets, suits and laptops make their apparences here than elsewhere. If you want to see sleek cell phones and fancy gadgets, people of all regions speaking strongly accented (by their mother tongues) Americanized English, any flight to Bangalore is the place to be in. Given all the complaints that Bangalore city (and its collapsing infrastructure) have received in recent times, the hour long delay in Delhi airport had also begun to affect my demeanor. Sat next to a British-indian architect traveling all over India for Christmas break with family. We had a pleasant chat about many things and in between Bach kept company. I haven’t had a chance to see how the city has changed in the last three months and I hope to escape before I can do that.