I haven't been able to bring myself to pen any further since Dr Shrikant's funeral. Probably it matters not any more as I can no longer wrestle with him nor seek his commendation. Yet I thought i must point out something to the people at the institute.
Dr Shrikant I remember would dislike any activity or process that is hinged upon an individual and shares his or her idiosyncrasy. Yet the quest for a process to be institutionalised shorn of all personality was often a guise for wanting to refuse to be hostage to the whims of the individual. But creativity cannot be institutionalised and those activities that can be institutionalised don’t hold the centre for too long- quite like Mullah Nasruddin’s lost key. When i think of the institution he has built I think it betrays this schizophrenia. There is this assumption that the institution is being independently animated by its processes that have been institutionalised, with its flaws, But yet it is unmistakably in thrall of his ghostly presence. It is not just that Dr Shrikant died, something deep within the heart of the institution also dies with him and we grieve not just his loss but that which is not nameable. There are those who would point out that he was anyway (un)graciously eased out more than a year ago and that the continuity of the institute it its imitated voices is testimony to its enduring character. Besides it is not that some of us are unaware of his extremely complicated personality warts and all and in good measure have even been victims of his disquiet. Many (almost all) of his initiatives will continue in their variegated vigour or enervation and few can tell the difference, and some will say that such emulation is his best honour, which time will reveal.
