I joined Center for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum, as an MPhil student in September 1979. We were a small batch following the every illustrious senior batch who later turned 'Maharathis' in the fields of academics, journalism and policy making. It took some time before the professors at CDS started taking us seriously. In the meantime we enjoyed ourselves and the company of our illustrious seniors.
My stint at CDS led to my love for data, which continues till today. Browsing through volumes of data in the basement of the CDS library, where the Census volumes and other data sources were lodged, became my hobby in the afternoons when I was free. My encounters with Prof. Raj were often in this basement. Imagine my surprise when I first encountered Prof. Raj also browsing through volumes of data and other material in the basement.
Prof. Raj was an enigma and most of the students were afraid of him. He would join the students and other faculty in the CDS canteen/mess for lunch. It was a bit scary to find oneself seated next to him. One never knew what question he would shoot at you. Fortunately we were always reading something in Economics, another hobby I developed, so I had an answer to his question 'what are you reading these days?' The next question was the difficult one, 'tell me what you learned from it?' Whew!
The most difficult decision was when we had to choose our supervisor/advisor for the MPhil dissertation. Prof. Raj had the least number of MPhil and PhD students who successfully completed their dissertation with him. And amazingly I am one of them. I think he became my advisor by a process of elimination! I would have meetings with him to decide on the topic of my thesis. Those were truly scary. He would espouse a large number of hypotheses and theories in one sitting. He was reflecting on his theory of commercialization of agriculture, I think! I would rush back to my room and try to write down what I understood and remembered. I often think that if the students and faculty around him had taken up any of these themes for research they would have made amazing academic careers.
I finally chose a simple idea for my dissertation based on observation of Kerala's agricultural fields since my childhood. The declining cultivation of paddy and the conversion of paddy lands to plantation crops, banana and coconut. Amazingly Prof. Raj was happy with my idea and got me access to the Cost of Cultivation data in the Kerala University, Agro Economic Research Center. I industriously copied all the data and conducted an analysis using electronic calculators, with the help of Prof. Chandan Mukherjee. There were no computers and laptops in those days.
I delivered the first hand written draft of my MPhil thesis to Prof. Raj with trepidation. Within a few days he called me and I went with fear written all over my face. He said 'this is fine. I have edited the first chapter of the thesis. I know you are capable of editing the rest, so just edit the rest yourself.' I was startled. I went back to the hostel room and wept for two days. I was sure that this was his way of rejecting my thesis. At the end of two days Rakesh Basant, my batch mate and future husband, said 'Just do what he said. He probably really meant it.' So I sat down, read his edited chapter and attempted to edit the rest of the chapters. Again I delivered my hand written chapters to him with fear. In a few days he called me and returned my draft and said, 'It's Ok, get it typed'. He had a hand written letter stating the same pinned on to the thesis. Here is a copy of it, preserved over all these years. I wear it like a medal! My mouth nearly fell open! I could not believe my ears. And so went my encounters with the legend Professor K.N. Raj!
In later years, when we visited CDS, he was sadly losing his memory. But he never failed to recognize me or the topic of my MPhil thesis! In loving memory of Prof. Raj.
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