PHYSICAL PROGRAMME

Conversations between a historian and his mother

Historians Lakshmi Subramaniam and G. Arunima explore the possibility of writing a history, at once professional and intimate, of the individual, family and society. Their reflections are occasioned by the release of Memories of a Malabar Lady: Sreekumari Vasudevan’s Reminiscences of Life with Justice K.S. Menon, 1926-1956, (Delhi, Manohar, 2022). This book emerged from conversations of over a decade or more, between the historian Hari Vasudevan, and his mother, Sreekumari Vasudevan.  Hari fashioned these into a biography of Sreekumari, her extended family, the places she studied and lived in, and the people she met. Hari brought the rigour of a professional historian and the empathy of a son to capture the perspectives of a young woman growing up in the company of her father, a legal professional, and their life in different cultural habitats, from the joint family estate in Malabar, the towns and cities of colonial South India, to the princely state of Jodhpur. 

This event also celebrates the memory of Hari Vasudevan (1952-2020). Hari was a highly respected scholar and much-loved teacher of Russian and European history. Educated in Nairobi and Cambridge, he taught for over forty years at the Department of History, Calcutta University, and served with distinction at the Academy of Third World Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia,and as Director, MaulanaAbul Kalam Azad Institute for Asian Studies. Hari died in May 2020, of corona virus, just a few months after Sreekumari passed away. The last of his books before his untimely death was In the Foosteps of Afanasii Nikhitin: Travels through Eurasia and India in the Twenty First Century (2014).  He is survived by his wife, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, their daughter, Mrinalini, and brother, Ravi. 

Presentations by 
Lakshmi Subramaniam
Visiting Professor, Birla Institute for Technology and Science Pilani, Goa Campus
&
G. Arunima
Director, Kerala Council for Historical Research
Professor, Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Introduced and chaired by Ravi Vasudevan, Honorary Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

With the participation of Mrinalini  Vasudevan, Editor, Critical Collective