Hari Vasudevan: A scholar in demand amongst bureaucrats

A scholar in demand amongst bureaucrats. An unimaginable journey companion. A trainer who gave his college students boundless freedom.

A night to recollect historian Hari Vasudevan celebrated many aspects of the person. Vasudevan, who was an authority on Russian historical past and politics, handed away on Could 10 final yr after being identified with Covid-19. He was 68.

Vasudevan was related to a bunch of establishments however his profession was constructed on the division of historical past, Calcutta College, the place he joined in 1978 and taught for 4 many years.

At Gorky Sadan on Thursday, everybody had his or her personal “Hari Vasudevan story” to share. Whereas Vasudevan’s erudition, the huge vary of his scholarship and his craft as a historian was hailed by each speaker, the night regaled with pleasant private anecdotes on his heat, affection and genial nature, qualities that endeared Vasudevan to every person.

“Historians, lecturers, students and establishment builders will come and go. However what’s changing into more and more uncommon right this moment is humanism and broad-mindedness, which had been towering in Hari’s persona, disposition and temperament,” historical past professor Suranjan Das, vice-chancellor of Jadavpur College, stated on the outset of his speech.

“Hari was a kind of only a few individuals nobody spoke in poor health about. That may be a uncommon high quality. Not that he didn’t lose his mood, not that he wouldn’t give it again. He did, however on the finish of it you’ll realise that there was no malice in it,” stated Jawhar Sircar, former Prasar Bharati chief.

Initially of the programme, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Vasudevan’s spouse and a professor of historical past, launched a brand new web site devoted to him.

Some excerpts from the session.

Trainer to pal

Jayanta Sengupta, secretary and curator on the Victoria Memorial, met Vasudevan at Calcutta College, throughout his MA course. Vasudevan got here throughout as a “good-looking and dapper man with a French-cut beard who regarded erudite and stylish and spoke with a clipped British accent that turned for me a template again then about how the English language ought to be spoken”.

He was “Professor Vasudevan” to Sengupta, a determine of “reverence and admiration”. However quickly sufficient, he received to know the opposite facet of his trainer.

“As a analysis scholar, I dropped by on the Hazra Legislation School campus pretty typically, particularly since I used to be relationship my future spouse, Aparajita, Hari’s pupil, and current right here this night.

“On a kind of afternoons, as I strolled into the faculty, it was Hari, of all individuals, who stopped me in my tracks, with a twinkle in his eyes and a large, understanding smirk on his face, asking, ‘Hey, hear, what brings you right here now? Shouldn’t you be working within the Nationwide Library or one thing?’ I mumbled one thing and he laughed it off, giving me an encouraging pat on my again,” Sengupta recalled.

“That was a second after we appeared to strike up a secret bond, and for the primary time, this man known as Professor Hari Vasudevan all of a sudden reworked right into a pal known as Hari, who I realised had many issues beneath his watch apart from the teetering fortunes of the Soviet Union.”

Journey buddy

Vasudevan joined Calcutta College in 1978, the identical yr Suranjan Das accomplished his grasp’s.

The “extremely parochial (with hardly any non-Bengali trainer) place” that Calcutta College “was, and nonetheless continues to be”, Vasudevan’s becoming a member of the historical past division in 1978 was information, stated Das. The 2 went on to have a four-decade-long affiliation.

Das known as Vasudevan an “wonderful editor” who typically edited his “educational papers and convocation speeches”.

Having made a number of journeys collectively, Das additionally remembered Vasudevan as an “extremely fulfilling, informative and affectionate journey companion”.

“He would advise us on what to put on, the place to eat, which websites to go to and whom to fulfill. At any time when we travelled overseas collectively, I’d inevitably fall again on his recommendation in deciding on items for my household, particularly for my daughter….  The absence of Hari has been an irrevocable private loss to me, all three members of my household,” Das stated, his voice choking.

Delhi’s delight

Sircar, who retired from the civil providers in 2016 after a four-decade profession within the administration, stated Vasudevan was extremely rated in Delhi, not solely amongst students however bureaucrats as properly.

“Even within the paperwork of the overseas service, which I can guarantee you is extra of a paperwork of bureaucracies, Hari was accepted with out sneer. As soon as individuals get in there, they begin sneering at the remainder of the world…. Hari was an acknowledged useful resource individual to the ministry of exterior affairs. He was rated not as a result of he had as soon as studied east European or Russian historical past however as a result of he was updated, analytical and unbiased,” stated Sircar.

The “most valuable reminiscence” that Sircar has of Vasudevan stays “bottled in a bottle”. From a visit to China, Vasudevan received a bottle of Maotai (a potent Chinese language alcoholic beverage).

“It’s half empty, half full, whichever manner you have a look at it. I shall protect it until I be a part of him upstairs,” stated Sircar.

Journey to recollect

A documentary movie on an expedition that Vasudevan directed, titled Footsteps of Afanasii Nikitin, was screened at Gorky Sadan on Thursday.

The movie is the file of an expedition organised by the New Delhi-based Adventurers and Explorers’ Society between November 2006 and March 2007, that was conceived of and led by Vasudevan. It retraces the epic 15th century journey of the primary main Russian traveller to India, Afanasii Nikitin.

The expedition led later to his personal ebook, Within the Footsteps of Afanasii Nikitin: Travels Throughout Eurasia and India within the Twenty-First Century.