We often have people mocking intellectuals for being too obscure! And maybe that’s true, but in a world dominated by reality TV and loudmouth celebrities, intellectuals do bring depth and discomfort by revealing the hidden truths.
AK Ramanujan is one of the most gifted intellectual exports to come out of India. He also happens to be the most underrated. Thanks to the controversy surrounding his essay: 300 Ramayanas, many know about him and his work today. He made folklore accessible to us back home, thanks to his study in linguistics and interest in poetry, social anthropology and Indian folk legends. But there is a difference between knowing about a man, and KNOWING a man! We realised this when the good folks at Penguin gifted us a sample of their publication—Journeys.
The deeper we got into the book, the more we noticed the prominent motif of ‘Isolation’ figuring in his life’s story throughout the different aspects of his diverse array of crafts. Join us as we delve into the common arc panning out for the conflicts faced by all the great public intellectuals throughout human history, and how back home, things have never been tougher. Through the legend of AK Ramanujan presented in this fascinating book, we look at how India faces a cultural emergency that no one is talking about.
