Perhaps because my own life has largely been devoted to the pursuit of personal success, I have always felt a guilty veneration for those w...
Perhaps because my own life has largely been devoted to the pursuit of personal success, I have always felt a guilty veneration for those who live for others. The public servant I most admired died on Sunday, September 5, aged 66. In these times, this may seem too early to go (particularly as he was not a victim of Covid-19) and he had contributions to make to society and scholarship yet. But given all that he did, and the manner of its doing, I wish not to mourn his premature passing but to celebrate a life that was exemplary in all respects.
I first met Keshav Desiraju in the year 1988. I had heard of him from mutual friends in Uttarakhand who marvelled at how this native Telugu speaker and graduate of Cambridge University had so endeared himself to the people of the hills. He was then district magistrate of Almora, serving in an area that I had written about in my own research. I went to see him at work, noting with interest the fluency of his Hindi, his zest for long treks into the interior, and his deep understanding of the challenges of sustainable development in the mountains.
When Uttar Pradesh was...
