I was born in Agra and grew-up in Jaipur. My father was an academic and we stayed on the university campus. Ours was a very liberal household and my parents and near ones ensured that me and my siblings remain secular and empathetic. Since my father believed that a teacher’s house should be an open house, as a child I interacted with students of various socio-economic and religious backgrounds as well as different ideological leanings. It was not uncommon for students to come home and eat when their scholarships were not released in time or their parents were late in sending money. At times they even stayed with us when they were going through emotionally turbulent phases.
We are four siblings. For several years in my teens two of my father’s cousins, a close friend of his and another uncle also stayed with us. It was a full house. We sort of jostled for space and economic resources were somewhat scarce. But ours was a happy household. We always ate our dinners together and whenever possible huddled around the radio to listen to Hawamahal and Binaca Geetmala. Hindi film songs, cricket, scrabble and books added to this happiness in no small measure.
I was admitted to a convent school at a very early age but had to be pulled out after being traumatized by the punishment given to a fellow student. The trauma was so severe that it persisted for more than a year and I refused to go to school. Luckily for me an experimental school was being set up in the city and the principal approached my parents to admit me in that school. She persisted even after knowing my experience. And so, I joined that school and someone from home was allowed to accompany me to school for six months. But after that I was so fond of that institution that I wanted to go there even during holidays and I cried bitterly when I had to leave it after VIII grade as it was only a secondary school.
Now, when I look back, I am struck by the complementarity of my school and home lives and how the two would have reinforced my value system. Whatever I am today as a person is largely a result of that foundation laid during my childhood.
Till 1979, I had not been to any place south of Agra! Had not seen the sea! That changed when I finally completed my Montessori to Masters journey in Jaipur and went to Trivandrum to do my MPhil. I managed to see the sea and my life changed in more ways than one. Got exposed to another India, found a life partner and my academic roots became stronger.
I eventually became an academic and spent most of my working life at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad from where I retired in January 2022. It has been an intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying life, most of which has been spent in Ahmedabad. I have traveled quite a bit and have been fortunate to get exposed several world class universities. I still do a bit of teaching and research with a focus on firm strategy, innovation, public policy and regulation. The details of my professional journey are readily available in the public domain. Those interested, can see the links given below.
Rakesh Basant
I have been writing bits and pieces since my college days but never made an effort to systematically document this effort. As a consequence, most of my experiments with early writing got lost. Some of these early pieces that were discovered later made it evident that not much was lost! My non-academic writing, mainly poems, remained sporadic for many years but picked up a bit after I joined IIM, Ahmedabad. Gradually, I mustered up courage to share these poems with family and some close friends. Their encouragement meant that the group of people who suffered my writings expanded over time. Many a times, there will be a suggestion from one of them to put my writings in the public domain but I resisted as I was not sure if they had much substance. But after I retired the idea of ‘publishing’ these non-academic jottings surfaced again. I also discovered that our daughter had systematically filed all emails with my writings in a separate folder. She also kept egging me on to ‘go public’. Consequently, my disorganization was no more an excuse but procrastination continued till Ruchi Aggarwal, an old student, offered to help me create a website. But for her and my daughter this endeavour may have remained on the drawing board for a much longer time.
I am not a poet or a story writer. I cannot sit down and write ‘on demand’. An inspiration needs to come from somewhere. It can be an incident, experience or something that I read, see or hear. Since most of my schooling was in Hindi medium and Urdu words were embedded in our daily conversations at home, my early poems were mainly in Hindustani. My love for Hindi film music of the 1950s and 1960s inspired me a lot. It still does. But not everything that I write has a context or a specific inspiration. Sometimes, it emerges out of nowhere.
While most of my writing has been restricted to poems, I have tried my hand at short stories and some other types of prose during the last 10 years. I plan to curate my existing poems, stories etc. and gradually upload them on this website. I hope that my creative juices have not dried up and some new ones will also find their way to the website as this process continues.
As I read through my old writings to select the first set of pieces to share with the readers, self-doubt reared its head and I was once again unsure of laying myself bare to the people at large. But I have decided to take the plunge.
I warmly present my experiments with non-academic writing to you along with some pictures that I have taken over the years and sincerely hope that you will find them interesting. I also hope that you will find some meaning in what you read and see!
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