A big thank you to CSAS
Apurba Podder was spot on when he described the Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS), University of Cambridge as ‘home’. He was speaking on the valedictory get together organised by the graduate students on the eve of my completion of tenure as Iqbal Fellow at the University of Cambridge. By saying this, Apurba articulated my own feelings.
CSAS has been home for me ever since I came to Cambridge in June 2010. When asked by the registrar of Wolfson College if I was looking forward to going home, the instantaneous response was, "I am going from home to a home with a heavy heart." Where else will I get such good library on South Asian Studies, such well-maintained archives but most of all such good people? Of course, home at Cambridge was the CSAS, the best that the tiny but stupendously elegant city could offer to a historian from Pakistan.
It seems like yesterday when I first visited the centre and met Mrs Barbara Roe, the secretary of the Centre and Dr Kevin Greenbank, archivist, historian and above all, a human par excellence. Trained as a historian of South Africa, Kevin opted to do archives and his passion for doing this knows no bounds. He is always there to lend any sort of help that students or senior researchers need. For those students whose first language is not English, Kevin goes to any possible extent to help them. "Mastery over language comes by reading literature", is his usual advice to students of history.
It does not matter in which capacity you work at CSAS, you cannot help but be captivated by Barbara’s charm. She has shoulders for others to cry on and a heart of gold. She is a big source of emotional stability for students (It is one of the rare institutes that looks after the emotional needs of young students along with their academic necessities). I have yet to see someone as skillful as Barbara is as a secretary. In the routine business of the Centre, she is undoubtedly a kingpin. One must not, however, exclude Rachel Rowe from the equation. Rachel is the librarian, known for her politeness and cultured disposition. Hence, the trio gets completed.
Gordon Johnson, the then President of Wolfson College, directed me to the Centre when I asked him for an office space and I am enormously grateful to him for that. The CSAS was then at the Laundress Lane on the bank of River Cam. Later on, in December 2011, it was relocated to its present location, in Alison Richard Building at West Road.
Sir Christopher Bayly was the director. Along with sheer enormity of scholarship, modesty was his biggest virtue. In just a matter of a few days, the reserve melted and girdles of formality were lifted as if they never existed. The most memorable were the 11am coffee meetings in which Annamaria Motresco and Elisabeth Leake regularly featured. Annamaria’s enthusiasm as a visual anthropologist can hardly be described in words; it is virtually boundless. Elisabeth Leake completed her PhD under Chris Bayly and teaches at Royal Holloway, University of London. She still comes to CSAS; of course, it is her home too. At such a young age, she is accomplished with incisive analytical skills and is a tremendous prospect as a world renowned historian.
As days went by, the coffee circle kept expanding, Ali Khan, Alia Al-Kadi and Edward Anderson joined in and it became an informal source of learning for all who cared to join the coffee club. Edward works on Hindutva in Britain and the repertoire of his knowledge is just marvellous. Selected as the new Smuts fellow, Edward will be an integral part of the CSAS for three years which indeed is a good omen for that ‘home’ for many. Besides his passion of studying Hindu religious ideology in the era of modernity, Edward shared with Kevin and me his fondness for sports. Kevin’s penchant for cricket and unflinching support for Aston Villa Club were the oft-referred subjects of discussion, which at times diverged to academic themes.
Thus one can describe the coffee gathering at 11am as a sort of a microcosm of one time coffee houses of Paris, where ideas were fostered and circulated.
I just wonder whether an institute like CSAS can be replicated in Pakistan. Will we ever be able to put together such a well-stocked library and well-ordered archives? Probably we could do that but the bigger question stares in the eye: where we will find people like Barbara and Kevin, people who are institutions in themselves.
It was indeed an ordeal for me to bid farewell to them all on Wednesday. Now I am in my country but CSAS is an integral part of myself. To conclude, a big thank you Centre of South Asian Studies. The five years I spent there were the best.