Of omelettes, marmalade and sociology: Memories of André Béteille (1934-2026)
· Scroll
Visit fish-roadgame.online for more information.
I met Professor Andre Béteille almost 47 years ago in rather an unusual setting. It was a cold, foggy, winter morning. I was enrolled as a M Phil student at the department of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. I had just escaped from my one-and-a-half-year-old child and landed at the D School gate at 8 am to find it locked.
As I wondered what to do, a youngish, handsome man appeared from nowhere and asked me what I was doing at the department so early in the morning. I told him that I was a student and that the reason I was so early was that if my son saw me leave, he would scream his head off. The only solution was to creep out of the house at the crack of dawn.
He asked me if I had tea and breakfast, which of course, I hadn’t. I asked him who he was. He said his name was André Béteille and that he was a professor in the department. I almost dropped dead with shock. This was the famous André Béteille whose books were compulsory reading during my MA in Pune University. I couldn’t believe that I was standing in front of...