Jadavpur University Alumni Association Hyderabad Chapter

JUAAH magazine -Megh Peon

From The Editor's Desk

When grief threatens to overcome my soul my go-to poem is Maya Angelou’s “When Great Trees Fall,” particularly the lines “When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile.” But when I think of Chandanadi, I fail to conjure up that cold, sterile world. Chandanadi would have undoubtedly fitted Angelou’s description of a ‘great soul’ not because she was a privileged member of the country’s premier service - the IAS or because she was bestowed with a rare aesthetic acumen as a creative artist but because she could dream of transforming the world with whatever resources she had at her disposal, at any given moment. If appointed in the education department, she would build compound walls and toilets in government schools in rural areas, attended by impoverished children, and after superannuation, she would spend her entire pension on providing the women and children of tribal villages an opportunity for a better life. Chandana Khan was not the great pine of the forest, magnificently tall enough to reach the sky but more akin to the vast banyan tree, within whose canopied boughs countless small creatures found shelter, reared their young – their homes, snug and secure.

 Even her art was functional. When funds were short her paintings adorned the bare walls of government-run tourist resorts. The same technique of using gilt-edged, colourful wedding invitations to create beautiful collages on canvas, was used to train young artists from orphanages who seldom had the means to buy costly supplies. She often collaborated with her friends from the art world to offer a much-needed platform for budding and struggling artists to showcase their works – applying the same principle as cross-subsidy to draw crowds. She had truly embodied the Renaissance spirit, not for her creative persona but because she could recognize perfection in the human soul when it fulfilled its true potential. Hence, she could easily draw out the shy homemaker from the crowd and encourage her to find that spark within herself.

When great trees fall, they crash loudly, leaving the earth quaking in their wake. On a bright, Autumn morning when Chandanadi tiptoed into the next world, there was no upheaval. In her innate wisdom, she had ensured that the prop roots reached the ground to anchor and uphold what she had envisioned through “Margin to Mainstream.” She did not leave behind a cold and sterile world but a verdant green land of enduring hope and fulfilled dreams. Borrowing once again from Maya Angelou one can say her true legacy would not be defined solely by her career as an administrator or her painting but by the countless lives she touched during her lifetime.

Anindita Chowdhury,

Editor, Megh Peon

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What are we?

Such existential questions are perhaps not too uncommon. But we – Jadavs – are seldom agonized by such existential crisis. Hundreds of miles away from our Alma mater, perched on the high rocks of Deccan plateau, amidst the splendor of Nizami Hyderabad we are proud of our identity – as alumni of Jadavpur University.
And what binds us together?

Is it that spirit of restlessness which translates, no not into any jitteriness or disquietude but into activity – a constant endeavor for betterment? Perhaps guided by the same spirit our founder fathers – Rabindranath Tagore or Aurobindo Ghosh had set up the National Council of Education. It is duly transmitted to our DNAs however short the time a Jadav spends on the campus. Some of us left the university almost five decades ago while others just a few years back, yet those silent tugs at our heart strings can be felt wherever we are.
"Megh Peon (Earlier known as Sei Somoy)" for a creative space

And it is this spirit of restlessness which has inspired us to look beyond our annual literary magazine. Like the household spider relentlessly weaving its web, connecting however distant and disparate the objects are, we too want to reach out to every Jadav, even those at the farthest corner of the world with our e-magazine. Do read, contribute and spread the word…