Inderpal Grewal - K. Sivaramakrishnan Reflection

Inderpal Grewal
Yale University

May 6, 2026 

Dear Shivi:

Congratulations on your retirement, and welcome to the ranks of the happily retired.

There is so much you will enjoy about retirement – no committees and meetings!! – and so much you will miss – wonderful colleagues and students especially. 

But I also know that you are irreplaceable and Yale will miss you. You are an extraordinary scholar, teacher, convenor, and program builder and have done so much for the university and your departments. I know personally you have been an amazing advisor and mentor. I have seen how much care and time you take to train students. I so enjoyed working with you on dissertation committees and seeing how you were as an advisor made that experience even better. It’s no wonder that your students have gone on to do such terrific work because of the attention and care you gave them. To be a brilliant scholar, researcher, teacher, and advisor is no small feat – and few are able to do all of it as well as you.

I also want to thank you for being such a wonderful colleague and I appreciated very much how you welcomed me to Yale. You modeled how to work and thrive and live at Yale, in small and large ways.  I came to admire the disciplined way you worked, lived, and walked! For instance, when you told me how far you walked every day from your home to your office I was led to do the same, even though I must admit the distance I walked was much less! But more seriously, it was useful to see what you spent time doing, and what you did not, and that was a lesson in negotiating the university.

I also appreciate the support you gave in my efforts to develop the WGSS program into one that was more international and transnational. You helped make the South Asia program – as other programs that you enabled – such a productive research space and a welcoming one.  I am grateful that we were colleagues, and I hope we remain so. 

Wishing you all the best for a well-earned retirement, with good health and joy in all that you will do.

Inderpal Grewal