William W. Kelly - K. Sivaramakrishnan Reflection
William W. Kelly
Yale University
We are a day and a half into this immense gathering of students, friends, and colleagues to celebrate such a rich and distinguished career as Shivi’s. A speaker who stands up at this point might be excused for simply noting briefly, “well, what more can be said, after all the accolades and memories we have heard”! Except that we are speaking of Shivi, so of course there is ALWAYS more that can and should be said. And so I will.
I want to begin by observing something that I hadn’t really noticed until yesterday. As the event was taking shape over the months and as the various emails were noting all of the people who were coming and the evolving schedule, I wasn’t paying attention to the central image, the Banyan tree, that the organizers had so chosen to title our gathering.
And then yesterday, as we came together, it finally struck me as such a brilliant choice.
- Not only because the banyan is the national tree of India, of course,
- And not only because its canopy is so immense, perhaps the broadest tree of all species (the banyan in the botanical garden outside Kolkata is some 5 acres in expanse, the size of a Manhattan city block),
- And not only because the banyan is such a tangle of branches and roots and trunks that it is always a biodiversity habitat, offering shade and shelter for a wide variety of humans, animals, and birds,
- But even more aptly (and deeply botanical!) because its syconium structure means that it continually produces aerial prop roots that allow the tree to spread outwards indefinitely, creating a vast interconnected grove.
The banyan—such a beautifully lush and capacious and prolific tree, dense and immense, supportive of rich biodiversity. What an absolutely perfect image to symbolize Shivi and the networks of people and hives of activities that he has fashioned and nurtured and sustained over the decades.
I (and my wife and daughter) first met Shivi and Bala (and Amy and Bambi), some 36 years ago. In the 1980s, Shivi and Bala were both rising stars in the elite Indian Administrative Service, and they had taken leave to attend the masters’ program at the School of Forestry. Shivi was leaving behind the lofty entitlements of his precocious post as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests for a small apartment up in the Prospect Street graduate student housing. The break in their IAS assignments and the attractions of returning to the academic life were raising doubts (and feelings of guilt) about going back to an administrative career. After wrestling with this agonizing choice, they both opted for scholarship over service—or rather, service through scholarship. This was the moment that Shivi plunged into our department’s Ph. D. program as a lowly first-year student.
Let me here observe two things.
First, we haven’t said enough so far in our proceedings to acknowledge the support and satisfaction that Bala, Amy, and Bambi have given Shivi—and to recognize just how admirably each of them in this remarkable family has carved out a life path of talent and accomplishment and service, both complimentary to and independent of one another. When Shivi moved to Anthropology, Bala, I should be noted, stayed in the Forestry School for her own Ph D under the indominable Graeme Berlyn. I still remember her tales of the lab, and I will always carry the unforgettable image of Bala lifting weights with her advisor in his “Heavy Metals, Uptake Lab”! Shivi’s students should be glad that his métier is walking!
Secondly, I would note something else we sometimes overlook. So many of you have talked with such feeling about the deep concern and wise advice that Shivi has provided, over and over, in your times of crisis. What you must realize is that the wisdom with which he has responded so fulsomely to your predicaments. But do not forget that that font of wisdom comes because Shivi himself, like you all, faced adversity in many guises and had to make some difficult decisions and tough choices. That decision to leave the IAS, for instance, was very hard for both of them—it was widely debated and roundly criticized in India at the time. And choosing to stay at Yale for a Ph.D. was a risky choice for Shivi because at the time there was nothing in South Asian studies and he had other offers much more tempting in direction.
But Shivi did decide to stay at Yale, to our eternal benefit, and I had the privilege to serve as his principal advisor. But, really, it took Helen and Jim Scott and a number of others working together to handle Shivi’s energy and acumen. It’s not that Shivi needed the committee, but the committee needed each other to keep up our student!
Back then, for instance, doctoral students had to prepare a bibliography of readings in advance of the PhD qualifying exam. Students would list up 15 or 20 pages of relevant scholarship, although there was a resigned understanding complicity that most of their work was in writing down the lists of titles and not actually reading them. Well, Shivi of course came in with about 35 pages of bibliography, and—you know where I’m going with this!—he actually READ the literature. I know this because he would come in to my office once a week and give me a reading course on the bibliography.
And back then, the exam itself set, rather arduously, four broad questions, to which, if I remember correctly, Shivi responded with almost 45 pages of essay so thorough and polished that had I been a journal editor at the time, I would have accepted it for publication without revision. And to top it all off, he disappeared for two years into the musty archives and into the Jungle Mahals of Southwest Bengal and emerged with a dissertation of some 771 pages. TYCO wouldn’t bind it as a single volume; they barely got it into two volumes. [You all only read the 350-page abridged version.]
And all of this was just at the start of a career, the impact and influence of which is so well represented by all of you here. I could rehearse the manifold gifts of labor and imagination that Shivi has bestowed upon us. I could rehearse again, and it certainly deserves repeating, how environmental anthro, the joint degree program, Agrarian Studies, South Asia Studies, and so much more have flourished for decades at Yale largely through Shivi’s prodigious energy and enthusiasm, his generosity of collaborative spirit and his capacious intellect. But much of delight of these two days with you all has been to hear such an amazing kaleidoscope of memories and testimonies and stories. It’s been a kind of collective historical ethnography of Shivi---and you have all so well demonstrated the lessons and methods of the master.
These are among the many qualities that we admire in Shivi, and which have shaped the bonds that we all have, in our own ways, with Shivi. But if I were to single out one quality that has always struck me most forcefully, for me, it would be POISE, in all of its ramifications.
Because poise is not simply composure. It points to a disposition of the mind and a sensibility of spirit.
Poise requires cultivating a deep sense of self-awareness. Poise is practicing mindfulness throughout one’s daily routine. Poise is committing to responding thoughtfully rather than reacting impulsively. Poise enables what the 19th-century English novelist George Eliott called “sympathetic imagination.”
Poise fosters an environment of respect and understanding, both towards yourself and towards others. And when someone embodies poise, as Shivi does so admirably, it creates a ripple effect, encouraging those around him to adopt similar attitudes. I know that you all, like me, have felt that palpably in being with Shivi.
Poise is what gives Shivi the confidence to lead gracefully and the capacity to listen fully and collaborate selflessly. This is a rare and deeply humane disposition, especially in the academy, so full of boast and bluster.
So we are here to mark his “retirement”! Yet retirement is such an inappropriate word to describe this rite of passage for an academic, especially someone like Shivi. He won’t be withdrawing from anything, except perhaps the burdens of grading and the boredom of faculty meetings. The Spanish term for this passage, jubilación, gets closer to the jubilant release from the shackles of academic minutia and the embrace of ever more room to think and write and engage. May we all remain connected together under the welcoming canopy of Shivi’s banyan on this voyage.