Of people, of places: sketches from an economist's notebook
- Delhi Oxford University Press 1994
- 170 p.
When you tell academics that you are planning to write a book of light essays, they ask you 'Why? packing in as much moral disapproval as they can into a three-letter question. The presumption is that researchers- be they physicists, biologists or economists-ought to ensure that their work is directed towards helping mankind or India's progress. My only defence against this question is that even when I do research as a professional economist, its utility-leaving aside its immediate hedonism is not evident to me. So, at least in my case, when time is taken off abstract research to write a book like this one, there need be no fear of socially useful man-hours having been lost. All the essays here are on life in and around academia. They were written over several years, including some written recently and expressly for this book.