Pranab Bardhan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Educated at Presidency College, Kolkata and Cambridge University, England, he had been at the faculty of MIT, Indian Statistical Institute and Delhi School of Economics before joining Berkeley. He is the author of 17 books, including Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India (Princeton University Press, 2011) and A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries (Harvard University Press, 2022). A collection of his Bengali essays has been published by Ananda Publishers in Kolkata in 2020.
<p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">The word ‘charaiveti’, from an ancient Sanskrit hymn, means ‘keep moving’, in search of self-realization. The leading Indian economist and public intellectual Pranab Bardhan invokes this in his moving narrative of a personal and professional journey.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">From his beginnings in a poor neighbourhood in Kolkata and the idyllic days in Santiniketan, from being home-schooled by his father followed by a vigorous student life at Presidency College, Kolkata and in Cambridge, England, Bardhan rose to being among the foremost development economists in the world. After serving on the faculty of MIT, Indian Statistical Institute and Delhi School of Economics, he finally settled at the University of California, Berkeley. In the process he interacted closely interacted with the likes of James Meade, Joan Robinson, Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, James Mirrlees, Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof, Jerry Cohen, Jon Elster, Amartya Sen, T.N. Srinivasan, K.N. Raj, Ashok Rudra, Mrinal Datta Chaudhuri, Sukhamoy Chakravarty, Ashis Nandy and Romila Thapar.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">In his memoir he provides a fascinating account of his richly varied and widely-travelled life, interwoven with thoughtful comments on politics and society both in India and abroad and on some major strands of international intellectual debates. These accounts are enlivened by a profusion of stories, anecdotes and amusing incidents, and draw copiously from his interests in literature and films.</p><p style="margin: 6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 24px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">Witty, wise and perceptive, <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px;">Charaiveti</em> is more than just a memoir-it is a sharp-eyed look at where we have been and where we may be headed, as seen through the lens of a remarkable life.</p>
