The Indian Express | Hardeep Puri to Imtiaz Ali — a DU reunion like no other

Sep 27,2022

“India resides in the University and the University resides in India,” said former Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh on Tuesday at the launch of a new anthology, Delhi University: Celebrating 100 Glorious Years.

As Delhi University is celebrating its centenary year, the anthology — with contributing pieces by 14 alumni — has been edited by Union Minister and Hindu College alumnus Hardeep Singh Puri and has a foreword by Amitabh Bachchan, an alumnus of Kirori Mal College. It has been published by Rupa Publications India. At the launch on Tuesday, in a session moderated by Puri, prominent alumni from different fields sat together to discuss what the University meant to them.

For former diplomat Lakshmi Puri, an alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College, the University looked different. “I’m about belonging to the southern campus and a women’s college… What I missed was the hurly-burly of student politics, of intercollege competitions and the raw energy that the North Campus had… But I don’t think I could become who I am or who I became but for the fact that I was there.

One of the biggest takeways for me when I look back is that we were in the heat of the women’s liberation movement… My father was a feminist and I was fired up
already. So when I went to college, that was the fire all around… That was the foundation that I think enabled me to much later to be a founding builder of the first global institution for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment,” she said, referring to her former role in the UN Women.

Former V-C Dinesh Singh is an alumnus of St Stephen’s College and recalled his long relationship with the University as a student, teacher and an administrator. “This
University affords all kinds of opportunities, and my father (also a former VC of DU) used to say that the most defining feature of the University is that it attracts such awesome talent from all parts of India. And India resides in the University and the University resides in India.

Writer Namita Gokhale’s experience of the University was very different. She was a student of Jesus and Mary College but never graduated: she was held back from taking the final exams on the grounds of low attendance, followed by a court case which did not change the college’s decision. “That was one of the most tumultuous things that happened to me. When you’re 18 years old and you think you’re going to be professor… I decided that I’m not going back to college, whatever I learnt after that I learnt on my own…” she said.