Acknowledgements

As I conclude this book, I am reminded of three persons: Sikander, Salma, and Sanjay. Sikander has been with our household as a domestic help since 1999. Watching my routine, and overhearing my conversations with visiting friends, he once asked the innocent question: ‘why do you always talk of social?’ His worry was why other things were less important for me. He was also unable to understand what my job was, as I had retired. When I moved him to Bangalore to work for my son, Sanket, who had moved from the US, Salma—a Muslim girl from West Bengal and somewhat educated—replaced Sikander. After a few days of her stay with us, she also inquired whether I am some sort of a writer, as she found books everywhere in my penthouse. She had guessed right. Sanjay is a techie whom I often call whenever I have problems with my machine—I have self-learnt computer as part of my adult education! As I was about to begin work on this project, I had trouble with my computer and Sanjay was called in to assist. It was he who intrigued to know about my commitment for several months towards doing the book on society. I allude to that brief conversation in the opening chapter of this book. He is eager to see the book in print, and feels happy that his interrogation was instrumental in drafting the opening lines.

I hope that their children will have access to this book to know my association with their respective parents.

Sikander, Salma, and Sanjay are part of my large family that has not only my consanguineal and affinal relatives, but also some long-time acquaintances—as former students and academic colleagues—for whom I am Bapu—a kinship term used with varied connotations. In this set, I would like to include my younger brothers—Muktesh Sharma and Harish Sharma—and their nuclear families (though I am treated as Head of the notionally existing joint family), my students—Surendra K. Gupta, Jamil Farooqui, and D. P. Bhan Singh (who recently passed away), and the nuclear families of my children. Indira Baptista Gupta— though not my student, but by virtue of being the spouse of Surendra—also belongs to the Bapu clan! Add to this list my wife, Seema, and my nephews and nieces, and the picture will be complete. It is not possible to list the kind of support or concern exhibited by each of them when I was busy doing this book, but I do acknowledge their tremendous emotional support. I know that they will all be happy to see this book in print.

I wish to make a special mention of my grandchildren, particularly Apeksha and Abhyu-day, Purva Bhatt, and Paryant Misra, who came to my rescue when I struggled with the computer to draw charts and diagrams.

There are several colleagues in the profession who have directly or indirectly contributed to this work. My teacher Professor Chauhan continually enquired about the progress and was keen to see it published. On 3 November 2009, on a few days before his death, I got a call from him; I was keen to know about his health but he parried the question and asked me about the book. I had constantly consulted colleagues and friends and sought their help in different ways. In particular, I am grateful to Vinay Srivastava—Professor of Social Anthropology and Principal of Hindu College, Delhi University—with whom I had spent several sessions discussing the various chapters. I also benefited from my discussions with A. M. Shah, T. K. Oommen, Kamala Ganesh, Khajan Singh Sangwan, and Jagdish Pundir. There are others who had read parts of this book and offered their valuable advice. During this period, I have been invited to give seminars or special lectures (i) on the concepts of sandwich culture and of apertures and insulators that I have proposed, (ii) on caste and politics, (iii) on poverty, and (iv) on the sociology of education at several places, including Banaras Hindu University, Mumbai University, Lucknow University, MP Institute of Social Science Research (Ujjain), GB Pant Institute (Allahabad), and Institute of Development Studies ( Jaipur). I wish to thank the participants to those seminars for their stimulating interaction. My Belgian sister—Anne-Marie DeWitt—spent part of her short sojourn in India with me and took time to go through some of my chapters and offered valuable advice to improve their presentation. I also acknowledge the encouragement received from my former colleagues—S. K. Srivastava and D. N. Dhanagare.

I must thank Pearson Education for the help extended and concern shown. In particular I am deeply appreciative of Qudsiya Ahmed who took meticulous care in preparing the text for press. I admire her courteous demeanour and professionalism.

Yogesh Atal