Professor Dhanda,

I’m not going to tell you you’re an icon or a giant or a once in a life time professor or any of that. Because of course you are, and of course all of us see that and say that, and often. It’s probably even easy to reduce your presence to authority and scholarly accomplishment, given the context we are introduced to you in. What I’ve been thinking about a lot more these last five years of being by your side as a student-colleague rather than under you as a student-baccha, is that not enough is said of you as a human being. And I would like to take a stab at that.  

I’ll never forget the work you put in to level the hierarchy in the short stints in which we were colleagues. (As if I wasn’t thirty five years younger, without so much as a critical fiber in my being when we first became acquainted.) Or the time that you told me to embrace my anxiety because what I saw as my greatest setback was what you saw as a significant asset. (As if I had not flaked on a deadline or two, broken down in public the day before, and been incoherent or dissociated through much of the time prior.) Or the time that you just casually slipped in passing that you felt our reading on a certain subject had far exceeded yours. (As if that was not made possible entirely by the kinds of opportunities you or your stewardship afforded to us.) Or the time you told a room full of people that I deserved a lion’s share of the credit for the work product we had delivered together. (As if my first stab at the project had not been completely overhauled by your far more radical lens, and the second, third and fourth drafts had not been repeatedly reworked after our meetings at the lawn of the CC.) Or the time you told me that just because you are a professor and look put together, doesn’t mean you don’t struggle or need support to lean on, sometimes even from someone like me. (As if such a thing should need saying.)

Self-involved and anxious as we tend to be when young and unaware of our own inner worlds, I don’t know how much I registered of the fact that you were always trying, despite everything, to listen, process, acknowledge, empathize, make space, hold space, give, give some more and change. That you were trying to welcome out an agent, an equal, a full human being, from a cave into which I had retreated as a dissociated child, confused student and terrified worrier. In the smallest nod, the quickest sign off line in an email or text, the most fleeting eye contact or the slightest inflection of your voice. The more I came out of my cave and into my own, the more I began to see our interactions for what they were. 

Of course no radical self-acceptance is possible at the hands of another person. And I appreciate that you make the space for my quirks, my needs, and my boundaries, even when it’s frustrating or out of alignment with our shared goals. In thinking about power and navigating authority everywhere – something you know I struggle with continually – I am most struck by how little of your vision you expect me to fit. All this is a long way to say, I find more ways to accept myself – even those pieces of me I’d rather have disowned or neglected – because you choose to be you in our journey together. Not as a senior authority figure who can just hurtle through life without a moment’s reflection given her position of power and seniority. But as a colleague and friend who is always ruminating, rejigging, redoing, revamping and reflecting, despite her power and seniority. 

Of course all roles you play bleed into each other, and I don’t want to engage in some forensic analysis of separate strands of your being or anything! I only want to say that I see you as more than the professor and academic you have been in our shared context (even if some years too late). In my books, you’re far from superannuating those equally (if not more) cherished roles. I am grateful for you, and I am so very grateful for our time together, the missteps, the hiccups, the challenges and all. 

As we go forth, I hope that we can find that our inner worlds are enriched in more colourful ways by the friendship we share. I hope that we can find solidarity and connection in each other, even as we work towards being in solidarity and sisterhood with those who lead our movements. And of course (surely I cannot close without talking shop at all?) I hope that our pedagogic dreams will one day see the light of day, and that the public practice of self-respect and love can be the world we leave behind.

Happy birthday! 

With love,

Malavika