Date:21/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2008/06/21/stories/2008062153160900.htm

Back Metro Plus Bangalore Chennai Coimbatore Delhi Hyderabad Kochi Madurai Mangalore Pondicherry Tiruchirapalli Thiruvananthapuram Vijayawada Visakhapatnam

Pearl peers

St. Stephen’s College has produced some illustrious alumni. A look at three of Amitav Ghosh’s contemporaries

Harsh Mander

A St. Stephen’s product, Harsh Mander was a senior IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. He was so enraged by the role of the administration of Gujarat during the violence of 2002 that he resigned from the Service. He is also a serious writer and a committed activist, dedicating his time to secularism and justice. His writings have appeared across newspapers and in Rupa’s “Harvest of Hate: Gujarat under Siege”.

Harsh Mander is also the head of Aman Biradari, “a people’s campaign for a secular, peaceful, just and humane world”.

Ramachandra Guha

Ramachandra Guha, well known historian and columnist, is one of the most illustrious alumni to come out of St. Stephen’s. He is the author of over 20 books on ecology, sociology and the environment, cricket and Indian history.

One of Guha’s recent publications is “India After Gandhi: The history of the world’s largest democracy”.

Amitav Ghosh, his college mate at St. Stephen’s, notes that even when Guha was in his in his 20s, “he was doing amazing work.”

Piyush Pandey

Piyush Pandey’s success story proves that the prestigious college does not create only intellectuals. An opinion maker in his own right, Piyush started as a cricketer and led Delhi University to win the Rohinton Baria Trophy in 1979. He also played in Ranji Trophy. Piyush even worked as a tea taster before joining Oglivy, the advertising agency whose India and South Asia operations, he heads now. Arguably the most influential man in Indian advertising, Piyush is best known for his Fewikwik and Cadbury campaigns.