Amader Shantiniketan

This charming memoir is a loving homage to a grand institution and its legendary gurus. Written from the perspective of a child and young girl, it retains the freshness and innocence of an age when experimental education was not merely a trendy movement. Shivani’s vivid pictures of the Ashram and portraits of her teachers and fellow students remain as alive as they seemed when she first wrote this memoir nearly fifty years ago. Along with the moving tributes she wrote when some of her beloved contemporaries passed away, this slim memoir is a sort of diptych that captures the spirit of the Ashram and the liveliness of its inmates, many of whom went on to become iconic Indians. Shivani’s recall of her time there takes the reader into an enchanted garden that remains as inspirational to her as it was when she went there all the way from Kumaon a lifetime ago.