Life,
Engagement,
and
Reflections

As a septuagenarian I write from the vantage point of a life shaped by study, work, institutions, and long engagement with people.

 

My professional life has spanned youth leadership, research, training, entrepreneurship, marketing, consultancy, and business administration.

 

Since 1979, I have voluntarily supported a range of social organisations, particularly in the areas of documentation and research, governance development, social communication, leadership training, and capacity building.

 

In 1981, I co-authored, with Prof. T. K. Nair, Social Work Educators in India: A Profile, published under the aegis of the Association of Schools of Social Work in India (ASSWI).

 

Since 1985, as a micro-activist, I have engaged in principled efforts to address governance failures in select non-governmental organisations, contributing to leadership transitions through litigation and sustained social action.

 

I live in Chennai, India, with my wife Annie, my son Cecil, my daughter-in-law Shilpa, and my grandson Evan.

 

A Note to the Reader

 

What follows arises from a long engagement with people and institutions, and from the ethical questions that such engagement inevitably raises. Much of it is shaped by memory—personal encounters, moments of disagreement, and experiences within organisations that both served and, at times, failed the purposes for which they were created.

 

Some of the pieces that follow take the form of reflective essays; others respond to particular moments within public and social institutions. Together, they represent an ongoing attempt to examine authority, responsibility, and conscience as they are lived, rather than merely theorised.

 

These writings are offered neither as conclusions nor prescriptions, but as inquiries—grounded in experience and open to the reader’s own reflection.