Some friendships announce themselves early; others reveal their depth only with time. My friendship with V. Achuthan belonged to the latter kind. We met in 1979 at the Madras School of Social Work as postgraduate students, and remained friends—steadily, quietly, and without interruption—for nearly four decades, until his death in 2018. Each of us was free to grow in his own direction without drifting apart. Achuthan stepped away from the academic path and became a lawyer, pra

Mary Clubwala Jadhav, Founder, Madras School of Social Work My time at the Madras School of Social Work marked a turning point in my life. The path that led me there was neither planned nor particularly purposeful. In the final semester of my master’s degree in Economics in 1978, a few of us—rebellious backbenchers more in spirit than in consequence—decided to attempt the Union Public Service Commission’s civil services preliminary examination, newly introduced that year as