Charaiveti: An academic's journey-6

'The experience of debating in college helped me in many ways', said the author

One remarkable redeeming feature of my dingy neighbourhood in Kolkata was that within half a mile or so there was my historically distinctive school, and across the street from there was Presidency College, one of the very best undergraduate colleges in India at that time (my school and that college were actually part of the same institution for the first 37 years until 1854), adjacent was an intellectually vibrant coffee house, and the whole surrounding area had the largest book district of India — and as I grew up I made full use of all of these.

College life was