Ananta Kumar Giri
Ananta Kumar Giri is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has taught at many universities in India and abroad, including Aalborg University (Denmark), Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris (France), the University of Kentucky (USA), University of Freiburg & Humboldt University (Germany), and Jagiellonian University (Poland). His research focuses on social movements and cultural change, criticism, creativity and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories of self, culture and society, and creative streams in education, philosophy and literature. Madras Institute of Development Studies: 79, Second Main Road, Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, Chennai, Adyar-600 020, India. Emails: aumkrishna@hotmail.com, aumkrishna@gmail.com, Ph:0091-44-24412589 / 24412295 ext.320 Fax: 0091-44-24910872 Web: www.mids.ac.in/ananta.htm, https://tapasyawordpresscom.wordpress.com, skype: aumkrishna10 Facebook: Ananta Kumar Giri Twitter: Ananta Kumar Giri@aumbhikhu Mobile: +91-9840581025 (whatsapp) Home Address: Vishwaneedam, Plot No. 3, Vagishwara Ave, Kalathumedu 4th Cross, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai-600 041, India Personal page: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=915 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transformative Harmony. Edited By Ananta Kumar Giri: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=911
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Chennai, December 24, 2019 Dear and Respected Friends, My best of regards and warm greetings to you. The same to family, friends and colleagues. I hope this finds you well. It is a joy for me to write to you, remember with gratitude our communications, sharing and friendship. To new friends in this letter it is a joy for me to send this letter to you. I wish you, and all of you, a Blessed Christmas and Creative and Transformative New Year in 2020. I am writing this letter to you sitting in this beautiful music concert in Music Academy in Chennai. I reached home from Pondicherry this morning around 2 AM and ran in the morning to be able to offer myself to this dance of music here in the Academy as well as other sabhas here in Chennai. I was present in an evening Christmas celebration two days ago in Pondicherry in a church. Being there I felt these lines singing in my heart: “Oh Angels, Open our Doors. Let us open our doors and windows to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.” God, Christ and Spirit are our ever-nurturing co-travellers and nurturers and in this Christmas let us hear Their songs of love and care and embody love, care and fearlessness in the midst of many threats and violence of our times. As we offer ourselves to Lord Jesus Christ, we also take note of new challenges and possibilities of this year 2019 and embrace our coming year 2020 with love and courage. 2019 is the 100 years of the May 4th Movement of China which challenged feudalism and authoritarianism there and played an important role in the making of a new China as part of our connected new World. The great American philosopher John Dewey had visited China in 1919. Our Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore had also visited China in 1924 and like Dewey had held dialogues with Chinese thinkers, writers and concerned citizens. Today given our concerns about the rise of China especially its authoritarianism , we need to find ways for more dialogue and friendship with China. on my part, in a small and humble way, I am working with some co-travellers on these issues. I am editing two books onthese issues: Confucianism and Vedanta andSocial Theorizing in Contemporary China. The first book strives to look at possible resonances between Confucianism and Vedanta around issues of harmony and oneness and the second book tries to introduce the works of some contemporary thinkers from China such as Professor Tu Wei Ming who is inviting us to build dialogical and spiritual civilizations where ever we are and from the soils and souls of our own civilizations. This year is also the 150 years of the birth of Ba and Bapu—Kasturba and Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi. Both Ba and Bapu were great seekers and fighters for Truth, Freedom and Justice. Their Satyagraha has a perennial significance. In our world today, especially in India, there is fear and terror partly produced by our ruling establishment and let us find ways of overcoming fear and continue Satagraha through mutual love, support and political, social and spiritual mobilization. Here we can remember Ba, Bapu, Kha Abdul Gaffar Khan and Jai Prakash Narayan and realize that no power and State are more powerful than our souls, mutual strength, and God and Nature and let us raze these rising structures of authoritarianism and create gardens of love, dignity and dialogues in their places. We also remember here that 800 years ago in 1219 St Francis of Assisi from Assisi, Italy had walked all the way to meet the Sultan of Egypt Malik Al-Kamil during the Crusade and it was an important step towards dialogue and overcoming fear in the midst of the raging war of religions and Crusade of the time. I wish you a creative 2020. I just wish to share that in 2019 I have been engaged in some of the followingefforts.I travelled to Hong and Taiwan twice in February and April and had carried out research and dialogues with scholars there. I travelled in Sikkim, Ladakh, Punjab, Maharastra and other parts India and it was enriching for me to meet with many scholars and some activists. I have edited and co-edited the following books in this year: Practical Spirituality and Human Development: Alternative Experiments for Human Futures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Transformative Harmony (Delhi: Studera, 2019) and The Essays of Chitta Ranjan Das on Literature, Culture and Society: on the Side of Life in Spite Of (co-edited with Ivan Marequez, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2019). I am also editing a special issue in Gandhi Marg on Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo which is coming out in January 2020. I am also editing two volumes on Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: Border Crossings, Transformations and Planetary Realizations which are in press with Palgrave Macmillan and another on Cross-Fertilizing Roots and Routes: Identities, Social Creativities, Cultural Regeneration and Planetary Realizations, also With Palgrave Macmillan. I am also preparing a book of mine on The Calling of Global Responsibility for Routledge and another book in India called Bahudarha Barnabiva: The Splendour and Beauty of The Many. I have written the following articles in this year among others which may interest you: “Life Worlds and Living Words” (Social Change, April 2019) and “Cultivating New Circles and Movementsof Meaning Generation: Upholding Our World, Regenerating Our Earth and the Calling of a Planetary Lokasamgraha” (Journal of Human Values, Nov 2019), Rupantarakari Sanhati (Shree, a journal from Odisha, Oct 2019) and Ehi Alokasnanata Pruthibi (This Light Bathed World) (Bartika, Oct 2019). I once again wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am sorry that I am writing this general letter to all of you but I send this to each one of you as a unique soul and kind friend and thank you for accepting my general letter as my personal letter. I am grateful to you for writing to me the story of your year and hopes for the new one and I am grateful to you for writing this to me and not the whole web. I share with you some of my poems for your perusal. Looking forward to hearing from you and meeting with you and with regards, Sincerely Yours Ananta. Encls: My Little Feet Ananta Kumar Giri My little feet Dancing with Earthy and Sky In Anandasala[1] With Trees and Tagore Now my eyes Dance with leaves and Pietas[2] Here in Gyanadeepa[3] Lamp of Gyana Knowledge and Wisdom I am a woman But not only a woman I am body But not only a body I am a dance of Nature Human and Divine I am a singing spring A melody of cosmos [For Gargi with the joy of our meeting, August 28, 19, 935 AM]
Breathing Satyagraha
Ananta Kumar Giri Oh what are you doing next? I am now breathing Satyagraha Today, tomorrow and day after tomorrow Not worried about after and after Satya! You are our past, present and future We strive to know you and can know you partially Like translation we can only partly translate But still we walk and meditate with you Is Truth only what works Or Truth is our guide Our ground and horizon Bhumi[4] and Bhuma[5] Truth as God, Truth as Life A Limiting Calling Truth and God are checks Challenging us to realize our own limitations A Measure of Measure A New Social, Ethical, Political and Spiritual Sadhana Continued Struggles for Truth Realizations [For Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, an Inspiring Satyagrahi and with gratitude for his tireless efforts for creating new conditions for creative dialogues and for nurturing the International Seminar on “Satyagraha for the 1ste Century: Social, Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of the Global Pursuits of Truth,” India International Center and Council for Social Development, Delhi, Oct 222-24, 2019, Oct 26 2019, 1045 AM]
A New Cave
Ananta Kumar Giri
Pandavas
Kauravas[6] With and Beyond Battles Living in a New Cave A Cave of Love and Light In Between Bhuloka[7] and Devaloka[8] A New Path of Togetherness and Transcendence With Gods and Dogs Human, Nature and Divine [Presented to my dear co-traveller and friend Rutvid, May 25, 2019]
When Eyes Become Wings
Ananta Kumar Giri Two girls Four eyes Standing at the door Looking out A Yearning to Come Out Two eyes a bit cautious Other two an innocent courage But all the four dance a new yearning Sing a new song of becoming When eyes become wings Birds and Bards of a new awakening [For Deeplakshmi, the artist from Meerut whose exhibition in Shimla aroused this conversation and her niece, and for Prof. Harpal Singh and Dr. RamanpreetKaur, Siddhartha Vihar, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, Nov 27, 19 530 AM]
[1] Anandasala is the school for children in Santiniketan
[2] Pietas is the Image of Mother carrying crucified Christ on her lap. [3] Gyanadeepa isa seminary in Pune [4] Ground [5] Beyond [6] Pandavas and Kauravas are two kind clans from the Epic of Mahabarata engaged in a battle over land and kingdom. [7] The realm of the Earth [8] The world of the Gods -------------------------------------------------- https://tapasyawordpresscom.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/vishwaneedam-center-for-asian-blossoming/ Objectives of Vishwaneedam Center for Asian Blossoming To build and nurture Asian Institutes of Advanced Study and Asian Forum for Social Theory in collaboration
with different institutions and universities around the world; To carry out workshops, seminars and conferences on cross-cultural, philosophical and social issues; To publish Asian Journal of Social Theory; To provide fellowships and scholarships to students and scholars to do study and research To present Confucius-Buddha-Gandhi award for outstanding contributions to social theorizing and social sciences in Asia Co-Nurturers Professor Ananta Kumar Giri, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai (Executive Truestee) Professor Subash Sharma, Director, Indus Business Academy, Bangalore Professor John Clammer, Tokyo Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, Council for Social Development, Delhi Dr. Marcus Bussey, University of Sunshine Coast, Australia Professor Meera Chakraborty, Jain University, Bangalore Swamisrihariprasad, Shri Vishnumohan Foundation, Chennai ----------------------------------------------
My Dear and Respected Friend Ananta, Many thanks for your warm and inspiring greetings and wonderful poems as a haiku for a New Year 2020! You demonstrate the tremendous creative potential of transforming harmony and imagination in science and poetry, which cannot be unnoticed and requires conservation. You gift and dedicate books and poems to your friends. GHA gifts and devotes personal pages to harmonious authors with their transformative creations in science and poetry for global peace from harmonyto preserve them and share their spiritual value with other people, especially young people, as role models. We are happy to gift you a personal page: "Ananta Kumar Giri. Social Transformative Harmony Creator" (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=915) and wish you new creative achievements in 2020 for the sake of global peace from social harmony. Sincerely yours, with love,
Leo
25-12-19
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