INTERVIEW WITH AMARTYA SEN

CLASS-XII: PROJECT

FICTITIOUS INTERVIEW WITH PROF. AMARTYA SEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project has rendered me ample opening to know how to take interview of an eminent
personality. I feel myself fortunate enough to have direction and guidance from my respected English
teacher______________________to make this project successful from every corner.

I am also really indebted to_______________________, another teacher of English Department,

whose suggestions have helped me proceed ahead for the improvement of my project work step by
step.

Last of all I am extremely grateful to my parents who have become regularly conducive to me for
collecting facts and figures from various sources in completing the project.

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Signature of the student

INTRODUCTION

Out of four project-topics, prescribed by West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education for
Class-XII students, I have been assigned to the project of Fictitious Interview of an Eminent Personality
(Current or Historical) and also asked by my respected English teacher to work-out the project on Prof.
Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences.

Through this project I have learnt about the personality, become aware of the significant events
that have designed the personality and known the art of questioning, too.

As regards sources, I have minutely gone through different books containing biography of Prof.
Amartya Sen and, to speak the truth, I have also taken assistance from Internet.

The guiding principles of this kind of project are that a biography of an eminent person can be
converted into a precise interview by setting appropriate questions and each question should be
adjustable to personality and role of the character.

Concerning the limit of the project, I confess that I am not fully acquainted with all the facts of the
person’s life. Hence I have included only the important events of the person and excluded other details.

OUTPUT OF THE PROJECT

Amartya Sen is a much admired, award winning economist, writer and philosopher. His voice about the
poor and malnourished has devised practical solutions to prevent food shortage and starvation. Besides,
committed sincerely to the cause of ending poverty and deprivation, this celebrated economist is the
sixth Indian and the first Asian winner to receive the Nobel Prize on Economics.

Fictitious Interview of an Eminent Personality

INTERVIEW OF AMARTYA SEN

Samayita (Interviewer): May I come in, Sir? I have come all the way from Kolkata to Shantiniketan,
especially to your place, to share a few words with you.

Prof. Sen (Interviewee): You are most welcome. Please come and have your sit. What is your name and
how can I help you?

Samayita : I am Samayita Dutta. At present I am studying in Class-XII (Science).

Prof. Sen : Oh! You are that little girl who wished to interview me. You spoke to me over the phone,
I suppose. Well, what is the need of taking my interview?

Samayita : Yes, Sir. Actually I have been assigned by my English Teacher to take interview of an
eminent personality like you for my project work. So, Sir, would you kindly allow me to ask you a few
questions on your life and career?

Prof. Sen : Okay. You may ask me questions as you wish. I will try to satisfy you as far as possible.

Samayita : Sir, where was your birth-place?

Prof. Sen : I was born in a Bengali Baidya family here at Shantiniketan on the campus of
Rabindranath Tagore’s Viswa-Bharati University.

Samayita : Will you kindly tell me your date of birth?

Prof. Sen : My date of birth is 3rd November, 1933.

Samayita : Who chose your first name as Amartya and what does your name mean?

Prof. Sen : My first name was christened by Gurudev Rabindranath, the first Indian Nobel laureate.
It means “Immortal”—that is to say “Having no death”. I am quite happy with it but, as you know,
everyone has to die following the Law of the Universe (Smiling).

Samayita : Sir, who were your parents and what were they?

Prof. Sen : My father’s name was Ashutosh Sen. As our family was from Wari and Manikganj,
Dhaka, both in present-day Bangladesh, my father, in his service career, was a professor of Chemistry at
Dhaka University. Later he moved with his family to West Bengal in 1945 and worked at various
government institutions, including the West Bengal Public Service Commission (of which he was the
Chairman), and the Union Public Service Commission. On the other hand my mother’s name was Amita
Sen who was very close to Rabindranath. She was a leading dancer in some of Tagore’s dance dramas.

Samayita : Sir, may I know in details about your education career?

Prof. Sen : When I was young, I had my schooling at Patha Bhavan here at Shantiniketan.

Samayita : I have heard that the school had many progressive features. Will you please enlighten
me with the main feature of the school?

Prof. Sen : At the school, our teaching and learning process not only focussed on examinations or
competitive tests but, in addition, the school stressed upon cultural diversity, reasoning and freedom
and embraced influences from the rest of the world also. I think those were the important parts of the
educational commitment that Tagore had, from which, I feel, I had been benefitted from those
concepts, too.

Samayita : How nice it was! I am dreaming if I were a lucky one to study in a such type of school.
However, Sir, when you were a student of Patha Bhavan, had you ever seen Gurudev Rabindranath in
your own eyes?

Prof. Sen : Gurudev breathed his last when I was too young. I have a vague memory of having met
him, and have had conversations with him. However, I was quite small when Tagore died --- not yet
eight, actually.

Samayita : I have come to know that after passing away of Rabindranath, You were fortunate
enough to have other great teachers along the way, formally and informally --- like the esteemed
painter, Nandalal Bose. Sir, would you kindly highlight Sir Bose’s influence with you?

Prof. Sen : Okay, you may take it in this way. I knew him very well indeed. The family members of
Nandalal Bose were our neighbours and precisely speaking, we were close family friends. I saw him
more or less every day. Often I saw him sitting and painting, but I never thought I had any talent for
painting and I never tried it also. I knew some of his students, including the great film director, Satyajit
Ray. Satyajit Ray, of course, was strongly influenced by Nandalal Bose’s teaching and thinking about
painting and art. Moreover, at Shantiniketan the particular institution, Kala Bhavan, which Nandalal Bose
was directing, was a source of new, experimental and innovative paintings and sculpture. They were
appreciated all over the country. But above all, the lessons of open-mindedness and global inclusivity
taught by educators like Rabindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose influenced me to a great extent. I still
believe that they (open-mindedness and global inclusivity) are as instructive today as they were in their
(Tagore’s and Bose’s) time.

Samayita : Very well said. Now Sir, would you kindly tell me concerning your higher studies?
Prof. Sen : After finishing my lesson from Patha Bhavan, in 1951, I took admission to Presidency
College, Kolkata, and earned a B.A. in Economics with First Class. But while at Presidency, I was
diagnosed with oral cancer, and I was given a 15% chance of living five years.

Samayita : Oh! My God. What happened then?

Prof. Sen : During those days sufficient medicines to check cancer were not available. So, with
radiation treatment I finally survived by the grace of the Almighty.

Samayita : Thank God! After Presidency, Sir, how did you proceed further?

Prof. Sen : In 1953 I moved to Trinity College, Cambridge, where I earned a second B.A. in Pure
Economics. Then I became the Master of Trinity College. After that while I was officially a Ph.D. student
at Cambridge (though I had finished my research in 1955-56), I was offered the position of Professor and
Head of the Economics Department of the newly created Jadavpur University in Kolkata when my age
was twenty-three only, and I became the youngest Chairman to head the Department of Economics. I
served in that position, starting the new Economics Department, from 1956 to 1958.

Samayita : Well. Sir, what happened after 1958?

Prof. Sen : I went abroad again to teach at London School of Economics and Oxford University. At a
subsequent stage I became the Professor of Economics at the Harvard University, too.

Samayita : What an amazing academic career! Sir, apart from Economics, I have heard that you were
very fond of studying Philosophy also when you were a student at Presidency College. Was there any
specific reason behind it?

Prof. Sen : Yes, there was a reason behind it. I believed that my studies into Philosophy were
important for me because some of my main areas of interest in Economics relate quite closely to
philosophical disciplines. Besides, I found philosophical studies very rewarding as well. At Presidency I
debated on philosophical themes, too.

Samayita : It is well-known that you wrote plenty of books. Sir, will you kindly mention the names of
the most important books?

Prof. Sen : Among the books, written by me, the most important works are ‘Poverty and Famines:
An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation’ and ‘On Ethics and Economics’. In addition to these, I should
mention the name of another book called ‘India: Development and Participation’ which was jointly
written by me and Jean Dreze, an honorary Professor at the Delhi School of Economics.

Samayita : Among many honours and awards, received by you, I suppose, the Nobel Prize was the
most prestigious one. Sir, will you kindly convey me a few words on that?

Prof. Sen : In the year 1998 I got the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Definitely it was
the most remarkable one. My topic was ‘Welfare Economics’. My mental sensation reached to its
highest point when I was awarded the prize in the Royal Palace in Stockholm. After receiving the Nobel
Prize, I had to make a five-minute after-dinner speech at the Nobel Dinner where I recited a few lines of
Tagore’s most famous poem “Where the Mind is Without Fear” , a poem which deeply influenced me in
the core of my heart.

Samayita : Excellent! In 1999 you were also declared as the recipient of the Bharat Ratna Award, isn’t
it so? How was your feeling then?

Prof. Sen : Yes. I felt extremely happy to have the award, too. I understood that the Government of
India had recognized and approved my contributions to economic and ethical issues from India’s point
of view.

Samayita : Well. Now Sir, apart from your academic career and service life, how is your family life?

Prof. Sen : (Indirectly) Nabaneeta Dev Sen, my better half, is also highly educated and has got several
awards as well. She has published more than 80 books in Bengali on poetry, novels, short stories, plays,
literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues and humour writings. She is a well-known children's
author in Bengali, too and becomes famous for her fairy tales and adventure stories, with girls as
protagonist. She has also written prize-winning one-act plays.

Samayita : My last query --- how many children do you have and what are they?

Prof. Sen : I have two daughters --- Nandana and Antara. Nandana was an Indian actress,
screenwriter, children's author and child-rights activist whereas Antara joined The Hindustan Times as a
senior editor and had worked also with Ananda Bazaar Patrika group situated in Kolkata. During the
period, she went to Oxford University on mutual support from the Reuters Foundation. Returning back
to India, she started a little magazine where she began writing articles on politics, society, culture and
development.

Samayita : Thank you, Sir. I have learnt many things on your life. I am fully satisfied. May God grant
you a long life to still think for the distressed and the deprived. (Total
conversation: No. of Words ± 1655)

THE END