Makarand Paranjape

Makarand R. Paranjape (born 31 August 1960) is an Indian novelist, poet, author of Body Offering, a former director at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, and former professor of English at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.^[1][2]

Makarand Paranjape
Born	31 August 1960 Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Nationality	Indian
Education	MA, PhD in English Literature
Alma mater	St Stephen's College, Delhi University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA
Occupations	Former Director of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (Shimla) Former Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi)

Early life and education

Makarand R. Paranjape was born in 1960 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He was educated at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bangalore followed by a B.A. (Hons.) in English at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, in 1980. Thereafter, he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from where he received his M.A. in English Literature and, subsequently, a PhD, in 1985, on the topic Mysticism in Indian English Poetry.

Career

Makarand Paranjape had started his career in 1980 as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and returned to India in 1986 to join the University of Hyderabad, first as lecturer and then reader. In 1994, he joined the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi as an associate professor, and between 1999 and 2018, he served as professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.^[3][4]

IIAS Controversy

Paranjape was appointed as Director of IIAS in August 2018. In August 2020, 63 charges of irregularities were filed against Paranjape according to the Vice Chancellor and he was asked to resign from the post.^[5] Paranjape offered a rebuttal to his critics through an interview with The Wire in April 2021.^[6] However, it was later reported that he had violated the MoA (memorandum of association) of the institute as its Director and that it was not any clash with other specific individual heads at the institution.^[7] Paranjape resigned from the post in 2023 after he was given a farewell by the institute on 30 July 2021.

Works and reception

In his coffee-table book of poems published in January 2022 as Identity's Last Secret, Paranjape discussed how he "came out of a difficult relationship." In 2013, Makarand R. Paranjape published a novel called Body Offering.^[8] The novel is a tale of a middle-aged man's extra-marital affair with a woman 25 years younger than him. The Sunday Guardian dubbed the book as one "that walked in the long shadow cast" by Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabakov's 1955 novel Lolita.^[9]

Personal life

In 1987, Paranjape married Sarina, a graduate student at UIUC.^[10] In 2006, he married^[a] Devaki Singh, daughter of Arun Singh.^[11] He is now married to Gayatri Iyer.^[12]

Honours

• ICCR Chair in Indian Studies, National University of Singapore, August 2010 onwards.
• October–December 2014: Inaugural DAAD-Eric Auerbach Visiting Chair in World Literatures at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

Notes

1. Sources do not discuss his divorce with Sarina. They were married as of December, 2004 and Sarina was a program officer at United States-India Educational Foundation.