taught literatures in english today encompass indian writing in english and in translation where our classical canon plays a part i always found it an embarrassment that my students knew precious little about the iconic sakuntala leave alone the sanskrit epicsimagine my shock when i heard that at a heated recent cu meeting on the english syllabus this was the sole core course that was shot full of holes and buried apparently because some senior members objected that it constituted saffronisation that the mahabharata was a religious scripture the excerpts prescribed by the ugc are the dice game ending with draupadis disrobing and the temptation of karna whether the real reasons for rejection are politically motivated by our state or the shameful admission that our professors cannot teach sanskrit literature in translation but they can do greek and latin i do not know but i know that cu my own alma mater like that of many learned men and women in this cradle of the bengal renaissance has reached its nadir when it denies this course on risibly irrational grounds and what comes in its place that utterly useless bogeyman of english history of literature and philology which generations of cu graduates have died cramming no prizes for guessing why remember the college street industry and the teachers with their yellowing notes that they refuse to give up is the purpose of education to inspire young minds or protect the vested interests of the old with no desire to learna patriarchal syllabusjust so that i am not labelled a saffron stooge at which point i cannot resist observing that saffron is not a sanskrit word but derived from arabic zafran i should pick some examples in the ugc syllabus from a nonsaffron field across several compulsory courses the ugc has included novels by women among them jane eyre mrs dalloway beloved and a thoughtprovoking module of stories by african women ama ata aidoo bessie head grace ogot inexplicably cu has chopped all of them without offering any substitutes it has done this so mindlessly that while omitting toni morrisons novel it has kept her essay in the reading list which has no bearing now on the material in that course meanwhile retaining mahasweta devi cu has spelt her notunfamiliar name as mahasweata no sweat if cu upholds such a patriarchal syllabus i for one will advise schoolleavers to go elsewhere for their english honours degreeno doubt to further the cause of indian diversity the ugc incorporated poems by robin ngangom of manipur in two courses cu has removed him from both no wonder manipur feels slighted by the mainstream ngangoms replacement is ak ramanujan but misspelt as ramanujam which also makes me suspect mischievously that cu does not even know of the row surrounding ramanujans presumed antinational bias about the epics as interpreted by the saffron phalanx and the timehonoured british canon perhaps most unthinkingly of all cu places marlowes edward ii and shakespeares macbeth as alternatives in