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Beyond ‘Teacher’ and ‘Sir’: What Happens When We Use First Names at Work

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We rarely think about how we address our colleagues—but those small words shape our workplace more than we realise. Honorifics like teacher, sir, and madam may sound respectful, but they often create distance, hierarchy, and emotional disconnection. This blog reflects on why first names can build warmer, more humane academic spaces—and why being called simply Lakshmi matters to me. There is something fascinating about the way we call each other at work. In the Indian academic landscape—perhaps more than in many other professions—honorifics travel faster than names. Teacher, Sir, Madam, Ma’am: they float through staff rooms, corridors, office chats, and WhatsApp groups like an inherited etiquette we rarely pause to question. But lately, I have been thinking about what these words actually do. Honorifics sound polite, but they also carry the weight of hierarchy. They are meant to convey respect, yet often create distance—especially when used among colleagues who are almost of the same ag...
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The Blog I Never Imagined Writing About CUS (And Its “Legendary” Director)

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We think we know a system—until the day we step inside it. I walked into the Centre for Undergraduate Studies with assumptions, half-truths, and campus gossip. A month later, those assumptions have been shaken, re-shaped, and in some cases, turned upside down. This is the story of how a bell, a Director, and a demanding system taught me more about discipline, empathy, and leadership than any theory ever could. There’s a saying we all know too well: It is easy to criticise a system—until you become part of it. One month ago, that was me. And one month ago, that was exactly how I looked at Prof. Sam Solomon and the Centre for Undergraduate Studies (CUS). Like many others, I had my assumptions, my grievances, and—let me be brutally honest—my prejudices. I had often heard that Sam Sir was a “difficult person,” “strict,” “unapproachable”—the kind of senior you politely avoid in corridors. I had hardly ever interacted with him myself, but the campus grapevine had already written the script f...
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Many Modernities: An Epistemic Shift in Kerala Studies

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In 2008, at a time when ‘Kerala Modernity’ had become a kind of sacred slogan — invoked in policy reports, academic seminars, and everyday political debates — Prof. Jayasree offered a gentle but powerful disruption. She called it ‘Many Modernities.’ It wasn’t just the title of an international colloquium she organized at the University of Kerala. It was an epistemic intervention — a challenge to the self-congratulatory narratives of progress that often passed as truth. For decades, ‘Kerala Modernity’ had been spoken of with pride, as a mirror reflecting reason, reform, literacy, and social equality. But mirrors can also blind us. Behind the gleam of this success story, other realities — those of caste, class, gender, and faith — had quietly slipped out of sight. Prof. Jayasree’s idea cracked that mirror. She invited us to look again — not at a modernity, not at 'multiple modernities' but at ‘many modernities’; not at one Kerala, but at many Keralas. And that, perhaps, is where...
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