Aug 21 2026 to Aug 21 2026 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

From Buddhist philosophy and social reform to mathematics and Sanskrit literature, the Kosambis challenged inherited orthodoxies across disciplines, geographies, and public movements. This lecture explores the extraordinary intellectual legacy of Dharmanand and D.D. Kosambi, father and son, two restless twentieth-century Indian minds, drawing on Ram Ramaswamy’s double biography of the pair.

What does it take to bridge knowledge and social responsibility? D.D. Kosambi was a mathematician, historian, numismatist, and Marxist thinker; his father, Dharmanand Kosambi, was a Buddhist scholar and social reformer whose life shaped his son’s radical curiosity. Together, their work shows that ideas do not exist in isolation, and that rigorous thinking can be a powerful tool for understanding and changing the world.

In collaboration with:

Venue: Library
Speakers

Ram Ramaswamy
Author
Ram Ramaswamy taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, from 1986 till his retirement in 2018, in the Schools of Physical Sciences and Computational and Integrative Sciences. His research has mainly been in non-linear and statistical physics, as well as in computational and systems biology. In addition, he has written extensively on issues pertaining to higher education and other related areas.

Dharini Bhaskar
Publisher, HarperCollins India
Born in Bombay, Dharini Bhaskar has also called Leeds, London, Paros, Delhi, and Bangalore home. Her debut novel, These, Our Bodies Possessed by Light (Hachette India), was shortlisted for the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature, Tata Literature Live! (First Book: Fiction), and the Valley of Words book awards. Her second novel, Like Being Alive Twice (Penguin Random House India), was listed among the most anticipated books of 2024 by Vogue, The New Indian Express and Open Magazine, and was longlisted for the Ruskin Bond Award for Fiction. She also contributed to The Only City: Bombay in Eighteen Stories (Fourth Estate/HarperCollins India). She is presently Associate Publisher, Literary, at HarperCollins India.