Ivan Illich and India’s Unfinished Questions

In April 1978, I received a strange and unexpected phone call from my boss at the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum.

He spoke quietly in Malayalam and sounded serious. He simply said, “John, can you come here? There is an important visitor who wants to meet you.”

I was surprised by the call. He did not give me any details about the visitor or explain why the person wanted to meet me. Still, the way my boss spoke made me feel that the meeting was important, so I went to see him.

When I arrived, I noticed a tall man waiting there. He had rough facial features and looked very different from the people I normally met at the centre.

What caught my attention most was his appearance. He was wearing old and worn-out clothes and had no shoes on his feet. At first glance, he looked like someone who had been travelling for a long time. His simple appearance reminded me of a monk or a wandering traveller.

I could not immediately understand who he was or why he had come to meet me. Nothing about his appearance suggested that he was an important person. In fact, he looked like an ordinary man who had travelled a long distance without caring much about his clothes or appearance.

The unexpected meeting left me curious. I wondered why my boss had described him as an “important visitor” and why this unusual-looking man specifically wanted to meet me.

At that moment, I had no idea that this short and mysterious meeting would become a memorable experience for me. The man’s simple appearance, quiet manner and unusual presence made the encounter stand out in my memory.

Looking back, what seemed like an ordinary meeting at the time carried a sense of mystery. A phone call from my boss, a tall stranger in worn clothes, and a meeting that had been arranged without any explanation — all of it made me wonder about the real purpose of his visit.