Acknowledgement

When we first conceived this volume two years ago we had no idea that the baby would have been so fat as it is now. The two years of delivering it has taken off an extra ounce of fatness from all of us. It has been a long course of soliciting, praying, hoping against hope, ecstasy of receipt of intellectual properties, and, then, reading, typing, keying in, translating different software systems into out Apple Mackintosh (of which the spell check fails), checking, re-checking, re-rechecking, editing, discovering errors and unifying Chinese spellings, etc. Being its editor, I truly realize how limited is the capacity of one individual. It is only through collective bard work that such a fat baby can be born.

I have a very long list to offer my gratitude, but if I spell out, this page of “Acknowledgements” would become a thick “Who’s Who”. The readers have a chance to come across the names of all the contributors in a number of places so that I may be excused for not thanking them one by one. Here, I wish to say that only after we fail to obtain valuable writings from some eminent people did we treasure our success from other eminent personalities. “Time is money” that is why it is so difficult to have it dropped on one’s begging palm. I would put more emphasis and say: “Time is gold”. ‘The value of gold that we are denied makes what we hold doubly treasurable. Many of the articles enshrining this volume belong to the ‘to be chewed and digested” category of Francis Bacon’s classifications. As we do not have the resources to pay, we get them as labour of love. And love is what no money can buy. To be loved by so many is an immense reward to our own labour of love too. The book will perpetuate this noble love story.

But, I shall fail my duty if I do not thank Dr. Karan Singh who has never with held a “yes” to my demand. He inaugurated our Seminar on “India and China Looking at Each Other” held in September, 1996, and sent us his “Preface” just by the asking. Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan is always a friend, guide and philosopher to me. It was her inspiration that has created this book. Kapilaji, as the Academic Director of The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, has given us enormous moral and material support to our endeavour. Besides, we have also got an article in her name with her approval.

I should also thank Dr. Ravni Thakur for coming to our rescue when we were behind schedule. She is a China scholar and fluent in English. As Assistant Editor, she did free me from a lot of burden in proof reading. Besides, she also made editorial touches to some of the articles to enhance their quality. Because of time constraint, we could not implement many of her good suggestions.

Last hut not least, I want to register my thanks to my colleagues of the East Asian Rogranune (EAP) unit of IGNCA. Dr. Radha Banerjee and Ms. Sudhanshi Vasudev have helped me in doing almost everything: from getting the intellectual properties to processing them including proof reading. Ms. Rajni Adlakha, my secretary, was very cooperative and uncomplaining when I involved her to share my over burden. We also had an excellent and dedicated helper in Mr. Dharam Vir Pandey. We depended on him for not only keying materials into the computer with great speed, but also for putting all materials into page-maker, etc. It was his unbounded zeal and many a sleepless night that have prevented this book from farther delay.