There are very few people who leave an indelible imprint on our lives. Professor Udai Pareek has left such imprint on a very large number of people’s life and learning, and I am privileged to be one of them. Prof Pareek’s enormous original and creative writings, profound insights, his enlightening lectures, his sensitive and empathetic facilitation in group-based learning processes are well known, but to know his humane values, simple living, and broad-minded worldview could be experienced only in working with him closely and in being with him and his family members on some occasions.
I met Prof Pareek and Somnath in 1963 at the SIET Institute in Hyderabad when Prof Rolf Lynton had kindly invited me to Co-train with him in the Extension T-group training programmes that he was conducting. I had returned from Canada and was a faculty member at the University of Delhi after doing my post-doctoral work in Applied Behavioural Science, experiential learning, and experience in several T-groups and Co-facilitating with Prof Craig Lundberg, who had advised me to contact...