58 SOCIAL SCIENTIST lips. In pompous seminars, assorted fakes would parade their pseudo-learning, Kamat would sit demurely in the corner, much like R K Laxman's 'little man9; he must have, on each such occasion, enjoyed himself hugely; he would not however show it. He would not show it, and not simply because he had internally disciplined himself. He would not show it because he knew that such piffling drama which unfolds itself in our kind of society exemplifies the historical process. One's sense of amusement is an aspect of one's satisfaction at observing social phenomena reveal themselves in the mannar Marxism says they would. Even a performing clown is serving the cause of history; one checks his performance with the Marxist prognostication, there is an aesthetic—one almost feels like saying, religious—catharsis at the near-overlapping of the extrapolated and the observed lines, and, one then moves on, quietly, to the next observation. The statistician in A R Kamat must have felt, throughout his life, deeply vindicated at this integration between the trajectory of his philosophical belief and that of his scientific training. Throughout his life, he could therefore observe, unobtrusively, from the sidelines, assorted clowns perform. Their grossness did not repel him; it only deepened his faith in Marxism. After an early flurry, he had withdrawn himself from political activism. Here too, he must have tempered his passion through the exercise of logic: if it is a question of maximising one's contribution to the cause, one should apply the standard criteria of calculations. K-amat did his calculations, and chose where he thought his role would be most worthwhile. The past 40 years were a continuum, Kamat was steadfast to the cause, but in his own manner, in an arena of his own preference, where, he concluded, he would contribute the most. We owe it to him to read through, unhurriedly, his diverse writings on educational planning in the country. Unlike the bulk of the offical verbiage, he lays down a format of planning which is all the way related to the social context; for whom is the planning intended, what kind of society we want to usher in through planning, what genre of education will satisfy the role of an instrument for furthering that purpose and at the same time, be a product in itself in that kind of society, what are the economic pre-conditions for such type of educational planning to be feasible. Kamat was a Marxist. Cynicism was therefore not a part of his intellectural domain. But, precisely because he was a Marxist, he was, all the while, conversant with the realities of the situation; he had seen it all, in the nearly four decades since national independence, the ebbs and flows in the movement for socialism in the country, he made his notes, he counselled his spiritual comrades, including those who opted for a more activist role. One keeps remembering, with gratitude and wonder, the occasional letters he would send, following the triumph of the Left Front in 1977 and the installation of the Front government in West