Sachin Chaudhuri as family records go, would have turned a hundred years old this January. A meeting to commemorate the occasion, speaker after speaker dwelt on the amazing gifts of solidarity and grace which lay behind Chaudhuri's work in the public sphere, most notably the founding of the Economic Weekly (later to become the Economic and Political Weekly). Chaudhuri had an enormous number of friends, many of whom were gifted with sharp minds and sharper pens, but above all, he had sensed that the time was ripe for a long, hard, continuous look at the polity and the economy now emerging from the wretchedness of unfreedom. Everybody present wanted to re-experience the startling birth and growth of the Weekly which did not have the backing of either big money or big clout, but was based on this adventurous man's social capital of friendship and foresight.
